An Intro to Recruitment Process Outsourcing: Blog 1

Companies large and small, public and private, and across every industry have one thing in common: they want the very best talent; but premium talent comes from premium recruitment programs. There are multiple options available to companies for managing their talent needs, including driving standardization and compliance across the current recruitment model, or consolidating their recruitment agencies. This blog will focus on arguably the most robust solution: 

Outsourcing the talent management program to a Recruitment Process Outsourcing provider.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), is a form of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), where all or part of an organizations’ internal talent acquisition process is outsourced to a third-party provider for an agreed upon period of time in an effort to increase recruiting capabilities and effectiveness.

An RPO provider partners with an organization to design and deliver a customized solution to their talent acquisition needs, including augmenting, or replacing the need for internal recruiting resources. As a true extension of the Talent Acquisition team, an RPO provider has the capability to recruit for any/all roles across the enterprise, leveraging economies of scale as opposed to traditional staffing or search firms who only recruit within their niche, and typically for a lower volume of positions. RPO teams are Subject Matter Experts in talent management; they have a repeatable scientific approach to recruitment strategies, and invest heavily in analytics to propel a business forward.

How it Works: RPO Capabilities

• Develop recruitment strategies and supplemental workflow diagrams/process maps
• Strengthen employer brand with customized strategies and sophisticated candidate outreach tools
• Greater access to passive talent, and consistent pipelining efforts
• Manage all or part of the end-to-end recruitment process, depending on company’s needs
• Comprehensive metrics tracking and reporting
• Onsite, offsite, or hybrid team support models
• Technology integration
• Job board management

Advantages

A reduction in recruitment costs: An RPO can deliver “quick wins” with lowered costs per hire, but focuses on the bigger picture of long-term value add rather than stopping after finite goals are met. Additionally, the RPO model alleviates the financial burden on the client by employing a shared-risk solution.

Greater access to top talent in the market: Consider the number of candidates in a company database; now consider the number of candidates in an RPO database. Not only are applicants applying directly to the roles the RPO provider posts on behalf of their clients, but several are passive employees contacted by the RPO recruiters using refined sourcing methodologies.

Promote employment brand: Candidates are inundated with job alerts, calls from recruiters, and oftentimes, multiple job offers at once. This talent-driven market allows candidates to be more selective in whom they work for, and often they require more than just competitive compensation. An RPO will drive a strong, consistent message, and build out the value proposition. The candidate experience is one of the most overlooked, but mission critical components in recruiting.

Scalability within Recruitment efforts: Whether you hire an onslaught of employees to manage seasonal peaks, opening new offices, or in a hiring freeze, an RPO partner can ramp up and down based on your needs. RPO partners are an ideal solution for companies growing rapidly, and need an extension to their recruiting department to match the capacity of growth.

Stay tuned for the main disadvantages to a Recruitment Process Outsourcing model in blog two of the series.