Did you know that you can use TriStarr to complement (not replace) your internal Human Resources or Talent Acquisition team?  

Your HR department knows better than anyone how tricky it can be to staff for unsteady demand. There are periods when several departments need people at once. Someone resigns unexpectedly. A new project gets approved. Business growth creates multiple openings. An employee goes on leave. Then, just as suddenly, the pace slows and the internal team no longer needs the same level of recruiting capacity. 

However, the old staffing adage “Staff to the Valleys; Subcontract for the Peaks” also applies to the human resources department. Staffing an HR department to be prepared to meet the needs of busiest hiring month of the year doesn’t always make sense. But neither does expecting that same pared down team to absorb a sudden surge without additional help. 

That’s where an outside staffing and recruiting firm can complement, not replace, an internal HR or talent acquisition team. 

How Can You Handle the Workload When Everyone Needs to Hire at Once? 

Hiring pressure rarely arrives steadily or predictably. Your accounting department may need two people while operations is trying to replace a manager and IT has been searching for a specialized candidate for months. At the same time, HR still has benefits, employee relations, compliance, onboarding, training, performance management, and its other responsibilities to manage. 

Lancaster County’s current labor market can make those surges even more challenging. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 3.0% unemployment rate for the Lancaster metropolitan area in July 2026, compared with 3.9% for Pennsylvania. Lancaster’s labor force totaled about 302,000 people, with approximately 293,000 employed. 

In other words, employers aren’t necessarily recruiting from a large pool of people waiting for work. So recruiting is never easy here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, but it gets even more demanding when there are multiple positions to fill.  

And demand for employees continues to grow. Lancaster’s professional and business services employment increased 3.7% year over year in July 2026, while education and health services employment increased 7.0%. Overall nonfarm employment in the Lancaster metro area was up 1.9% from the previous year. 

When multiple employers are competing for talent, adding more positions to an already-busy recruiter’s workload doesn’t necessarily produce more candidates. It may simply produce more pressure. 

What Happens When Hiring Slows Down? 

This is the other half of the staffing equation, and it’s just as important. Companies could maintain enough internal recruiters to handle their absolute peak hiring periods. But what happens when those 20 openings become five? Or two? 

You may suddenly have more recruiting capacity than you need. That’s why independent staffing resources like TriStarr can function as a flexible extension of the internal team. When demand increases, you add recruiting resources. When demand subsides, you don’t have to support a permanently larger department simply because you needed additional help during one unusually busy quarter. 

It allows HR departments to build a solid team of employees to handle a normal workload rather than overstaff to prepare for extreme situations. 

Employers in Lancaster County, PA Have Very Different Hiring Needs 

Different industries (and even different departments within the same company) can experience hiring spikes at completely different times. 

An internal HR team may be accustomed to recruiting administrative or customer service positions but suddenly need to find an experienced accountant, HR professional, IT specialist, or manager. Or the challenge may not be specialization at all. The company may simply need more candidates, more quickly, than its internal recruiters can reasonably manage. 

Outside recruiting experts like TriStarr can provide another set of hands, another candidate network, and additional sourcing and screening capabilities without changing who is ultimately responsible for the company’s hiring strategy. 

Sometimes One Job Opening Creates the Pressure 

The feast-or-famine problem isn’t always about volume. Sometimes one stubborn opening can consume hours of an HR professional’s week. The job gets posted. Applications come in. Resumes are reviewed. Interviews are scheduled. Candidates decline, disappear, or simply aren’t the right match. 

Meanwhile, the rest of HR’s workload keeps moving. That can be an ideal time to hand a particular search to an outside recruiter at TriStarr, to allow the internal team to continue managing other priorities. 

Confidential searches can create a different kind of need for outside assistance. When the employer wishes to remain anonymous in early stages, TriStarr can step in and handle the initial stages of recruiting, or manage the hiring process remotely. 

Another reality of staffing is that holes appear naturally over time. Within the HR department, family or medical leaves, interim staffing needs, or special projects may reduce the team’s bandwidth, requiring additional expertise until the full team is back up and running.  

Add Recruiting Capacity Without Replacing Your HR Team 

TriStarr has worked with employers in Lancaster and Central Pennsylvania since 1989. We’ve become the locally recognized expert in providing temporary and temp-to-hire staffing, direct-hire recruiting, and HR consulting. 

TriStarr’s staffing specialties include human resources, accounting, legal, and IT, along with professional and management recruiting. TriStarr also provides temporary and interim administrative and professional staffing for Lancaster, York, and the broader Central Pennsylvania region. 

We don’t want to take recruiting away from your HR department. But our teams of experts are standing by, ready to offer reinforcements to your human resources when it’s needed. Contact us today to learn how to turn our team of recruiting experts into your new backup plan.