Customer success story

From 19 Days to 4: Direct Sourcing at Enterprise Scale

A leading financial services organization was running high-volume contingent hiring through traditional agency channels — and paying for it in speed, cost, and control. Guidant Global partnered with the organization to implement a direct sourcing model that retained known talent, reduced agency dependency, and fundamentally changed how the business hired.

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Impact at a glance

A direct sourcing model built on retained talent and redeployment. Faster hiring, lower cost, stronger pipeline.

19 days → 4 days

Reduction in average time-to-fill

$2.6M

Annual margin savings

1,840

Active contingent workers in the talent bench

60%

Of hires sourced from internal pipeline

62%

Contractor return rate

From reactive to repeatable: a workforce strategy that is faster, more predictable, and more cost-efficient, without sacrificing delivery capability.

Financial ServicesIndustry

Enterprise ScaleOrganization type

$2.6MAnnual margin savings

60%Hires from internal pipeline

62%Contractor return rate

The Situation

High-volume contingent hiring, but the sourcing model wasn't built for it.

The organization was managing high-volume contingent hiring across repeat roles within a complex enterprise environment, where workforce demand was both sustained and predictable. The roles were known, the need was recurring, but each new requisition effectively restarted the sourcing process from zero.

Agency-led hiring introduced measurable operational friction. Time-to-fill averaged 19 days, which is slow for roles that were business-critical and required repeatedly. Agency markups compounded the problem, creating persistent cost exposure that limited visibility and control for both Finance and Procurement.

The absence of any structured approach to retaining known contractors made the situation self-reinforcing. Qualified talent was regularly lost between assignments, leaving the firm without a reliable pipeline to draw on, despite the fact that demand was ongoing and largely predictable.

Average time-to-fill

19 days

For roles that were recurring and business-critical, a 19-day fill time represented a structural drag on operational delivery, one that reset with every new requisition.

Cost model

Agency-led

Agency markups on every hire created compounding cost exposure, with limited ability for Procurement to control spend or forecast accurately.

The Challenge

Speed, cost, and control: the model had to deliver all three at once.

The challenge wasn't any one thing in isolation. Reducing time-to-fill, decreasing agency dependency, and building a reusable talent pipeline were all interconnected, and any solution had to address them together without adding operational complexity or risk.

Hiring speed at scale

Filling repeat contingent roles within 19 days was already slower than the business needed. Improving speed without increasing reliance on external agencies required a fundamentally different sourcing approach.

Agency cost and visibility

Agency markups on high-volume, repeat roles created significant and largely avoidable cost exposure. Finance and Procurement needed greater control over spend without disrupting hiring continuity.

Talent loss between assignments

Without a structured approach to retaining and redeploying contractors, qualified talent was lost between engagements, forcing the sourcing process to restart repeatedly for roles that could have been filled from a known pool.

The Solution

A direct sourcing model built around retained talent and redeployment.

Rather than defaulting to agencies for every new requisition, Guidant Global implemented a direct sourcing model that centralized known talent, reduced duplication of effort, and aligned Talent Acquisition and Procurement around shared goals: speed, cost control, and pipeline health.

01 Centralized talent bench +

A centralized talent bench was built to retain known candidates and reduce dependence on external sourcing channels. Rather than losing qualified contractors between assignments, the model kept them engaged and available for redeployment.

02 Redeployment-first hiring +

Hiring teams prioritized redeployment of existing contractors and engagement with pre-qualified talent already within the ecosystem. This reduced duplication of effort and enabled faster decision-making across repeat hiring cycles.

03 Reduced agency dependency +

By shifting volume away from external agencies and toward the internal pipeline, the model reduced the markup costs that had been compounding across every hire — generating measurable savings for Finance and Procurement without compromising on candidate quality.

04 Aligned TA and Procurement +

The model aligned Talent Acquisition and Procurement around shared objectives — speed, cost control, and pipeline health — ensuring that hiring decisions supported both operational and financial outcomes at enterprise scale.

Results

Faster hiring, lower costs, and a pipeline that compounds over time.

The direct sourcing model delivered significant improvement in both speed and cost efficiency. Within 18 months, the business had moved from reactive agency-led hiring to a structured, self-reinforcing workforce strategy, one that got stronger the more it was used.

19 → 4 days

Reduction in average time-to-fill

$2.6M

Annual margin savings for Finance and Procurement

1,840

Active contingent workers in talent bench within 18 months

60%

Of hires sourced from internal pipeline rather than external agencies

62%

Contractor return rate, reflecting stronger redeployment and reduced talent loss

A pipeline that gets stronger over time

With 60% of hires now coming from the internal talent bench, the sourcing model compounds with use. Each redeployment strengthens the pipeline, reduces the cost of the next hire, and shortens the time it takes to fill roles the business needs repeatedly.

Finance and Procurement back in control

Reduced agency dependency translated directly into $2.6M in annual margin savings, and, equally importantly, restored visibility and control over contingent spend. Hiring decisions now support financial outcomes, not just operational ones.

From reactive staffing to a controlled workforce strategy

With a 62% contractor return rate and time-to-fill reduced to 4 days, the institution moved from a model defined by churn and cost to one defined by continuity and efficiency. The workforce function now supports the business, rather than creating drag on it.

A model built for scale, not just speed

The results validated more than a process improvement. They demonstrated that a large financial services enterprise with predictable, high-volume contingent demand can build a workforce strategy that is both faster and more economically efficient, without sacrificing delivery capability or introducing operational risk. The direct sourcing model is now a structural asset: a talent bench that grows, a cost base that shrinks, and a hiring process that improves with every cycle.

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