What is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)?

What is RPO?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is when an organization transfers its permanent workforce hiring to an external provider as a program who will take ownership to support your strategic long term talent solution.

It’s more than just filling open positions. It’s an investment in your talent acquisition that provides sustainable results whilst freeing up your HR resources.

There are several reasons why a company may want to outsource but fundamentally take-up is due to the need to increase the quality and volume of hire as well as improving efficiency and reducing costs.

For some organizations, implementing a part RPO could be more prudent. For instance, when expertise is needed to drive key hiring across a company’s technology landscape only, whereas internal teams continue to drive hiring for operational positions.

The initial exploration and talent audit will help identify which model is the best fit for purpose.

What are the benefits of outsourcing recruitment?

By outsourcing the service, you are engaging with a specialist to manage and be accountable for a very complex set of processes so that you and your teams can focus on the other elements that drive your company forward.

A great RPO partner won’t only take on the recruitment process itself but will become a trusted sourcing and talent partner for your hiring managers.

They can engage closely with you on organizational culture, diversity and inclusion, employee value proposition, running your recruitment events and assessment centers all whilst delivering process excellence and cost savings through a technology stack.

You will have a single point of contact driving a scalable service for you. As an external provider, they will be able to provide you with a depth of hiring capacity as your key hiring projects and programs develop in a way that gives you much more agility.

Finally, they will manage all your 3rd party talent suppliers, which means standardized, value for money contracts, performance service level agreements and consolidated invoices. Improving your quality and volume of talent, whilst making cost efficiencies for you.

What is the cost of RPO?

In the first instance, most companies that secure an RPO find the overall cost to be lower than directly managing a supply chain of traditional recruitment agencies.

The cost of an end-to-end RPO model is typically based on a monthly management fee and then a placement and/or project fee when the right talent is delivered. Based on the support structure required, there may be a minimum service cost involved regardless of the number of hires.

How do we start?

Understanding your requirements in a little more detail will help us provide the right and relevant service detail for you. Start by answering these important questions for yourself:

• Do we need to review our company hiring processes?
• Do we stand out in the marketplace as an employer of choice?
• Do we understand the cost of our hiring?
• Are we comfortable with how agile/scalable our hiring teams are?
• Are our recruitment capabilities up to date?
• Are we clear on the current, relevant legislation concerning recruitment?

Your answers to these questions may lead you to want to discuss with us whether an RPO model can help you. If so, an initial exploratory call with one of our IQ Talent Solutions team is a good place to start.