For companies
One-off search or staffing? What's right for your company
Two ways to add people with outside help, and the concrete criteria to choose the right one for each case.
"I need people" is the starting point, but it's not enough to choose how to solve it. There are two main ways to add talent with a consultancy's help, and choosing the wrong one is paid for in costs, in flexibility or in administrative headaches. The difference is simple once it's explained well.
Recruitment and selection: we find you the person, you hire them
This is the classic service. You tell us about the role, we get to know your company and your culture, we search, interview and assess, and in 6 days you have a shortlist of candidates to choose from. The person you pick joins your payroll: they are your employee, with your contract and your benefits. Our work ends with a supported onboarding and the guarantee: if the relationship dissolves within the first 3 months, we repeat the search at no cost.
When it's the right option:
- The role is permanent and part of the core of your structure: a head of administration, a sales manager, a payroll specialist who will be there for years.
- You want the person to wear your company's colors from day one, with your contract and your career plan.
- You have labor administration covered (or your accounting firm covers it) and what you're missing is finding and properly assessing the candidate.
Staffing: the talent works with you, we handle the employment structure
With staffing you add people to your operation without adding them to your payroll: we recruit and assess the profiles with the same method as always, and we also manage payroll, social security contributions and administration throughout the entire employment relationship. The person works in your operation, under your day-to-day direction, with the employment structure on our side. If you need a replacement or your headcount changes, it gets solved fast.
When it's the right option:
- Peaks and projects with an end date: a high season, a one-year project, a new opening. When the project ends, the structure shrinks without drama.
- Fluctuating headcount: sales or operations teams that grow and adjust with demand, where the speed to add and replace people is worth more than a fixed structure. It's the scenario for a good part of the market: in ManpowerGroup's employment outlook survey for the third quarter of 2026, 33% of Argentine employers planned to increase headcount and 29% to reduce it: half the market moving in opposite directions at the same time.
- Testing a new function before creating the position: a role your company has never had and wants to validate in practice.
- Administrative focus: when your HR structure is small and the payroll and administrative load of more employees is precisely the problem.
The comparison in one table
| Criterion | Recruitment and selection | Staffing |
|---|---|---|
| Whose payroll is the person on? | Yours | Ours |
| Typical horizon | Permanent | Project, peak or variable headcount |
| Labor administration (payroll, contributions) | Yours | Ours |
| Recruitment and assessment of profiles | BYS | BYS (same method) |
| Replacements | 3-month guarantee | Fast throughout the relationship |
| Day-to-day direction of the work | Yours | Yours |
What does not change between the two: the quality of the selection. In staffing, profiles go through the same filter of interviews and assessment as in a one-off search. Outsourcing the structure should never mean lowering the bar for who joins your team.
They also combine
In practice, many companies use both: recruitment and selection for structural positions, staffing for the variable operation. A real example from our work: for a healthcare client we sustain a continuous flow of assessed salespeople (a minimum of 10 qualified candidates per week, with interviews, group assessments and psychometric assessments), while structural positions are filled through one-off searches. Each need with its own tool.
How to decide in five minutes
Three questions that usually settle it:
- Will the role exist two years from now? If the answer is a clear yes, it's probably recruitment and selection. If it depends on the project, staffing.
- Is your bottleneck finding people or administering them? The first points to a search; the second, to staffing.
- How much is adjustment speed worth? If you need to be able to grow or shrink your headcount in weeks, staffing exists for exactly that.
Still not sure for your case? Tell us what you need to fill and we'll tell you which of the two formats we would solve it with, with a written proposal and numbers.
Need to fill a role?
Tell us about the position and in 6 days you'll have a shortlist of interviewed, vetted candidates, backed by a 3-month guarantee.