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Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is direct sourcing and how does it work?

Direct sourcing is a workforce strategy where an organization uses a client’s brand to attract, engage, and curate a private talent community to fill their contingent roles, rather than relying exclusively on third-party staffing suppliers. 

In a direct sourcing model, candidates are sourced, screened, and managed through a branded contingent talent community operated on behalf of the client. This gives organizations greater control over candidate quality, cost, and speed, while delivering a stronger candidate experience that drives engagement and retention. 

Raise was among the first to bring direct sourcing to market in North America. Today, Raise operates direct sourcing programs for enterprise clients across energy, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, and technology. Our model typically delivers a reduction in overall program spend compared to traditional multi-supplier sourcing, along with a reduction in time-to-fill and an improvement in submittal-to-interview ratios when hiring from an established talent community.

Traditional staffing for contingent roles means job requirements are distributed to multiple agencies who compete to fill the same role, while direct sourcing means a partner builds a dedicated, curated talent community specific for the client. 

With traditional staffing, each agency sources independently, leading to duplicated effort, inconsistent candidate experience, and higher markups. Direct sourcing centralizes the talent pipeline under the client’s brand, with a curation partner like Raise managing sourcing, screening, and relationship management. This creates improvement in timing, in the quality of candidates and candidate satisfaction scores, as well as greater workforce visibility. Direct sourcing doesn’t eliminate all staffing agencies entirely. It right-channels talent acquisition so that roles are filled by the talent community, while specialized or niche requirements still leverage agency expertise where it makes sense. 

Yes. A well-designed direct sourcing program integrates into an existing MSP and VMS infrastructure without requiring you to replace or bypass your current technology or managed service provider. 

Raise currently operates within MSP programs. Our programs are designed to flow through the client’s existing VMS, so there is no disruption to the current procurement workflows or compliance controls. Direct sourcing adds a new, high-quality talent channel alongside the existing supplier base rather than replacing it. This means the client maintain full governance and visibility while gaining access to pre-vetted, directly sourced talent at lower markups. 

An Employer of Record is a third-party organization that serves as the legal employer for your contingent workers, handling payroll, benefits, tax compliance, and employment liability on your behalf. 

Using an EOR allows your organization to engage contingent talent without taking on the administrative burden and legal risk of direct employment. This is particularly important in direct sourcing programs, where candidates are sourced under your brand but need a compliant employer for onboarding, payroll, and offboarding. Raise provides integrated EOR services embedded directly into our direct sourcing programs, creating a seamless experience for both clients and contractors. Our Contractor Success Team maintains a high contractor happiness rating and contractor retention rate. These are metrics that reflect the quality of the employment experience we deliver on your behalf.

Direct sourcing reduces contingent labor costs by eliminating redundant agency markups and replacing them with a single, transparent program fee that is lower than traditional multi-agency staffing markups. 

In a traditional staffing model, each agency applies its own margin to every placement. Direct sourcing consolidates sourcing under one curated pipeline, removing the duplicated effort. Beyond direct markup savings, organizations using direct sourcing also reduce time-to-fill when hiring from a pre-built talent community, which translates to lower vacancy costs, faster project delivery, and reduced overtime spending. Raise provides full transparency into program costs so you can measure cost per hire, cost avoidance, and total program value with confidence. 

The most important factors when choosing a direct sourcing partner are proven enterprise program experience and change management, technology experience, integrated EOR capability, and measurable outcomes backed by real client data. 

Specifically, look for a partner that can operate within your existing MSP/VMS infrastructure, offers embedded EOR and payroll services, and can demonstrate measurable cost reduction and quality improvement from current programs. Raise was named a Market Leader in Ardent Partners’ 2026 Digital Staffing and Direct Sourcing Technology Advisor Report, based on criteria including platform capability, innovation, enterprise scalability, and market impact.

A talent community is a curated, pre-vetted community of candidates who have expressed interest in working with your organization and are ready to be engaged when roles become available. 

Unlike a job board or resume database, a talent community is actively managed and candidates are sourced, screened, skills-validated, and kept engaged through ongoing communication and employer branding. When a new requirement opens, your sourcing team can draw from a pipeline of candidates who already know your organization, have been pre-qualified for relevant roles, and can move through the hiring process significantly faster. Raise-managed talent communities deliver a reduction in time-to-fill compared to traditional advertising, because you are hiring from a warm, curated pipeline rather than starting from scratch with every requisition. 

Direct sourcing program success is measured through a combination of cost metrics, speed metrics, quality metrics, and candidate experience scores, tracked continuously and reviewed with stakeholders on a regular cadence. 

Standard KPIs include cost per hire and markup reduction versus traditional staffing, time-to-fill from requisition to accepted offer, screen-to-interview ratio, offer rate, acceptance rate, and early turnover/retention rate. Candidate experience is measured through Net Promoter Score (NPS). Our programs deliver increased candidate NPS versus industry average, a high contractor retention rate, and a high contractor happiness rating. Raise provides quarterly scorecard reviews covering KPI trends, strategic objectives, and planning to ensure program performance is transparent and continuously improving.

Skills validation is the process of objectively verifying a candidate’s technical and functional capabilities before they are placed in a role, ensuring that the talent you hire can actually perform the work required. 

Traditional staffing relies heavily on resume review and interviews, which assess self-reported experience but do not objectively measure capability. Skills validation closes that gap by testing candidates against role-specific competencies before they reach your hiring managers. This improves shortlist quality, reduces mis-hires, and shortens interview cycles because hiring managers spend time with candidates who have already demonstrated relevant skills. Raise is one of the only workforce solutions companies in North America that offers integrated skills validation as part of its direct sourcing and contingent recruitment programs. 

Raise is a workforce solutions company, having evolved from being a traditional staffing agency. While we provide contingent recruitment and direct hire services, our model is built around direct sourcing strategy, managed programs, and long-term workforce partnerships rather than transactional placements. 

Raise combines dedicated sourcing expertise with technology platforms, Employer of Record services, and a Contractor Success Team to deliver a connected workforce experience for clients, candidates, and contractors. We are a certified B Corporation, reflecting our commitment to operating with accountability, transparency, and social impact alongside financial performance. Raise was named a Market Leader by Ardent Partners in their 2026 Digital Staffing and Direct Sourcing Technology Advisor Report, and we currently manage programs for enterprise clients.

Raise specializes in energy, engineering, professional services, technology, and corporate functions, with deep expertise in building direct sourcing and contingent workforce programs for complex enterprise environments. 

Our client base includes organizations across oil and gas, utilities, financial services, legal, and technology sectors. Raise is particularly experienced in industries with large contingent workforces that require specialized skills, compliance-sensitive onboarding, and long-term program management. Our direct sourcing programs are tailored to each client’s industry context. The talent pools, compliance requirements, and workforce dynamics that are specific to their sector, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all staffing model. 

Raise maintains a dedicated Contractor Success Team that supports every contractor throughout their assignment, from onboarding through offboarding, resulting in high contractor happiness and retention across all programs. 

Contractor satisfaction directly impacts client outcomes. Engaged, well-supported contractors perform better, stay longer, and reflect positively on your employer brand. Raise’s Contractor Success Team provides ongoing check-ins, issue resolution, career development support, and a responsive point of contact that contractors can reach directly. We measure satisfaction continuously through NPS surveys and happiness ratings, and we report these metrics to clients as part of our standard program governance.  

Yes. Raise has executed over 45 large-scale contractor transitions in the past decade without operational disruption. 

Contractor transitions, whether from a previous staffing supplier, an MSP change, or an in-house program restructuring, carry significant risk if not managed carefully. Pay continuity, benefits enrollment, compliance documentation, and worker communication all need to be coordinated precisely. Raise’s transition methodology has been refined across dozens engagements and is designed to minimize contractor anxiety and client disruption. We treat transitions as a white-glove experience, not an administrative exercise, because the first impression your contractors have of a new workforce partner sets the tone for the entire program. 

A direct sourcing program can typically be launched within 8 to 12 weeks, depending on the complexity of your existing workforce infrastructure and the scope of the initial rollout. 

Implementation involves several workstreams running in parallel that include technology platform selection and configuration, talent community strategy and initial candidate curation, employer brand development for the talent community, EOR and payroll setup, VMS integration, and stakeholder alignment across procurement, HR, and hiring managers. Raise has implemented direct sourcing programs for enterprise clients across energy, professional services, and technology, and our implementation methodology is designed to deliver a functioning talent community with active candidates before the program officially goes live. 

Organizations that implement direct sourcing typically see a return on investment within the first six months, driven by lower markups than traditional staffing, faster time-to-fill, and measurably higher candidate quality. 

ROI in direct sourcing comes from multiple sources: direct cost savings from reduced agency markups, indirect savings from faster fills that reduce vacancy costs and overtime, quality improvements that reduce mis-hires and early turnover, and long-term value from building a reusable talent community that compounds over time. Unlike traditional staffing where every new requisition starts from scratch, a mature talent community delivers increasing returns as it grows as each fill adds another potential re-engageable candidate to the pipeline. Raise provides detailed program economics reporting so clients can track cost per hire, cost avoidance versus traditional channels, and total program value on a quarterly basis. 

No. While direct sourcing originated in large enterprise environments, the model is increasingly accessible and valuable for mid-market organizations that rely on contingent talent and want more control over quality, cost, and candidate experience. 

The key factor is not company size but contingent workforce volume and role repeatability. If your organization regularly hires for the same types of roles across similar skill sets, a curated talent community will deliver value regardless of whether you have 50 contingent workers or 5,000. Raise works with clients ranging from large-scale enterprise programs to more focused mid-market programs where the priority is building a high-quality pipeline for a specific set of recurring roles. Direct sourcing is particularly valuable for mid-market organizations because it provides access to enterprise-grade sourcing capability and technology without requiring the internal headcount to build it yourself. 

Direct sourcing strengthens your employer brand by giving you control over how candidates experience your organization from first contact through placement, rather than leaving that impression in the hands of multiple third-party agencies. 

In a traditional multi-agency model, each staffing supplier represents your brand differently to candidates. Direct sourcing centralizes that interaction under one, with consistent communication, a unified candidate portal, and a curated experience that reflects your culture and values. This matters because the contingent workforce is a growing share of most organizations’ total talent pool, and contractors talk to each other and to potential full-time hires. A positive contingent worker experience strengthens your reputation in the talent market. Raise’s direct sourcing programs include employer brand development as a core deliverable, ensuring your talent community sees a professional, engaging, and authentic representation of who you are as an employer. 

Raise maintains compliance across all jurisdictions where our clients operate by managing employment law, tax, benefits, and regulatory requirements through our integrated Employer of Record services, with dedicated compliance oversight for every program. 

Contingent workforce compliance is complex because employment standards, tax obligations, benefits requirements, and classification rules vary by state, province, and municipality. A contractor working in Alberta operates under different rules than one in Texas or England. Raise’s EOR infrastructure is built to handle multi-jurisdictional compliance as standard practice. We manage payroll tax remittance, workers’ compensation, statutory benefits, employment agreements, and onboarding documentation specific to each jurisdiction. Our dedicated compliance team works with our clients as part of our standard program governance. 

Co-employment risk is the legal exposure that arises when an organization exercises enough control over a contingent worker that a court or regulatory body could determine an employment relationship exists, even when the worker is technically employed by a third party. 

A co-employment finding can trigger liability for unpaid benefits, back taxes, overtime, and wrongful termination claims. Direct sourcing mitigates co-employment risk by using a clearly defined Employer of Record structure: the EOR is the legal employer of the contingent worker, responsible for payroll, benefits, discipline, and termination. The client organization directs the work output but does not manage the employment relationship. Raise’s integrated EOR model is specifically designed to maintain this separation cleanly, with employment agreements, onboarding processes, and ongoing worker management all handled through Raise rather than the client. This creates a defensible employment structure that protects your organization while still giving you access to the talent you need. 

Payrolling is a service where an Employer of Record handles all payroll processing, tax withholding, benefits administration, and employment compliance for contingent workers that your organization has identified and selected. 

Unlike full-service staffing where the provider sources and places the candidate, payrolling is used when you have already found the right person and need a compliant employment vehicle to onboard and pay them. The EOR becomes the worker’s legal employer, managing paychecks, tax remittance, statutory deductions, benefits enrollment, and employment documentation. Raise provides payrolling as both a standalone service and as an integrated component of our direct sourcing programs. Our payrolling clients benefit from the same Contractor Success Team support and compliance infrastructure. 

Raise combines direct sourcing expertise, technology-agnostic flexibility, integrated Employer of Record services, and a dedicated Contractor Success Team into a single program — a combination that no other provider in the market fully replicates. 

Several things set Raise apart. Our VP of Direct Sourcing, Rick Roberts, founded North America’s first direct sourcing technology in 2014, giving us over a decade of hands-on program design and optimization experience. We are technology-agnostic, rather than locking clients into a single proprietary system. Our EOR services are embedded directly into our direct sourcing programs rather than outsourced to a third party. We offer skills validation as an integrated capability, something none of our major competitors currently provide. And our Contractor Success Team delivers a high happiness rating and retention rate, reflecting a genuine investment in the worker experience that translates directly into client program performance. Raise was named a Market Leader in Ardent Partners’ 2026 Digital Staffing and Direct Sourcing Technology Advisor Report, validating this differentiated approach. 

A B Corporation is a company that has been independently certified by B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency — and Raise is one of the only workforce solutions companies in North America to hold this certification. 

B Corp certification means Raise has been evaluated across five impact areas: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. It requires meeting a high bar of verified performance, not just stated intentions. In workforce solutions, this matters because the industry directly affects people’s livelihoods. For procurement teams evaluating suppliers, B Corp certification provides third-party verification that Raise operates with the accountability and ethical standards that many organizations now require from their supply chain partners. It is an auditable, measurable commitment to doing business responsibly. 

PAIR stands for Partnership Accreditation in Indigenous Relations, and it is a certification program administered by the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business (CCIB) that recognizes companies committed to building respectful, mutually beneficial relationships with Indigenous communities and businesses. 

PAIR certification evaluates organizations across four performance areas: leadership actions, employment, business development, and community relationships. Companies that achieve PAIR certification have demonstrated measurable progress in Indigenous hiring, procurement from Indigenous-owned businesses, and community engagement. Raise’s PAIR certification reflects our commitment to inclusive workforce practices and our active engagement with Indigenous communities across Canada. For clients with Indigenous procurement requirements or reconciliation commitments, Raise’s PAIR certification provides verified evidence of alignment with those objectives. 

A talent community is a curated, employer-branded community of pre-vetted candidates managed on behalf of a specific organization, while a talent marketplace is a broader, open platform where multiple employers and candidates connect independently. 

The key difference is curation and exclusivity. A talent community is built specifically for your organization. Candidates are sourced, screened, skills-validated, and kept engaged with your employer brand. The pipeline is yours. A talent marketplace, by contrast, is a shared platform where candidates browse opportunities from multiple employers and self-select into roles, similar to a job board but often with more sophisticated matching technology. Both have their place in a workforce strategy. Talent communities are most effective for roles you hire repeatedly, where candidate quality and speed matter and where you want to build long-term relationships with a known pipeline. Talent marketplaces are useful for accessing a wide pool of generalist talent quickly. Raise builds and manages dedicated talent communities for our clients as a core component of our direct sourcing programs. 

AI is transforming contingent workforce management by improving candidate matching accuracy, accelerating screening and skills assessment, enabling predictive workforce planning, and streamlining compliance monitoring — but it works best when paired with human expertise, not used as a replacement for it. 

In direct sourcing specifically, AI-powered tools can analyze talent community data to identify the best-fit candidates for a new requirement faster than manual review, predict which candidates are most likely to accept an offer and stay through the full assignment, and flag compliance risks before they become problems. However, the contingent workforce is built on relationships between sourcers and candidates, between contractors and hiring managers, and between program teams and clients. AI that operates without human judgment and relationship context produces fast results that often miss the nuance that makes a placement successful. Raise’s approach is High Touch plus High Tech. We invest in AI and automation where they genuinely improve outcomes, while maintaining the dedicated human sourcers and Contractor Success Team that our high happiness rating depends on.