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Overworked HR teams can lead to long cycles times, a poor candidate experience, and missed opportunities. Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) has become a widely used method for companies of varying sizes that are facing those challenges and need immediate hiring support.
With RPO, you can enable better selection decisions, put less strain on your internal hiring team, and hire more qualified candidates in an accelerated timeline.
If you’re not familiar with this recruitment strategy or are interested in learning more about how it works, this guide outlines the top use cases and key benefits. We also detail the different RPO models that are available and share tips on how to find the right provider for your organization.
Table of Contents:
Recruitment Process Outsourcing, or RPO, is when a business transfers all or part of the recruitment process to an external third party.
Compared to other staffing solutions that are transactional and focused on filling a specific role quickly, RPO is a strategic partnership that aims to improve overall efficiency and effectiveness along with better candidate quality. With more integration and process involvement, RPO is often used as a strategic solution to help you drive better hiring outcomes and a competitive advantage for your organization.
Utilizing RPO can help your company acquire talent that’s better aligned with your company’s goals, values, and culture.
There are three distinct models of RPO: Project-based, On-Demand, and Enterprise (End-to-End). This guide explores each model to help you understand how and when to use them effectively.
Partnering with an RPO provider unlocks plenty of benefits, because that delivery team will become your dedicated talent acquisition partner – and ultimately help you build a stronger employment brand and talent acquisition department.
Companies that use RPO find that these are the three most important benefits:
As we mentioned in the last section, the right RPO provider will have a wide range of candidate sourcing tools and software at their disposal to help find the right candidates for you. When included in an RPO solution, these tools eliminate the need to purchase separate software or subscriptions, offering another key cost-saving advantage of RPO.
Some of the most common systems and tools – and ones your ideal provider will have access to – include:
RPOs can be used in any industry to meet a wide range of hiring needs. Here are some of the most common use cases for RPO:
When hiring at speed, candidate quality can sometimes slip. With RPO, your dedicated recruiting team fills critical and high-volume roles quickly without sacrificing talent or quality of hire.
Example:
You have several open positions on your team, and your HR team is already overwhelmed with other responsibilities. These positions remain unfilled because you don’t have the resources you need to dedicate to hiring.
First-Hand Experience at Acara:
We were tasked with the challenge of hiring a high volume of IT, technology, and engineering roles. By using RPO, we increased the number of candidate submissions by 10-15 profiles per day in only three months.
Your hiring needs will likely ebb and flow, and it can be hard for internal HR teams to scale up and down with demand. An RPO is better positioned to meet those fluctuations because they have the resources and infrastructure to flex with the hiring support as you need.
Example:
As a seasonal business, bulk hiring is essential to your success each year. But with a small internal recruiting department, managing that surge in demand is a challenge. An RPO provider can step in to efficiently handle high-volume hiring so you’re fully staffed and ready to maximize profitability during your peak season.
First-Hand Experience at Acara:
A large manufacturing company tasked Acara with filling 700 assemblers, technicians, and material handlers to meet customer chip demands. By streamlining the client’s recruitment processes and using different sourcing channels, we made more than 600 contingent hires, resulting in a 90.8% average fill rate.
If you need to fill a lot of positions quickly and don’t want to stress your internal hiring team, an RPO provider can help you fill positions in bulk.
Example:
After launching a new product, you need to hire a high volume of qualified candidates – fast. But your internal team doesn’t have the capacity to manage such a rapid and large-scale hiring push. RPO can take the load off your internal team, delivering top-tier candidates efficiently and filling critical roles that support your product’s success.
First-Hand Experience at Acara:
A hospitality company worked with Acara to fill a variety of positions, including corporate, management, and hotel roles. We generated nearly 31,000 prospects, phone-screened more than 7,400 candidates, and improved our client’s interview-to-offer ratio from 8:1 to 4:1. Ultimately, the RPO enabled the client to maintain business continuity while integrating and hiring for a high number of acquisition properties.
Keep in mind, these are just a few scenarios where an RPO can be useful. These solutions can tackle a wide variety of hiring challenges across almost any industry.
One of the best parts of an RPO is that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. There are different RPO models designed to meet different talent needs. Each of the three models offers different benefits, levels of scalability, and ideal use cases, so you can choose which model would work best for your company specifically. We’ve outlined the three main types of RPO in the chart below:
Project-based RPO is a short-term solution where a company outsources its recruiting/hiring efforts for a specific project or function.
Use Case:
This model is best used when a company opens a new store/location or develops a new product
Benefits:
Fill roles quickly
Less stress on internal hiring teams
Pricing:
$ (least expensive)
On-demand RPO is when a company is looking to fill positions that are often short-term or part-time.
Use Case:
Seasonal businesses often use this model during their busy seasons
Pipelining candidates for business development and future contract wins
Benefits:
Saves time
Cost-effective
Pricing:
$$
Enterprise RPO is a long-term approach for when a company outsources most or all of its recruiting/hiring needs.
Use Case:
A global company used this to build out its U.S. talent infrastructure
Benefits:
Can scale up or down based on needs
Consistency
Pricing:
$$$ (most expensive)
Once you’ve decided on RPO as your talent solution, you’ll have to select a provider based on your business requirements, cultural fit, and hiring needs. Remember, the key to finding success with RPO is partnering with the right provider. Here are some points to consider and questions to ask prospective RPO partners:
RPO solutions offer strategic value for companies of all sizes and industries. These partnerships can help organizations identify inefficiencies in hiring processes and optimize functions for overall improvement.
The right RPO provider will provide the benefits you need to overcome your challenges and offer a customized and flexible solution.
At Acara, we pride ourselves on being that trusted partner. With a proven track record and real-world case studies, we’ve helped companies efficiently fill roles, improve hiring quality, and adapt to evolving workforce demands. Contact us today to get started.
