Technology has enabled companies to tap into top tech talent internationally. With 67.8% of tech professionals globally working fully or mostly remotely in 2023, identifying the best recruitment partner is critical for finding and hiring top talent worldwide.
Development agencies connect businesses with industry professionals, aiming to optimize the hiring process by matching recruiters with pre-screened talent. Despite often being the preferred choice, development agencies have several drawbacks, including high costs, limited availability, delays, and high turnover.
As an alternative to development agencies, TeamEx facilitates the whole process of searching for, screening, selecting, hiring, and managing the right tech professionals. In addition to offering specialized and vetted talent, TeamEx offers flexibility, affordability, and innovation.
This article will help you choose the better team expansion partner for ongoing talent and retention management by comparing the two options' offerings and highlighting their respective benefits and drawbacks.
TeamEx for Clients and Development Agencies Compared
TeamEx streamlines the hiring and management of tech professionals with a focus on efficiency, quality, and cultural fit. By utilizing advanced AI for candidate screening and matching, TeamEx ensures a fast hiring process, saving clients time and resources. The major goal is ensuring a perfect long-term match of skills, culture, values, and career aspirations, ultimately leading to high employee engagement and retention. Beyond recruitment, TeamEx offers comprehensive HR tools for effective workforce management globally.
Development agencies, in contrast, take various approaches to performing their purpose of supporting their clients with high-quality project development and the best-fitting tech professionals. The solutions offered range from fully managed to staffing services. Dev agencies generally excel in delivering project-based development work done by highly specialized talent.
When it comes to staffing and helping clients expand their in-house teams, however, Dev agencies struggle with several major drawbacks. The tech professionals work for the agency and the client at the same time and tend to feel more engaged with the agency. This results in ineffective integration, a lack of cultural fit and commitment, and high turnover. In addition, Dev agencies can charge clients up to twice the salary paid to the talent, imposing excessive costs for the client.
The table below summarizes the comparison between TeamEx and developing agencies based on various criteria.
Aspect | TeamEx | Development Agencies |
|---|---|---|
Operation | AI-driven platform facilitating efficient talent match and acquisition, with a particular focus on helping establish long-term full-time commitments | Connecting clients with the best-matching tech professionals on a long-term, temporary, and project basis |
Target clients | Elite clients looking for high-quality, vetted talent to join their teams in permanent full-time positions | A broad range of industries seeking high-quality development work and specialized tech talent |
Talent pool | Top tech talent: developers, designers, AI engineers, data scientists, ML/DevOps, Testers/QAs | Diverse tech professionals |
Geographical coverage | Specializes in Latin America and Europe, offering top talent from 14 countries | Both local and global reach - agency-specific |
Employment contract types | Permanent employment and long-term commitment | Project-based temporary employment and permanent long-term commitment |
Talent retention | High talent retention rates | Potentially high turnover due to inefficient integration, double culture work environment, and sense of belonging associated with the agency rather than with the client’s company |
Screening process | Bias-free skill assessment and emphasis on cultural fit, utilizing AI for holistic matching | Excellent skill assessment Ensuring talent fits into the agency culture and not the client’s company |
AI-enabled hiring | AI-assisted talent screening, selection, and interviewing process | Typically, manual processes of talent screening and selection |
Workforce management functionalities | HR tools for global workforce management, global payroll management, and employee benefits management | Talent management using the Dev agency HR team |
Pricing | Transparent flat monthly fee of $975 per talent | Typically percentage-based, less transparent, and potentially challenging |
Payment structure | Clients pay a flat monthly fee for talent | Likely to include excessive costs - usually, the client is charged 50-100% of the talent salary |
TeamEx for Talent and Development Agencies Compared
From a talent perspective, TeamEx and Development Agencies cater to professionals in quite different ways.
For professionals, TeamEx emphasizes technology and efficiency, promising a smoother pathway to connecting with premier tech companies. It prioritizes offering opportunities for long-term career development to highly skilled tech talent. The platform is ultimately focused on ensuring the candidate has values and mindset matching the client’s company culture, thus promoting long-term engagement and employee retention. In this way, the talent will be able to build healthy relations and grow and thrive in the company.
In contrast, development agencies offer a more traditional, albeit broader, approach to career advancement with varied opportunities across industries, appealing to those seeking diversity in their career paths. While they may offer substantial support during the placement process, the level of post-placement support and community engagement can vary, often depending on the agency's focus and resources. The screening process is focused on ensuring the right skill set and cultural fit into the Dev agency, overlooking the client’s company culture and values. Thus, talent feels more like part of the agency’s team, which undermines the effective integration into the client’s working environment, impairing engagement and retention.
The following comparative table highlights the most relevant features and benefits of TeamEx and Dev agencies.
Aspect | TeamEx | Development Agencies |
|---|---|---|
Opportunities | Prioritizing long-term, full-time roles giving a sense of belonging and purpose, promoting job security and career growth for developers, designers, AI engineers, data scientists, ML/DevOps, Testers/QAs | Offer wide-ranging, across various industries, providing flexibility and diverse work experiences |
Talent support | Provides comprehensive support for integration into companies, including benefits and long-term career planning | Facilitates project-based and long-term connections and career support |
Cultural and value alignment | Emphasizes matching talent with companies that share similar values and cultural fit, enhancing job satisfaction | Double-culture work environment, ensuring the candidate fits the agency culture and values with less focus on the client’s culture |
Geographical coverage | Available for tech talent in Latin America and Europe and companies all around the world | Depending on the Dev agency, global and local coverage |
Employment contract types | Permanent employment and long-term commitment | Long-term, fixed-term, and project-based employment contacts |
Retention and stability | Promotes high retention rates by aligning talent with companies for long-term growth | High turnover, with talent’s sense of belonging associated with the Dev agency, not the client |
Screening and Selection | Utilizes AI for a holistic match, considering skills, cultural fit, and long-term career goals | Primarily manual, focusing on skills and experience |
AI-enabled hiring | AI-assisted talent screening, selection, and interviewing process | Not typically used |
Compensation and benefits | Offers stability with a focus on fair, transparent compensation and access to employee benefits | Typically managed by the Dev agency |
Payment Structure | Companies pay a flat monthly fee per talent | Less transparent |
Salary Negotiation | Companies directly negotiate the salary with talents | Negotiated with the Dev agency |
Final Thoughts
Both development agencies and TeamEx offer talent acquisition and management services that enable companies to tap into the potential of top tech talent.
TeamEx utilizes AI to efficiently match companies with top tech talent for permanent roles, emphasizing cultural fit and long-term commitment. It offers high talent retention through bias-free skill assessments and comprehensive HR tools for global workforce management at a transparent, flat monthly fee.
Conversely, development agencies specialize in connecting clients with specialized talent for project-based and permanent staffing, excelling in project development. However, they face challenges with in-house team expansion due to high costs, cultural mismatches, and high turnover, stemming from a focus on the agency's culture over the client's and a compensation model that typically charges clients a substantial percentage of the talent's salary.
Overall, TeamEx offers a cost-effective, cohesive solution for companies seeking long-term tech team expansion, whereas Development Agencies are better suited for project-specific, specialized talent needs but with higher costs and potential integration issues.
