“Changing the Recruitment Dynamics”

What drives Gary Johnson, Executive Vice President, COO, and co-founder of Bear Staffing Services, is his problem-solving capabilities. If he sees a problem, he will keep looking at potential solutions until finding one that fits. “We have become a national supplier for several clients, employing people in the majority of the 50 states. This led to our virtual contactless hiring process that we use in over 50% of our Temporary Hires since 2012,” says Gary. “This led to the realization that a virtual temporary staffing firm can compete with a local firm, and in many cases can outperform that firm due to the ability to focus all efforts in that area on one client. Our current Inverted Recruiting Model, and Contactless hiring methods were born from problems we were able to solve.”

The second quality of Gary is efficiency, where he looks for opportunities to improve efficiency wherever possible. “We were one of the first to do a total paperless onboarding system in 2009, and have been improving upon that ever since. We have done a paperless I-9 and E-Verify through a company called Pre-Employ.com since then as well.”

Bear Staffing is not like a traditional Temporary Staffing company. The model with which they deliver their services is similar, but not their approach. Their ability to recruit temporary workers for repeat seasonal employers is key to their ability to flex their staffing levels up and down with demand.

"Bear Staffing is using Artificial Intelligence for Sourcing Candidates. Their system seeks out applicants for jobs and then contacts them and gauges their interest. Interested candidates are then bubbled up to a live recruiter."

All their candidates are vetted thoroughly through an extensive online application process before they are even considered for placement. Because of the company’s contactless hiring methods and the Inverted Recruiting Model for staffing firms, the applicants must follow a process independently. They cannot simply come walk-in and be spoon-fed the application process. They have to complete the online application, a Productivity Assessment, I-9, and E-Verify process, and go in for a drug screen. An applicant that has completed all of these steps promptly has a much higher success rate than someone who walks into an office. “Bear Staffing does not handle any Day Labor positions, so all of our applicants have been directly recruited for our clients.”

Bear Staffing is using Artificial Intelligence for Sourcing Candidates. Their system seeks out applicants for jobs and then contacts them and gauges their interest. Interested candidates are then bubbled up to a live recruiter. They also geofence locations that many potential workers might go to, like Malls or Events, pushing the banner recruitment ads on their devices. Social Media plays a huge part in Bear Staffing’s recruiting efforts, leveraging newer platforms like Snapchat and Tik Tok. “For candidate and employee engagement we use an automated text communication system that gauges interest and drives applicant engagement quickly,” says Gary. “It also automates the employee interaction reminding them that they are starting a new job, and checking in with them periodically while they are on assignment at our clients. We use this same technology to keep our clients jobs in front of those applicants who do not engage immediately allowing us to capture more of the people we reach.”

Bear Staffing is in development on a customizable yet simple interviewing software. They will be making this software available at no charge to a few clients interested in doing a Beta to help them perfect it. Used properly, this software could greatly enhance the speed of applicant engagement and cut down on time spent evaluating candidates. Bear Staffing plans to offer this as a SaaS model in the future. “We are most proud of a couple of things: One is the long term relationships that we have with our clients. We have many clients that have been with us since we opened in 2005, and many more that have been with us for 10+ years, that is the true measure of success,” says Gary. “We are also quite proud of our approval rating on Google at 4.9 out of 5 stars. This is a reflection on the great people that make up Bear Staffing.” IE