Contingent Hiring Configuration
The configuration of Contingent Hiring by a system administrator is an extensive task and numerous aspects have to be taken into consideration.
The following describes the tasks to be done in a logical order. The order can slightly be changed, but it needs to respect some logic, like, for example, creating the agent portal before associating the agent to the portal.
Activation of the Contingent Hiring Feature
Once the Contingent Hiring feature has been purchased, the module must be activated by Oracle Support. This is done by setting the Contingent Functionality Activation setting to Yes.
| Setting | Description | Default Value | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contingent Functionality Activation | Activates Contingent functionalities. | No | Configuration > [Recruiting] Settings |
For a list of impacts on features when enabling or not the Contingent Functionality Activation setting, see Impacts on Features when Enabling the Contingent Hiring Feature.
Configuration of User Type Permissions
The system administrator must grant the contingent staffing type to the users who will do contingent hiring.
| User Type Permission | Location |
|---|---|
| Allow access to contingent requisitions | Configuration > [SmartOrg] Administration > User Types > Recruiting > Requisitions |
The permission allowing the creation of contingent requisitions using a template must also be granted.
| User Type Permission | Location |
|---|---|
| Create requisitions - Only from a requisition template (contingent recruitment) | Configuration > [SmartOrg] Administration > User Types > Recruiting > Requisitions |
Configuration of Settings
The system administrator also enables the following settings.
| Setting | Description | Default Value | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contingent Staffing Agent Ownership Delay | Period during which contingent staffing agents own rights over referrals. | 0 | Configuration > [Recruiting] Settings |
| Offer Default Start Date Hour | Default employee start time on the start date. | 8 a.m. | Configuration > [Recruiting] Settings |
| Calculator Default Hourly | In the salary calculator, assumes that employees work X hours per day. | 8 hours | Configuration > [Central Configuration] Settings |
| Calculator Default Daily | In the salary calculator, assume that employees work X days per week. | 5 days | Configuration > [Central Configuration] Settings |
Activation of the Contingent Requisition Type
A contingent requisition type is available. The system administrator must activate it. Once activated, the contingent requisition type becomes available when users are creating a requisition or requisition template in Recruiting.
For details, see Activating a Requisition Type.
Configuration of Requisition Field Visibility
All requisition standard fields and user-defined fields are available for contingent usage, but they are not all suitable.
The system administrator can decide which fields are made available for contingent hiring by using the field exception feature. It is possible for the system administrator to remove a field from the contingent view, or make it optional while being mandatory for another staffing type. For example, the Description - Internal field can be configured in the file, but cannot be displayed to agents since the agency portal is by definition an external site. We recommend to deactivate such field via a contingent staffing type exception.
For details, see Creating a Field Exception.
A table presents requisition fields meant to be used for contingent purposes and that should be activated by the system administrator. While they are meant to serve the purpose of contingent hiring, these fields can be activated for any staffing type. See Requisition Fields to be Used for Contingent.
Configuration of Requisition and Requisition Template Files
Requisition templates are important for the contingent hiring process. While it is not required to create a contingent requisition using a template, this is definitely the recommended practice.
The requisition should contain the Contingent Terms block where contingent specific standard fields are located. Two important fields should contain default values:
Maximum Hourly Rate: Defines the maximum hourly rate allowed for the current requisition. It limits the requested hourly rate amount and also controls the maximum rate an agent can ask while submitting a candidate.
Requested Hourly Rate: This is the requested hourly rate used to inform the agent about what should be submitted.
These two other fields are also important:
Estimated Labor Cost: Hourly rate paid to the agency multiplied by the estimated number of hours per days, times the number of estimated days. This is only an estimation based on a fix number of hours per day and a fix number of days per week.
Estimated Labor Cost and Expenses: Total estimated cost by adding the expenses to the estimated labor cost, when the expenses are reimbursable.
When one of the above two fields is present in the requisition, the Calculate option is displayed. When the Calculate button is pressed, the system calculates the value of those fields. This is based on the number of days the worker is hired based on the start date and end date, using the number of days per week (Calculator Default Daily setting), multiplied by the number of hours per day (Calculator Default Hourly setting). This number of hours is then multiplied by the requested hourly rate for the Estimated Labor Cost and will add the expense to this into the field Estimated Labor Cost and Expenses if the Expenses Reimbursable field is checked.
User-defined fields can be added into the form used within the Contingent Terms block, or anywhere else within the file. Ideally, the system administrator will also need to configure the system such that the Internal Description field is removed from the Contingent requisition file, since it is not displayed to the agent who is viewing requisitions through an external agency portal.
Association of the Requisition User-defined File to the Contingent Staffing Type
Once the user-defined file is created, the system administrator associates it to the Contingent Staffing type, where needed. Since there are other variations between contingent and other staffing type file format, it is recommended to have a file created specifically for contingent staffing type. This is also true for requisition templates.
For details, see Associating a Requisition File to a Staffing Type.
Configuration of Candidate Field Visibility
All candidate standard fields and user-defined fields are available for contingent usage, but they are not all suitable.
The system administrator can decide which fields are made available for contingent hiring by using the field exception feature. It is possible for the system administrator to remove a field from the contingent view, or make it optional while being mandatory for another staffing type.
Note: While it is possible to do field level configuration for contingent fields, this is not recommended. We recommended instead to use the candidate file creation feature and to create a specific file to be used for contingent hiring using the Requisition File Setup feature available in the Recruiting Administration menu.
For details, see Creating a Field Exception.A table presents candidate fields meant to be used for contingent purposes and that should be activated by the system administrator. While they are meant to serve the purpose of contingent hiring, these fields can be activated for any staffing type. These fields are only available within the submission context and cannot be placed within the general profile. See Candidate Fields to be Used for Contingent.
Note: Contingent specific fields do not have their counterpart in the offer module. The offer module can be used for contingent purpose, but contingent fields listed under the requisition specific Contingent Terms block are not available into the offer module.
Association of the Candidate User-defined File to the Contingent Staffing Type
It is possible to configure a candidate file for contingent using the same approach as for requisition files. Unlike requisition files, the system administrator can only specify one candidate file for each configuration profile. But these files can have exceptions defined. In this case, it is possible to define the exception file used for contingent staffing type submissions.
For details, see Associating a Candidate File to a Staffing Type.
Creation of the Candidate Selection Workflow
This step is important because some of the candidate selection workflow steps are in theory managed directly by the supplier. The system will not require the system administrator to configure a Contingent Candidate Selection Workflow, but it is recommended to use a specific one to be aligned with realistic scenarios.
In a Contingent Candidate Selection Workflow, there is less prescreening, interview, or background check done for contingent workers when they are prequalified by the agent who will submit them. A scenario of how a customer would use the contingent solution may include a step to allow the online confirmation from the agent and one to automatically move the candidate to the next step. In order for this scenario to occur, the customer must configure such confirmation request, based on the step and status triggering the confirmation link to display in the Agency Portal. To inform the agent to come back and use the confirmation page, a message template must be associated to the Contingent Candidate Selection Workflow and the triggering step and status.
When building the candidate selection workflow, try to keep the contingent flow as simple as possible and note where in the selection process you want to invite the agent to confirm price and availability of the worker you want to select. The offer module is available for Contingent recruiting although contingent-specific fields are not available.
When creating the Contingent Candidate Selection Workflow, it is a good practice to create a CSW for contingent not associated to any OLF, to serve as the default CSW for contingent.
For details, see Building a Candidate Selection Workflow.
Creation of an Agency Portal
The creation of the Agency Portal is done via the Career Section Administration module. When the system administrator creates the career section, the Agency Portal type must be selected. For details, refer to the Career Section Configuration Guide.
There is no rule preventing the sharing of a portal with contingent agents and other agents. However, it is recommended to use a contingent-specific agency portals for the following reasons:
The job specific application flow might differ between contingent candidates and other candidates submitted by other agencies. As for candidate selection workflows, the focus is usually different and contingent candidates will be prescreened by the agencies, thus the pages related to background check or prescreening might not be part of the flow at all.
The flow should also contain the contingent specific block, where the agent will be able to provide the agency bill rate and even the internal worker ID or requisition number, in order to use those unique IDs later during integration processes.
Tier 2 and tier 3 agencies might be supported by delayed default posting. Since default posting duration, start and end, are defined at the portal level, creating few portals with different default values will help posting to tier1 agencies first, tier2 with a small delay and potentially tier3 with a longer delay. Such configuration has been requested few times in the past.
Use the same portal for all agents of the same agency, in order to have a unique default posting duration value while selecting an agency.
The forgot username process, although an available option in the career section properties, should not be used since users are forced to log using their email address. Because it is activated by default, we recommended to deactivate it. (Configuration [Career Section] Administration > Career Sections > Security Settings).
Creation of the Agency Providing Contingent Services
The creation of a contingent agency is similar to the creation of professional agencies. Only agencies with the contingent staffing type will be available while inviting agents to submit candidates to contingent requisitions. The system administrator creates an agency, select the contingent type and decide whether or not this agency is MWBE, which means Minority Women Business Owned. This is a flag available when exporting the agency information to an external system where billing occurs. It has no functional impact in the recruiting application but might be required while exporting supplier information to an external system.
For details, see Creating an Agency.
Association of Agents to the Agency
The system administrator needs to add agents to the agency and associate each agent to a portal in order to be able to invite agents to submit candidates. Each agent requires a valid email address. This address will define where the invitations to refer will be sent. It is also used as the agent's username. This is why we recommended to deactivate the forgot username setting in the career section properties.
When the recruiter will invite agencies to submit candidates, to avoid notifying too many agents at once, two options are available:
Create agencies with a small number of agents.
Define specific OLF for each agent.Such OLF contextualization will drive which agents are invited for each selected agency.
For details, see Staffing Agencies and Agents.
Configuration of the Agent Confirmation Request
The system administrator can configure the Agent Confirmation Request to send a request to the agent to confirm a candidate's availability.
The Agent Confirmation Request is an important step of the contingent hiring process. It is optional, but highly recommended. At some point in the candidate selection process, the system administrator may want to allow the agent who submitted a candidate to confirm the candidate's availability. This is how the agent can interact with the candidate selection process and move the candidate forward automatically. The Agent Confirmation Request can be added to any status of a step of a candidate selection workflow. The system administrator can also decide the status the candidate automatically reaches based on the answer sent by the agent. Yes the candidate is available, or no the candidate is not available. The email sent to the agent requesting a confirmation contains the text included in the Agent Confirmation Question (multilingual).
The Agent Confirmation Request is configured in the Career Section Administration module. For details, refer to the Career Section Configuration Guide.Configuration of the Agent Confirmation Email
The system administrator may decide to send an email message to agents asking them to confirm the candidate's presence. The system administrator may duplicate the Contribution Request, Agent message template as a starting point. The message should be configured as follows:
Recipient: Agent.
Delivery Type: Automatic.
Triggering Event: Candidate Selection Workflow Context.
Variable of interest: {CareerSection.AgentReferralUrl}.
Workflow, Step, Status: The Workflow, Step and Status must be aligned with the Agent Confirmation Request configured earlier so the agent is invited at the same time the link appears in the agency portal.