Recruitment Process Outsourcing – or RPO – refers to when a business transfers all or part of its recruitment to a third-party provider. How much a business decides to outsource will be driven by their business needs.
In this article, we’re going to discuss Recruitment Process Outsourcing in a little more detail, including its benefits and whether it could be right for your business.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing Explained
Life in business can be pretty crazy. With a seemingly never-ending to-do list to contend with, recruiting can sometimes fall to the wayside or become a rushed task which could end up costing businesses a lot more in the long run.
If you do not have internal capabilities or perhaps want to reduce your overheads, it is possible to outsource either part of your recruitment function or your entire recruitment function to a recruitment outsource provider, such as us here at The Curve Group.
If you’ve worked with recruitment agencies in the past, you may be wondering how these two models differ. In basic terms, Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a much more comprehensive and long-term solution to your recruitment needs. This differs from a recruitment agency, which may only support you on an ad-hoc basis to fill one or two vacancies when required.
A recruitment outsource provider acts as an extension of your business. To all intents and purposes, hiring managers and candidates would assume that they are simply a part of your team as they use your email addresses, your recruitment collateral and if you have any, your existing recruitment technology.
What Does an Outsourced Recruitment Partner do?
An outsourced recruitment partner can take over all elements of the recruitment process. This can span all hires from permanent employees, fixed-term contracts to contractors, emerging talent, referrals and internal mobility, right through to executive search.
Even if you already have internal recruiters on your team, you can utilise RPO to free them up to focus on the more strategic hires or projects. Alternatively, you can outsource these specific types of hires to your outsourced recruitment partner.
A good Recruitment Process Outsource solution can handle any of all of the following:
- Support for workforce planning
- Working with internal teams to shape their hiring plans
- Delivery of multi-channel, inclusive sourcing
- Attraction strategies adapted for each type of hire
- Robust screening, selection and job offer processes
- Onboarding processes
Why use Recruitment Process Outsourcing?
When running a large business, recruiting is never as simple as putting out a job advert, scrolling through CVs and emailing candidates to arrange interviews. It’s a lot more complex than that, especially in today’s tight market.
By utilising RPO, your business can hand the batten over to subject-matter experts with talent acquisition at the core of their service. Working with a recruitment outsourcing partner gives you instant scalability. If your recruitment needs to suddenly increase then no part of your business becomes suddenly overwhelmed. By using RPO, there’s no need to refocus internal teams away from business-critical projects to support recruitment.
Other benefits of Recruitment Process Outsourcing include:
- Controlling costs and making significant savings
- Freeing up staff time
- Ensuring compliance and best practice principles
- A smoother, more effective recruitment process
- Successful first-time recruitment
To explore these benefits in more detail, read our blog on ‘The 8 Pivotal Benefits of Outsourcing Recruitment’.
Is RPO Right for my Business?
Whilst RPO is increasingly used by small and medium-sized businesses, RPO is traditionally best suited to large companies that need high-volume hiring (20+ hires a year) at a lower cost compared to other recruiting options. In fact, research conducted back in 2019 shows that larger companies are 66% more likely to outsource any business function than small or medium-sized businesses.
RPO is best suited to businesses with a hiring need. Perhaps they don’t have the resources, expertise or staff available to carry it out to a high enough standard on short notice. If you need to hire a lot of people quickly, Recruitment Processing Outsourcing might be perfect for you.
Still unsure? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are we spending a lot of time and money on multiple recruitment agencies?
- Are we hiring reactively rather than strategically?
- Are HR staff struggling to focus on those important strategic HR activities?
- Does our recruitment process feel inconsistent and ill-defined?
- Do we have a backlog of unfulfilled vacancies?
- Does our workforce lack diversity and inclusion?
- Do we lack a talent pipeline?
- Are we constantly recruiting because people keep leaving?
- Do we have big growth plans that call for new talent?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, get in touch with us today and let’s discuss how we can help with your recruitment needs. Through our high touch, high quality, consistent and efficient service we will find you the best talent quickly. All that’s left for you to do is focus on your core business. Relax in the knowledge that your time, people and money are freed up and ready to re-invest in your future.
You can also download our ‘Business Case for Outsourcing Recruitment’ for more information on whether Recruitment Process Outsourcing is right for you.
