In a tight labor market, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) providers have become a popular option for businesses of all sizes to manage their recruitment needs. However, for an organization that has never used an RPO, a lot of misconceptions can cloud its value.
What more does an RPO bring to the table than a traditional recruiting staffing agency who also fill vacant positions, but for a fraction of the cost?
RPO Doesn’t End with Filling a Position That’s Gone Unfilled
By taking a much more hands-on approach, RPO providers position themselves to be a long-term partner with a company, even if the immediate need is only for a short period of time. Through close collaboration, they function as the talent acquisition arm of the company and recruit under the organization’s brand.
Unlike traditional recruiting agencies who act more like vendors, RPO providers work closely with HR to provide optimized innovative solutions, employer brand, candidate experience, and analytics for any and all of a business’s recruitment needs.
Such a partnership provides sustainable talent pipelines, widens the talent pool, and enables HR to focus on strategic initiatives to maintain growth. So even if it costs a bit more to hire an RPO now, in the long-term a lot of money will be saved when the provider puts efficient and customized recruiting solutions in place.
Managing a Program and Demonstrating the Results
A good RPO doesn’t just deliver a good candidate as promised. It goes a step further by sharing with the company its powerful technologies to manage open positions, marketing recruitment models, and its analytical data that tracks recruiting efforts.
Providing full transparency over its recruitment methods, which traditional recruiting agencies are generally not able to do, builds an everlasting trust between the RPO and a company. This consistent sharing of information allows RPO providers to embed the company’s brand into its own recruiting techniques, an essential component when luring not only active job seekers but passive ones as well.
When dealing with an organization’s scaling hiring demands, traditional recruiting agencies cannot compete with RPO providers. Depending on the need, an RPO can take over the entire recruitment process (end-to-end RPO) which provides ongoing customizable solutions and strategies. An RPO can also provide solutions to specific recruitment components, such as outsourcing and screening processes (selective RPO). Even if an organization needs only a short-term solution (recruiter on demand), an RPO is better equipped to handle it than any traditional recruiting agency.
RPO Much More than Closing Jobs and Filling Positions
What makes an RPO more valuable to a company than a traditional recruiting agency is that the job doesn’t end when a position is filled. To an RPO, recruitment is an ongoing process that needs to be analyzed and adjusted if needed, such as evaluating fill-times, turnover rates, tracking technology, and scalability success.
Top-tier talent is the lifeblood of a successful company. In a survey taken by Glassdoor, 84% of respondents said they would leave their current company if offered another job with a higher reputation. On the flip side, if given a choice to take a position with a business that has a lousy reputation or remain unemployed, 69% of respondents said they would choose the latter.
Therefore, businesses always need to be brand conscious before proceeding with any recruitment paradigm. Newbies who have never utilized an RPO are often fearful of handing the keys to their brand over to someone else. Although that fear is reasonable, it doesn’t mean it is binding. RPO recruiters work as a right hand by thoroughly researching a company’s brand, compare it to its competition, and using the information to enhance the brand when attracting new talent. By operating as a partner, you can be assured that your brand will be communicated properly to the right people.
RPO providers are affiliates that work closely with your HR team to create optimal recruitment strategies to attract the best people for the job. It doesn’t matter if you want to utilize them to take over the whole recruitment operation or just a few aspects of it, RPO providers are committed to your success both now and in the future.