What’s the difference between recruitment process outsourcing and using a recruitment company?

Where recruitment and staffing agencies focus on sourcing candidates, RPO providers design and deliver across the full recruitment process. From workforce planning right through to onboarding and retention, an RPO will work as a direct extension to your existing in-house recruitment team.

Your RPO should recommend, implement and run the latest in talent acquisition technology. Support you to develop optimised processes for things like taking in requirements from hiring managers, supporting your business in making informed decisions on assessing candidates and ensuring everything is ready for your new hires on day one.

More often than not an RPO provider will have some staff onsite in your offices. They’ll have people operating on your systems and kit, with company email addresses, so they truly embed and embody your culture.

How to select the right RPO solution for my organisation?

Every organisation’s journey to externalising their resourcing is different, and no solution ever looks the same. There are seven key areas you’ll need to review to help you decide what is best for you and your organisation; Objectives, geography, types of resources, process, delivery methods, technology and pricing structure.

How much does an RPO cost?

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. It depends on the size and scale of the programme and the model used to best meet your objectives. Typically, they’ll be able to provide savings compared to your current talent acquisition spend thanks to the efficiencies they are able to derive from expertise and volume developed over years of experience.

There are three main ways an RPO is priced, a fixed fee paid periodically, a transactional fee for each hire or performance based. For example, linked to cost savings or key pre-agreed KPIs.

However, if you contact an RPO provider, they should be able to provide you with an indication based on your answers to some initial questions.

Can you integrate with our ATS?

We've worked with a number of applicant tracking systems over the years, and so we're experienced at optimising and delivering RPO services across a variety of different tools and systems. Part of the expertise we offer is supporting you in the development and management of your recruitment technology to make the sourcing, processing and management of your employees easy.  

I only need seasonal or temporary recruiting assistance, will an RPO work for me?

One of the many benefits of RPO is the flexibility it provides you, as you have no headcount commitments. Also, we've developed a solution, RPO Essentials, which allows businesses of all sizes to enjoy the expertise and benefits of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) without the typical time or resource requirements, which is suitable for short-term requirements.

What does the typical RPO procurement process look like?

Like any business process outsourcing decision RPO buying processes can take time. Smaller project based RPO options can be much quicker, but large-scale end to end RPO solution procurement processes can take up to 12 months due to the increasing complex nature as organisations seek to take more multi-country deals into consideration.