Recruiting talent can be an overwhelming process. Working with a trusted outside agency can make the whole process easier and help take the stress away from finding the right person. While there are numerous benefits to outsourcing the recruitment process, this article will focus on the fastest-growing business segment – Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO).
RPO is a workforce solution in which a business transfers all or part of its permanent recruitment to an external provider. An effective RPO program installs a dedicated talent acquisition team, the latest recruitment technology, and flexible recruitment processes within an organization. This team embodies your brand and breathes your culture. Acting as an extension of your HR department, these experts’ sole focus is finding you the talent you need to sustain growth.
Companies that employ RPO as part of their talent acquisition strategy reap many benefits. Here are the top 10 reasons why businesses should invest in RPO services:
- Reduced Recruiting Costs
This is one of the biggest benefits of RPO. Many companies spend a lot of money on headhunters and job boards or waste a lot of money through high turnover rates. With other companies, time is simply wasted in lengthy hiring processes or outdated (or a lack of) technology. An RPO provider can reduce recruiting costs by streamlining your recruiting process and showing you how to find good candidates more effectively and with less time and money. - Higher Quality Talent
Hiring managers know that a great candidate is much more than a combination of experience and education, but also includes personality and previous accomplishments. An RPO solution can get into those qualities while still looking for candidates who have the needed experience and education. RPO providers invest their time, energy, and resources into sourcing, screening, and onboarding new permanent staff to ensure that a business gets the best talent. - Scalable Model
An RPO model is calibrated to flex accordingly. If a company is expanding or opening a new department it will need more staff, while if it is downsizing or must implement a hiring freeze, it will not. RPO providers have structures in place to adapt to any situation. They can scale their recruitment team up and down as needed. At the end of the day, the client pays for what they get; successfully filled vacancies. RPO providers are flexible and can accommodate every situation. - Recruitment Process and Assessment Design
RPO providers may re-engineer a company’s entire recruiting process so that it is consistent across all departments. This makes it easier for management to follow the progress and understand how the procedure is developing at any given time. - Analytics and Reporting
RPO providers track and trace every stage of the recruitment process allowing for real-time reporting and detailed insights for prompt decision-making. This also makes it a lot easier for future audits of recruitment activity. - Consistent and Predictable Recruit-to-Hire Process
Candidates don’t like it if they don’t know where they stand in the recruiting process, or if they don’t know what’s happening or what’s supposed to happen next. This problem could also plague companies that have multiple entities or multiple departments, where each one could have its own hiring process. RPO can help get everything together and make the recruit-to-hire process consistent and predictable for both parties and across the entire organization. - Enhanced Employment Brand
The employment brand is essentially the identity of the company as an employer, and when every other aspect of the recruiting process is in place and doing well, the employment brand improves. If your candidate quality improves, that only looks good to other potential candidates for your organization. If your hiring managers are satisfied and are working in a consistent recruit-to-hire process, then people who go through that process will only have good things to say about it and your company as an employer. Overall, RPO helps the company in many more ways than just cutting recruiting costs or filling positions faster. RPO can help a business become a better place to work. - HR is Freed up to Focus on Strategic Goals
It’s clear that the job of attracting permanent staff is becoming the most difficult and time-consuming task within HR teams. An RPO provider takes care of all permanent recruitment and provides an end-to-end service, thus taking a big chunk of responsibility outside of the HR sphere. This gives HR professionals the added time and space necessary not only to keep on top of other parts of their job but also to develop their skills and adapt to technological change. - Stronger Talent Pools and Pipelines
A wide talent network, combined with advanced technology, gives RPO providers everything that they need to quickly find the right candidate. They can use connections to match candidates with the right skills and experience to open requisitions and move them quickly through the hiring and onboarding process. - Enhanced Stakeholder Engagement
By offering a dedicated, scalable team of highly skilled recruiters and talent acquisition professionals, RPO providers can offer expert recruiting practices, support, and guidance to companies. They can empower teams that are finding it difficult to keep up with the constantly changing market conditions by offering insight into candidate expectations, key recruiting metrics, and process improvements.
In conclusion, a comprehensive RPO solution takes the strategies of traditional recruitment agencies to the next level because of the mindset, strategy, and skills they bring to the table. RPO is not just a hiring strategy, but an overall business strategy that helps tackle productivity and profitability issues to sustain business growth.
If an RPO makes a great deal of financial, structural, and strategic sense to your business, call us today to get the discussions started. Simply fill out the form on our website.