Category: RPO

Tough times calls for radical new ways of doing business. Have you considered RPO? RPO stands for Recruitment Process Outsourcing. This is a new approach to attracting and maintaining top talent that leverages the expertise of specialized HR companies.

An RPO provider can augment your current recruiting activities through new methods such as job fairs, radio programs, social networking sites and innovative direct mail campaigns. These avenues are also excellent opportunities to promote information about company milestones, new product/service offerings and your overall competitive edge. The goal of the marketing campaigns is to elevate your differentiators, grab the attention of the modern Millennials and to specifically distinguish your organization from the rest of the media storm.

Entering into an RPO relationship is no doubt a big step, but the benefits will certainly far outweigh any initial start-up challenges. And as the current talent war shows no signs of relenting, RPO is sure to be one of your best kept weapons. An RPO provider’s specialization on recruitment will expose you to new sourcing techniques and overall help you to attract and retain the best people. RPO is a new trend, but it is a solution that will certainly make a lasting and positive impact on your organization.

According to “ROI of RPO” article published in the RPO Association, there are 4 major benefits of RPO.

These include: Streamlining of the Recruitment Process, Offering Best Practices recommendations, Developing an Employment Brand, and Using Recruitment Marketing.

1. Get more stuff done!
Especially for an HR team that already has too much on its plate, RPO can serve as a highly specialized support network to share the load. In fact, one of the main reasons that RPO has gained popularity in the last decade is the simple fact that most HR departments have more work than they know what to do with. An overburdened HR group struggles to meet the increasing demands of today’s human resource management needs, not to mention the daily work of hiring, talent development, performance assessments, and succession planning.
Larger FORTUNE 500 companies are hiring talent acquisition directors to meet these needs, often with a blended or hybrid model mixing internal recruitment teams with RPOs. But for others without vast internal resources, RPO partnering directly with HR can be a very competitive solution. That’s because RPOs, as true recruiting experts, can take the recruiting tasks right off that HR team’s full plate. No matter how many positions need to be filled, the RPO uses a powerful toolbox of recruiting processes, specialized knowledge and a wealth of cutting-edge technology to find not just more candidates but better candidates. RPO brings an entire network of people and resources working together to find the best match for each position.

2. Get smart by tapping into the highly-specialized knowledge of true recruiting experts
The RPO’s highly specialized network means they can provide tremendous economies of scale. Companies don’t need to invest in a seemingly ever growing list of job-posting resources, resume databases, Web 2.0 recruitment tools, testing and screening tools and expensive high-tech tracking system that they’ll need to evaluate and maintain year after year. They can simply “rent” it from an RPO.

It’s more than tools, though. RPOs, thanks to their intense study of hiring trends, practices and real-world case studies, bring expert knowledge of effective and efficient recruitment resources. Because this is all they do, RPOs can commit serious time to researching what works and what doesn’t. This time commitment is a luxury most HR pros just don’t have.

3. Find good answers to tough questions about budgets and hiring costs
Cost reduction is a major reason companies look to outsource non-core jobs in their company. Recruitment outsourcing often is no different – but what makes recruitment outsourcing unique is its outsourcing of a non-transactional function. Because of this, getting savings and results requires some patience and vision.

Why is that? Hiring by traditional means, with an HR staff, means that many expenses get buried-in overhead allocations, technology investments, etc. It’s difficult to tell exactly what is being spent on hiring alone. When companies choose to outsource, however, they’re forced to go through the due diligence needed for this change and, along the way, they start to uncover all the ways in which hiring costs them money.

An RPO uncovers those hidden costs, and then offsets many of them through economies of scale, reduced hiring cycles or fewer fees paid to staffing agencies and recruiters. Regardless of how much money an RPO saves the company, the process itself gives the business a much clearer understanding of the true cost of recruiting. That transparency is especially valuable in a tight economy, when every team’s budget gets scrutinized more closely. HR leaders, just like everyone else, have to be able to justify their decisions, budgets and practices. They have to give their leaders real, usable numbers. And they have to be ready with good answers to tough questions. Without real data, good answers are hard to come by.

4. Make yourself a strategic partner
So, while it’s natural to fear that an RPO might expose HR’s recruiting practices as weak or ineffective – it can actually greatly improve the department’s visibility. Think about it: an HR team that partners with a highly specialized expert to successfully execute the all-important task of hiring top talent is likely to appear progressive, strategic and just plain smart.

And if you tap into the RPO’s employer-branding capabilities, you’re making another strategic move. By infusing your company’s culture and image into your recruiting efforts, you’re doing a lot more than just filling positions. You’re cultivating a relationship. RPO has the time and resources to “ABR” (always be recruiting) and driving your employer branding.

The stronger your employer brand, the more candidates are drawn to the company. Recruiting comes more easily when the candidates know who you are and what you’re about. As a result, you’re likely to get applicants that are already in tune with your company culture. In other words, they’re a good fit.

5. Increase your value and visibility
If your RPO partnership helps you accomplish these things, the HR department is suddenly much more visible – and considerably more valuable, especially to stakeholders. Furthermore, if that partnership also means that HR has more time to devote to increasingly crucial tasks like talent management and succession planning, executives will be forced to sit up and take notice.

The RPO partnership has the power to transform HR for the better. Thanks to the tangible advantages it offers, what was once seen as the cost center of the company is quickly becoming a highly valuable, strategic team with the power to impact the bottom line.