Why staffing agencies keep reaching out to Skillit (and why we're taking a different path)
Every week, we hear from staffing agencies who want to tap into the Skillit platform to help fill their clients’ hiring needs. We get it. What we’ve built is exactly what construction hiring has needed for a long time: a fast, efficient way to connect skilled craft workers directly with the contractors who need them.
But while we respect the role staffing agencies have played in helping companies fill critical roles, Skillit was designed to solve this challenge in a fundamentally different way, one that streamlines worker/employer connections and puts more power in the hands of both the contractor and the craft worker.
Let’s break it down.
What are staffing agencies?
Staffing agencies are third-party firms that help employers find and place candidates for open roles. They typically charge a fee or percentage for managing the hiring process, often handling paperwork, onboarding, and in some cases, payroll. For many industries and situations, staffing agencies can be helpful.
But in construction, especially when it comes to skilled trades, the traditional staffing model tends to fall short. It often introduces extra cost, reduces transparency, and doesn’t always deliver the best-fit workers for the job. It is often a much slower process than other solutions as well.
How are staffing agencies used in construction?
In construction, staffing agencies are most often brought in when a project scales unexpectedly, a crew is short-handed, or there’s a last-minute need for specific trade expertise. Staffing agencies are leveraged when job postings are not yielding qualified candidates.
While this can solve the immediate problem, it often comes with trade-offs: inconsistent worker quality, less visibility into worker qualifications, slower hiring cycles and higher costs for contractors. In many cases, companies are paying significant markups without long-term solutions to their labor challenges.
It’s not that agencies don’t try to deliver the best results. It’s just that construction labor is incredibly complex, and staffing agencies were never built to handle the kind of long-term workforce planning that skilled trades really require.
Why would staffing agencies want to use Skillit?
Because we’ve built the kind of platform that the industry has been waiting for.
Skillit is purpose-built for hiring skilled craft workers, including electricians, carpenters, pipefitters, welders, and more. We’ve created detailed digital profiles for over 150,000 craft workers, each verified with certifications, work history, skillsets, and real-time availability. Contractors don’t need to post jobs and hope for the best. They search, filter, and connect directly with the right worker, quickly and affordably. Customers regularly hire workers in the first few days of using Skillit.
Staffing agencies recognize the power of that model. And understandably, they see it as an opportunity to serve their clients more efficiently. But Skillit wasn’t built to serve agencies. It was built to serve the people actually doing the work: the contractors and the craft workers themselves.
Skillit’s position on working with staffing agencies
We’ve made a deliberate decision not to open the platform to staffing firms and here’s why:
Skillit was designed to eliminate unnecessary layers in the hiring process. When staffing agencies use platforms like ours, they often repackage and resell access, charging contractors a premium for labor that could have been accessed directly. That goes against the core mission of Skillit: to make construction hiring faster, more affordable, and more transparent.
Our goal is to directly solve the skilled labor shortage by making it easier for:
General contractors to find and hire top-tier workers without delays or inflated costs
Trade partners to grow their crews efficiently, without job boards or agency fees
Craft workers to find reliable, high-paying jobs with real visibility and control over their careers
Inserting third-party agencies into that equation only reintroduces the inefficiencies we’re trying to fix.
We’re building something different
To be clear, we’re not anti-agency. Staffing agencies have filled an important gap for years, and in many industries, they still play a vital role. But in construction, especially for long-term craft labor access, the game has changed.
Skillit offers a new model, one built for speed, scale, and direct connection. One that empowers both sides of the labor market to work smarter, not more expensively.
We’re proud of what we’re building, and we’re focused on making Skillit the fastest and most efficient way to hire skilled trades in the country.
If you’re a general contractor or trade partner looking to grow your workforce without the friction, you’re in the right place.
And to the staffing agencies out there: we appreciate the interest, truly. But we’re on a different mission and we’re staying the course.
