the business benefits of RPO.

Even in today’s environment, the competition for talent can be tremendous, especially for the skills in highest demand, like AI. That’s why in order to recruit successfully, you have to break through the noise. Do you stand out when attracting the best talent, or are you struggling to get the attention of the best candidates out there? Are you even able to find and engage with high-quality job seekers?

Global RPO providers have some of the largest databases of CVs in the market. More importantly, their sourcing expertise and methodologies have been robustly developed to help recruiters find the best matches for talent needs. AI-powered talent marketing and sourcing technologies bring speed and precision to the early parts of the hiring process, resulting in better hires in less time.

Additionally, many global RPO providers already have access to qualified contingent candidates through their managed services programs (MSP) — talent who can potentially be converted to permanent hires. In fact, leading employers, with the support of their RPO providers, are building branded talent pools composed of direct-sourced contingent professionals, silver medalists and other talent who can be quickly hired and deployed when needed.

As more companies shift their focus to skills-based hiring, acquiring talent with the right skills, or the potential to learn them, is key to building a sustainable workforce. Does your internal recruiting function have access to the latest sourcing methodologies and tools to evaluate talent based on their skills and potential? Are you using advanced tech and talent intelligence to identify where talent is available and which individuals are a good fit? Can you identify if the talent already in the organization already has the skills you’re looking for?

If the answer to any of these is no, you will be at a disadvantage when competing for talent with the skills your business needs. That’s why world-class recruiting capabilities remain critical to most companies’ talent strategies — especially as skills gaps continue to grow.

What talent attraction and branding strategies will actually help you differentiate in your sector?  What technologies will actually help us solve recruitment challenges, and which will just amplify them? Do you have a personalized approach to managing candidates that ensures a positive experience?

An RPO solution can introduce your organization to rigor, effectiveness and new ways of solving challenges that you may not be able to achieve with internal resources alone. Through extensive work with clients around the world, RPO providers have honed their services to drive greater efficiency across the recruitment continuum, from sourcing methodologies to CV screening, interview follow-up and even onboarding. Lessons learned in more mature markets can be shared in developing markets, technologies tested with other organizations can illuminate use-cases for your business. Talent marketing and employer branding expertise can help you stand out in the sea of polished AI-sameness that is emerging.

Tech-powered, but human-centered sourcing strategies are using innovation to find talent who are ready to learn, adapt and grow with the organization’s needs. It’s no surprise, then, that as a pillar of an RPO provider’s business and a differentiator in the market, sourcing receives significant investment.

Lower recruitment costs will always be one of the key drivers of RPO adoption. The volume of hiring managed by a service provider is typically many times greater than what an employer can achieve on its own. For instance, Randstad Sourceright, part of Randstad Enterprise, globally manages hundreds of thousands of permanent hires annually for dozens of RPO clients. Employing dedicated on-site and off-site shared resources, an RPO can achieve great efficiency.

With recruitment at the core of its business, a global RPO provider also has the resources to invest in product development, new technologies and service enhancements to deliver sustained business value. Most internal talent acquisition functions are not structured or resourced to sustain such a pace of progress.

In addition, RPO programs help employers shift recruitment spend away from high-cost agencies to direct-sourced channels. Depending on the RPO model and which parts of the recruitment life cycle are supported, pricing may be structured in several ways: 

• Monthly management fee, based on volume and services contracted
• Cost per hire, based on the number of candidates acquired
• Management fee plus cost per hire
• Cost per slate, based on the number of candidates presented for each open position
• Cost per transaction, based on a predefined transaction, such as interview scheduling or candidates screened

Time to fill is a metric most talent acquisition specialists struggle to improve. It’s also one of the first enhancements buyers experience after implementing a program. This results from a combination of factors that includes AI-powered sourcing technology, access to advanced labor market intelligence, streamlined processes, sourcing expedience, a stronger relationship between recruiter and hiring managers, and better candidate management. Dedicated RPO recruiters closely collaborate with hiring managers and sourcing technology to understand specific job requirements, develop requisitions and find the talent that matches those needs.

Most programs also have service level agreements (SLAs) that require requisitions to be processed within tight time frames, whereas many internal recruitment functions often lack these mandates. Rigorous screening and assessment enable speedy vetting of prospective employees. Finally, efficient offer presentations and onboarding ensure a positive candidate experience and engaged new hires.

What is the cost of non-compliant hiring practices to your organization? Are you able to keep up with changing labor laws in your markets? RPOs help employers mitigate many of the risks associated with non-compliant hiring practices. RPO partners have deep experience navigating the legal requirements of the markets in which they operate.

A critical feature in every RPO deployment is the service provider’s ability to scale the solution according to need. In fact, arrangements such as project RPO account for a significant portion of today’s market because many buyers require flexible recruitment capacity during peak times. The scalable nature of RPOs is well suited for organizations that find it difficult to forecast their talent needs or those experiencing rapid growth.

In fact, some clients engage RPO providers in co-sourced arrangements, in which the program recruits for some positions or skills, while the employer’s own recruitment team is responsible for senior positions. These programs enable hiring organizations to focus on filling the roles they are most skilled at, while relying on RPO service providers for positions the employer prefers to outsource. Alternately, certain steps of the recruiting process, like sourcing or interviewing, can be outsourced, while the internal team handles the rest.

With advanced technology and on-staff data science skills, RPOs are able to analyze data related to all facets of talent acquisition — both internal and within the broader labor market. This is helping employers make sense of performance metrics and benchmarks, conduct more effective supply-and-demand modeling and correlate metrics to business performance outcomes. In effect, companies are focusing the power of AI and the expertise of RPOs to transform talent and market data into business intelligence. As a result, they gain a clearer vision for adjusting their talent strategies to business growth and demand.

The role of talent intelligence is to unlock access to the right talent at the right time at the right cost, while enabling team members to achieve their true potential. Whether identifying the best sources of talent, uncovering hidden skills among internal talent or predicting future skills needs, people and market intelligence can turn data into a crucial competitive advantage.

RPO providers continuously invest in technology to enhance hiring outcomes. Because they amortize investments across an entire client portfolio, the cost to each is minimal while delivering maximum impact to your business. And since the provider owns the technology, it eliminates the need for complex tech implementations in-house and security compliance concerns, while ensuring you get the technology you need.

With many employers still hiring talent to work totally virtually or hybrid, online recruitment and onboarding are likely to remain common, making technology increasingly an important part of the RPO process. Your RPO partner will provide expertise needed to deliver a high-touch experience for both candidates and hiring managers, regardless of whether they will be working remotely, hybrid or on-site.

Because talent today expects more than just competitive compensation to draw them to an employer, you need to be clear about the experience you can offer them — and not just full-time employees, but contractors, freelancers, vendors and everyone else who contributes to your goals. And, as more employers use AI to create and polish their brands, its getting harder and harder to stand out in a sea of sameness. A strong and authentic employee value proposition (EVP) fosters agility by ensuring everyone, regardless of how they interact with the company, is represented and supported.

The EVP is the core of your employer brand strategy, but many HR leaders have either devoted little effort and resources to clarifying it, or they lack the expertise to create an employer brand strategy that will deliver business impact. Typical employer branding services from an RPO provider include:

• Researching your brand and competitor positioning
• Building the business case for employer branding and gaining buy-in from decision-makers
• Aligning employer brand strategy and relationship value proposition with your company brand and vision
• Ensuring the brand is presented in a consistent, authentic and engaging way
• Using market data and experience to drive immediate and long-term impact of your talent strategies
• Understanding your talent needs and tailoring recruitment communications and key messages to attract the right people
• Establishing proof of concept talent attraction plans across integrated marketing and advertising
• Developing key performance indicators (KPIs), and tracking to demonstrate return on investment and drive continuous review and improvement

Employers can amplify the impact of their employer brand with talent marketing strategies. By applying sophisticated, technology-driven marketing disciplines to talent attraction, companies create a highly memorable applicant journey and strong impression that stays with new hires and candidates who aren’t offered the position. Using data, programmatic advertising, personalization and an event-based approach to engagement, talent marketing ensures employers nurture their relationship with important talent throughout the hiring cycle.

A marketing engine helps to continuously fill an organization’s pipeline so that a slate of candidates can be compiled almost immediately after a requisition has been issued. This approach typically involves the creation of a branded talent pool to draw from.

As workforce equity continues to be important to talent and communities around the globe, businesses are seeking to build skilled workforces that represent a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. This is critical to fueling innovation and growth, as well as talent attraction and retention.

Through data and targeted talent acquisition strategies, RPO can help you reach untapped pools of skilled and qualified talent. Such programs can also help you understand how policies like flexible work or contract work can further expand talent pools. RPO can also drive internal mobility, ensuring all talent already in the organization have ample opportunities to grow and be considered for new roles.