Everything You Need to Know About RPO

Your guide to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

What is RPO?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing, better known as RPO, is one of the Human Resources Outsourcing industry’s fastest growing segments.

Companies with high-volume or enterprise-wide hiring needs seeking to outsource all or a portion of their recruitment process often turn to an RPO provider to streamline their hiring costs, decrease time-to-fill, or improve candidate quality. As a trusted expert, your RPO partner provides talent acquisition consulting that encompasses analysis, strategy, and execution.

For process-driven, metrics-oriented organizations, RPO providers offer an efficient, measurable solution to high-volume talent acquisition programs. In addition to improved candidate pools and recruitment processes, you may also experience significant savings on recruitment marketing expenses and placement fees, among others.

Who Should Use an RPO?

Mid-sized to large companies experiencing high growth

Ongoing recruitment needs across functions, locations, or enterprises

High-volume recruitment needs, such as sales or customer service

Need a standardized, centralized recruitment process

Key Services and Functions of RPO Companies

Consultation and Strategy

Recruitment Process Optimization

Talent Market Research and Forecasting

Talent Pipeline Development

Employer Branding and Sourcing

Screening and Interviewing

Interview Scheduling

Post-Offer Management

Onboarding and Post-Hire

Technology Integration

Reporting, Metrics, and Insights

Compliance

RPO Flowchart

Why Should I Work with an RPO Company?

For high-growth companies, RPO offers levels of partnership and consultation well beyond staffing. To be truly effective, your RPO provider must become a virtual extension of your company’s HR department—which offers you valuable savings in resources and creates a transparent candidate experience.

You should consider working with an RPO company if any of these sound like you.

• Not enough/not the right recruiting resources
• Need best practices in functional areas to recruit the best talent – e.g., sales
• Recruiting costs are difficult to predict/out of control
• Talent pools are stagnant or lack key skill sets
• Recruiting is decentralized and unfocused
  

RPO Benefits

Bottom Line: What RPO Can Do for You

For the life of the RPO relationship, your provider strives toward continuous improvement in process efficiency. A robust RPO program will adjust to increasing or decreasing hiring demands, using only the resources necessary—effectively decreasing or eliminating waste.

By outsourcing recruitment to an expert source, your company is empowered to fully focus on strategic, revenue-generating activities.

How is RPO Different from Using a Staffing Firm

While staffing firms source, qualify, and fill open positions, they do not provide the scope of service that an RPO might, because they typically do not fill a high volume of open positions. Executive search firms, similarly, do not focus on high-volume roles. Instead, an executive search partner is better suited to strategic positions at the management level and above.

Benefits

RPO

Executive Search

Staffing

Proactive Talent Pools

High-volume recruitment

Process improvements

Cost Savings

Insights and analytics

Improved candidate quality

Lower time-to-fill

Scalable resources

Elevated candidate experience

Employer branding

Compliance support

Strategic roles

Ready to Explore the Benefits of RPO?

Types of RPO Models

Enterprise RPO

Best suited to companies seeking to outsource all needs across a job function or the enterprise over a sustained timeframe.

Enterprise RPO

Best suited to fulfill short-term recruitment needs, such as opening a facility or ramping up a specific function. May include recruiter on-demand models for additional flexibility and workforce augmentation.

RPO Costs and Fee Structures

While staffing firms often charge a percentage of the new hire’s estimated annual salary, an RPO estimates pricing not only on volume of hires but also on increased process efficiencies.

Here are some of the most common cost components within any program.

• Monthly management fee: provides funding for a dedicated team
• Open fees: invoiced upon approving a requisition
• Close fees: invoiced upon placing a candidate
• Implementation fees: based on project scope, training, and timelines

Engagements are supported by service level agreements and statements of work which outline metrics, project deliverables, and governance models. Metrics may include a target number of hires, conversion ratios, time-to-fill, among others.

Ten Simple Questions to Ask Yourself Before Outsourcing

An RPO provider will partner with you to build a process that achieves your hiring goals. By gathering just some of the information below, you can have a more productive first conversation with an RPO company.

1. 1. Why is your company hiring?
2. 2.What positions are you considering outsourcing?
3. 3.How many positions are you looking to fill?
4. 4.When do you need all your hires in place?
5. 5.What does your compensation structure look like?
6. 6.What is your current strategy for pipelining and sourcing talent?
7. 7.What are the stages within your recruitment process?
8. 8.What are your conversion rates, including scheduled interviews to actual interviews and interviews to offers?
9. 9.What does recruitment cost today?
10. 10.How does technology integrate with your process?
    

Ready to Explore RPO?

Further RPO Resources

Three Key Ways RPO Services Improve the Candidate Experience

In today’s highly competitive hiring market, the human touch is essential to executing a successful recruitment process.

FULL ARTICLE

Find the Right RPO Recruitment Model for Your Company

The right RPO model can strongly influence the overall reach and success of your recruitment program.

FULL ARTICLE

How to Measure the Performance of Your RPO Services

For companies implementing RPO services, continuous improvement within talent acquisition and recruitment is the goal. In our experience, the best way to improve is to set appropriate benchmarks and measure results.

FULL ARTICLE

Ten Steps to Selecting an RPO Services Partner

Partnering with RPO companies can simplify complex recruitment processes, refine candidate profiles, extend your reach, and augment talent pools, among many other benefits.

FULL ARTICLE

Making Sure Your RPO Services Partner Can Scale to Meet Your Demand

When matched with the right RPO services, your firm can realize significant cost-efficiencies, the most immediate improvement being reduced cost-per-hire.

FULL ARTICLE

When Should You Consider RPO Services?

Is it becoming increasingly difficult to fill positions at your firm? Are your job postings not getting the right quality, speed and volume of responses? Do you have a high employee turnover rate or large seasonal staff requirements? Is your […]

FULL ARTICLE

Case Study

A residential services leader grows its business development & account management teams within a complex recruitment process. Learn More

The world’s largest electronic security company, with over 26,000 employees, was finding it difficult to keep up with the demand for direct sales talent across the country. Learn More

This large sales organization needed to build its outside sales force quickly. With the help of ACA Talent’s RPO solution, they dramatically increased sales headcounts in nine weeks. Learn More

ACA Talent’s RPO developed an efficient recruiting process for this leading snack food manufacturer to reduce cycle times and fill vacant positions faster. Learn More

Useful News, Data, Insights & Tips for the Recruiting Industry

Valuable tips, resources and recruitment ideas to improve your own hiring practices.

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