By Michelle Sims, CEO of YUPRO Placement
Colleges and universities have long served as training grounds for the workforce, but just 24% of recent college graduates said they had the skills needed for their current roles, and 85% of them wish their undergraduate education had better prepared them for the workplace.
At the same time, many organizations aren’t upskilling early-career hires, leaving them without support, coaching, or a plan to help them grow. And that’s assuming they even get hired. Companies increasingly indicate they “prefer experienced workers who can contribute immediately over junior employees who require training and investment.”
This causes acute challenges for staffing firms. When clients discard an entire category of workers and decline innovative recruiting methods and robust on-the-job training programs, it negatively impacts the whole talent ecosystem. Ultimately, staffing firms find themselves in an ongoing rut of recruiting the same talent with the same methods, only to end up with the same results — constant churn and lost revenue.
Staffing firms can break the cycle
As staffing professionals, we understand the challenges of hiring junior talent. Newer to the workforce, they typically take longer to get up to speed, demand more attention from managers, and experience higher turnover. It’s not surprising employers are hesitant to hire this category of worker, given the initial downsides.
But this is where we can lead the way. We know early-career candidates want to expand their skills, become more marketable, and advance their careers. And we know what they’re capable of achieving, given the chance.
With our clients often stretched too thin to deliver on the wants and aspirations of this demographic, staffing firms now have the opportunity to ease their clients’ burdens, create new revenue streams, and inspire the next generation of leaders.
How? Through turnkey wage-based learning programs, such as apprenticeships. Doing so not only helps our clients build a solid, skilled talent base but also enables us to fill orders, add revenue, and grow our businesses.
Start with skills-based hiring
Our role is beyond placing talent; it’s also to partner with clients to help them navigate a changing economic and labor landscape. With job skills constantly evolving, degrees and experience are no longer reliable predictors of performance. As a result, skills-based hiring is gaining traction. But while almost two-thirds of employers reported using skills-based hiring, many still reject qualified candidates because they lack a college degree, have a degree in another field, or have mismatched experiences.
Advising clients on skills-based hiring and helping them rewrite job descriptions, conduct screenings, and recommend assessments is a good start, but there’s more to do. This is where apprenticeships stand out as a powerful skills-first hiring strategy that delivers, at scale, what traditional hiring struggles to do. Paid, hands-on training that focuses on skills (not pedigree) fills roles faster, creates stronger matches, improves retention, and ultimately strengthens the agency-client relationship.
Deliver an end-to-end solution
Establishing an apprenticeship program can seem daunting to many clients focused on their core business priorities. This puts staffing agencies in an excellent position to provide a turnkey model that takes over the entire apprenticeship management process, including recruiting, onboarding, payroll, compliance, and retention.
Here are two solutions for paid, on-the-job apprenticeship models that staffing firms can implement to benefit their clients.
- Informal professional apprenticeships: These offer the flexibility to customize on-the-job training plans based on the client’s needs. The duration of an informal program is typically 13 weeks to one year, with the staffing agency partnering with any number of training providers to deliver the technical training. This model can be used in virtually any field and tailored for a wide range of roles, including skilled trades, allied healthcare, technology, business operations, finance, accounting, and more.
- Registered apprenticeships (RAPs): These are structured pathways certified by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). While informal apprenticeships offer customization and flexibility, RAPs ensure a standardized skillset recognized across an industry. These programs are time- and competency-based and require 2,000 work hours and 144 hours of structured learning, resulting in apprentices receiving a nationally recognized credential.
In both instances, the staffing agency de-risks the process for its clients by carrying the workload as an Employer of Record and offering what no one else can at scale. Staffing companies can deliver job-ready talent, trained and supported from day one, with the infrastructure to sustain and grow, offering clients a smarter way to build their workforce.
Build a custom program
Apprenticeship programs are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Staffing firms need to simplify the experience for their clients by delivering a tailored, comprehensive solution that combines skills-based hiring, on-the-job training, and ongoing upskilling. Take these steps with your clients to help customize an apprenticeship program:
- Establish your clients’ hiring pain points. Even if you think you know them, check in to ask which roles they’re struggling to fill and why.
- Identify non-specialized, high turnover, or high volume roles that are business imperative and would benefit from on-the-job learning due to a skilled talent shortage.
- Define the top three skills that align with success on the job, and rewrite the job descriptions and job postings to appeal to talent with these skills.
- Source talent in new and innovative ways, including individuals who have gained skills through internships, boot camps, workforce development programs, community college, and military service.
- Identify apprenticeship partnership opportunities with nonprofits, educational institutions, and training services that align with the skills your clients are seeking.
- Provide continuous skills-building and professional development opportunities to keep apprentices engaged through the period when churn usually spikes and beyond.
- Partner with nonprofits that specialize in coaching and training for the long haul at no cost to the staffing firm or the client.
Apprenticeships as a strategic advantage
Apprenticeship programs are a strategic workforce solution that can help staffing firms meet hiring demands, reduce turnover, accelerate time-to-productivity, build a talent pipeline, and grow the client partnership. A 2025 Jobs for the Future study found that apprenticeships also foster knowledge transfer from experienced employees and significantly improve retention, with 94% of apprentices remaining employed after completing the program.
The staffing industry has a significant opportunity to be on the front lines of modernizing and scaling up the apprenticeship system. We already sit at the intersection of the talent pipeline and employer demand and understand the urgency of meeting that demand. Staffing firms are the missing engine to building an apprenticeship workforce model that doesn’t just fill roles, but creates the future workforce our clients need and our talent deserve.
Michelle Sims is CEO of YUPRO Placement and a champion of skills-first hiring. Michelle leads her team to create career and economic mobility for nontraditional talent while equipping organizations with the skilled workforces they need.
