Making the decision to outsource some or all of your recruiting functions to a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider isn't an easy one. But, there are select circumstances when it makes more than dollars and sense to implement an RPO program.  

Let's say your talent acquisition team is filled with A-star players. Your talent pipeline is overflowing, you are on top of your company's recruiting technologies, and hiring quality has never looked better. Time to ask for a raise, right? Maybe. 

Every company is in the business of making money. Chances are yours is positioning itself right now to do just that. Sometimes that means expanding into a new market or discipline. Or, making sudden departmental or budgetary cuts. Depending on your company's strategic direction, at some point, you might find your talent acquisition department swimming in a shallow talent pool with rising hiring needs looming ahead. Now what? 

5 Common Reasons to Outsource Recruiting

Even with the very best recruiters in place, there are select and sometimes unforeseen instances, when it makes sense to call on a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider to assist with part or all of your hiring needs. 

In this week's upcoming webinar, we will discuss how to determine whether RPO is the right talent acquisition strategy for an organization. We'll go over common scenarios when RPO makes sence, provide a breakdown of the different types of RPO models, and deliver an overview of how RPO programs operate using real client examples. If you can't make the webinar consider registering to grab a copy of the webinar recording and deck, or for a sneak peak of what to expect, check out these five common reasons why you would outsource to an RPO provider.

Little or No Recruiting Strategy 

Your recruiters are going through the motions, but each is marching to the beat of their own drum. Sure, things are operating just fine, but inconsistencies in the recruiting process can impact the organization's long-term ability to successfully attract and hire quality talent. After all, long cycle times and unresponsive recruiters or hiring managers don't bod well for hungry candidates. In these instances, an RPO provider can assist by providing industry best practices that are proven to optimize the speed of your existing talent acquisition strategy by identifying and streamlining gaps in the process.  

Recruiters are Bogged Down  

This often happens when HR and recruiting teams are blended. The focus of the department should lie on a particular project or company-wide initiative, but when hiring demands shift, so do the department's priorities. A common misconception is that RPO programs can reduce your headcount by supplementing the role of these busy staff members. However, when set-up properly, an RPO program will do just the opposite. By taking on burdensome and repetitive administrative tasks, your existing internal teams are freed up to focus on other more strategic tasks. 

Need a Cost-Effective Scalable Recruiting Solution  

There certainly isn't anything wrong with calling on temporary staffing agencies, but when this becomes a corporate culture, you can expect your cost-to-hire to sky rocket. Conversely, if you know about a large-scale recruiting project coming down the pike, you know you'll need to staff up or contract out, but for how long? And, at what price? 

What many talent acquisition professionals don't realize is the primary benefit of RPO is its the cost-effective nature; particularly when dealing with in ebbs and flows in hiring. That's because it's the responsibility of the RPO provider to determine how to effectively increase and decrease their recruiting resources, not the hiring organization. 

Lack of Recruiting Metrics 

If you are considering Recruitment Process Outsourcing, then there's some aspect of your talent acquisition strategy that is underperforming. Perhaps your hiring numbers are not where you want them to be, there are on-going roles that your team is consistently struggling to fill, or you need to augment your efforts to push through a period of high volume requisitions.

Whatever the case might be, think of the RPO provider as a fresh set of eyes on your data, processes, and even recruiting technology. They should be able to identify the gaps and work with you to resolve those issues.  They often see things that you may be missing, and won’t hesitate to make suggestions that will help your program run more efficiently.

New Recruiting Industry and/or Geography

Perhaps you need to increase the quantity and/or quality of permanent hires quickly in a completely different industry and/or location, but you either have no idea or time to know how to do it. RPO recruiters have experience working across various recruiting disciplines in multiple geographies. While your existing recruiting department may be limited in their experience, RPO recruiters are trained to embody a wealth of best practices and learned strategies.

Whether you're new to RPO or you've implemented a program in the past, RPO provider programs have evolved significantly over the past decade. For many organizations, the appeal beyond cost-savings is the flexibility and process-minded focus that RPO providers deliver. 

This blog was written by Richard Dunn. Richard has 16 years of experience in corporate staffing, recruitment process outsourcing and retained search environments. Richard graduated from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania with a degree in International Business.