RPO : The Talent ammunition you need

The war for talent rages on…

The battle cry sounded long ago, have you entered the battle with a strategy or are you on the battlefield unarmed?

In the midst of chaos, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) has proven to deliver control. The news is out- RPO may be the ammunition you require!

Do you find yourself struggling to hire quality talent at the pace that your business requires? Do you lack the resources and expertise needed to achieve talent acquisition excellence to position talent as a strategic advantage in your organisation?

The RPO model provides you with a comprehensive, integrated approach to conception and implementation of effective recruitment processes. This is done in a streamlined, consistent manner.

What is RPO?

RPO is a process whereby an organisation chooses to outsource part or all of its recruitment needs.

Seven swords of RPO
1. Quality of hires ensured

RPO providers are specialist recruiters and therefore invest heavily in their recruitment staff, recruiter training and technique and recruitment technology and tools, as this is their core business. Whereas a corporate recruiter may have budget limitations. These recruiters focus on only one thing: recruitment. Whereas corporate recruiters are often responsible for other aspects of HR. RPO recruiters have gained deep industry knowledge as well as extensive experience. For these reasons, the hire is guaranteed to be top quality.

2. Cost Reduction

RPO providers can scale up and scale down their recruitment activity to match the fluctuating hiring needs of the client, therefore, the organisation does not have to hire more permanent staff, and costs change from fixed to variable with this recruiter on demand model. In business, to use the old adage, time is money. Every day that a position remains unfilled costs a company. Better quality means better retention and opportunity costs reduced. Filling vacancies fast is better for productivity and reduces the number of HR resources spent on sourcing candidates. RPO providers are ultimately measured on time to hire, the cost of hire and quality of hire. there is also no need for the client to incur additional costs such as advertising, job boards, etc when partnering with an RPO provider as the provider assumes complete responsibility. As Brian Tracey mentioned “Hiring the wrong person is the most costly mistake you can make”, RPO assists you in avoiding this.

3. Scalable Model

As companies experience peaks and troughs to staffing, an RPO model is regulated to flex accordingly. If a company is expanding or opening a new department it will need more staff, while if it is downsizing or it has to 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, nothing more, nothing less. RPO providers are flexible and can accommodate every situation.

 4. Reduced Time to Hire

Internal RPO resource models scale to overcome the challenge of tight time to hire deadlines. Most RPO providers will have established a time to hire models. Considering their expertise in this field, time to hire is reduced significantly.

5. Talent Pooling 

The RPO provider will present the client with the best people for the job. All strong candidates are pooled and actively engaged with, creating a community for future hiring. Through means such as candidate mapping, social media and other brand outreach programs RPO proactively creates a talent database of both passive and active candidates, that cannot be built via traditional recruitment methodology. In addition, RPO incorporates value-added initiatives such as employer branding to ensure candidate- culture fit. Effectively the RPO model improves hiring manager satisfaction and improves staff retention. An ancillary benefit of RPO Is that it assists in delivering diverse candidates.

6. End to end recruitment process

RPO providers may re-engineer a company’s entire recruiting process so that it is consistent across all departments within the organisation. This makes it easier for management to follow progress and understand how the procedure is developing at any given time. By adopting a holistic approach from design to implementation, the RPO model centralises recruitment processes and ensures consistency by standardising best practices, managing compliance issues, and minimising risk, by getting involved in the entire recruitment cycle from staff planning to onboarding to candidate support.

7. 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. RPO providers are entirely accountable for filling positions whereas contingency searches are not guaranteed. and they undertake to deliver more value at optimal cost and management is provided with hiring metrics including candidate satisfaction, cost efficiencies and talent pipeline. RPO firms are experts on labour laws and standards. Detailed records are kept, mapping every stage of the recruitment process. They are guaranteed to implement fully compliant, auditable processes and methods.

Let us assist you to prepare for battle by taking care of your talent needs whilst you take care of your business needs. Choose RPO as your strategic and competitive talent advantage.

As Jim Collins said, "A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people." Let us help you grow your business…

Wendy Kirstan