Information technology (IT) staffing services provide temporary or permanent workers who troubleshoot and repair computers, operate help desks, and support voice and data networks. Depending on a client’s needs, they can provide workers on a short-term, long-term, contractual, or temporary-to-permanent (temp-to-perm, temp-to-hire) basis. Unlike temporary employment agencies, which place office or clerical staff, information technology (IT) staffing services provide computer programmers, network administrators, systems administrations, and development managers. IT staffing services range in size from large, international companies with thousands of workers to small businesses that focus on specific geographic regions or areas of expertise. To minimize a client’s administrative costs, information technology staffing services perform many of the duties of the company’s human resources (HR) department. For example, an IT staffing service can handle payroll deductions, offer healthcare plans, and provide paid leave.

Information technology (IT) staffing services recruit a variety of skilled professionals, including help desk staff, application developers, infrastructure service providers, system programmers, database administrators (DBA), project managers, and technical writers. Most job seekers are graduates of colleges or universities that provide for-credit courses, degrees or certificate programs in fields such as computer programming, network administration, or telecommunications. Some workers seek short-term positions while others aim for long-term, contractual work. Larger information technology (IT) staffing services may provide educational service offerings so that workers can acquire new skills. For example, some IT staffing services provide coursework regarding the information technology infrastructure library (TTL), a set of documents that covers best practices in incident, problem, change and release management. ITIL education can be customized to meet the learning objectives of students is available via self-paced learning, private instruction, or blended learning.

Information technology (IT) staffing services can perform specialized processes related to many different IT applications. For example, workers from IT staffing services can perform systems planning, project management, network administration, network engineering, systems integration and helpdesk support. Telecommunications staffing services place workers who identify the strategic uses of voice and data communications within an organization, and between a business and its customers. IT consultants can then use this information to recommend appropriate technologies. In some cases, clients can combine voice and data communication requirements using high-speed communication lines in order to reduce overall costs. The increasing sophistication of voice and data communication systems makes the process of selecting a telecommunications staffing service especially important. Sending a request for proposal (RFP) to multiple information technology (IT) staffing services is a standard business practice.