Although the March BLS Unemployment Report found the lowest unemployment rate in two years, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. Many companies are looking for specific skill sets when bringing on new employees, and many potential candidates might not fit the bill.
This means that the role of a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) partner is even more important in meeting a client's needs. And to ensure that recruiters are able to identify and place the best candidates for the business, proper training must be conducted. In fact, RPO companies get involved with the training of their recruiters at two levels -- both internally and externally.
Currently, the RPO business is extremely competitive, and as a result, hiring companies are holding their RPO partners accountable for ensuring employees are provided with continuous education in their craft. Internally, recruiters work to support an RPO engagement by understanding the latest and greatest tools and techniques. Traditionally, the RPO provider trains their own recruiters. However, in many cases it can be a collaborative effort with the client and their team.
While recruiters still use the staple of job boards, cold calling from sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn are becoming increasingly popular. As such, formalized training is available for sites such as Monster and similar job boards, and for understanding how sites like LinkedIn and Twitter can result in finding qualified candidates. We are finding recruiters with specialized training on specific skills -- such as unique sourcing, deep dive Internet search, and other techniques -- share these continuously with internal teams.
Becoming a trusted advisor and partner is imperative for success. It's essential for the RPO provider and client to work together to ensure that recruiters have an understanding of company history, culture, and current business requirements when working to fill requisitions.
Providing recruiters with the proper training for company culture, sourcing, cold calling, and deep sourcing techniques will let the recruiter find more qualified candidates in less time. This then lets the RPO recruiter identify a more qualified pipeline of talent for the customer. As recruiters become more experienced, they will be able to provide candidates in a shorter period, developing transferable skills across the business and meeting their clients' staffing needs.