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RPO and RPO models: what’s your first thought when you hear these terms?
That was the question we asked a number of CEOs, HR Directors, Hiring managers, and recruiters, as well as Business Partners at client and non-client companies. Guess what? The answers were as diverse as the people we interviewed. So, here at Serendi, we have decided to draft the ultimate guide on RPO for you to use as a reference and, more importantly, a useful tool that gives a wide perspective on what is possible in the RPO world.
Through our interviews, we realized that it wasn’t the idea of outsourcing recruitment that created differences in responses - it was the how. The real variation is in the different delivery models of RPO and the degree to which they can be customized.
But before we delve into the subject, here is a quick reminder of what RPO stands for:
Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing where a company engages a third-party provider to manage the entire recruitment process or just a part of it.
The RPO provider is responsible for filling the open positions at its client organization within a given qualitative and time frame. Most providers’ offerings include offsite service centers, often in different countries and regions, with local language and cultural knowledge and onsite recruitment specialists well-versed in talent analytics, recruitment technologies, and innovative sourcing to win the right talent at the right time.
And a final distinction: in the early days of RPO services, traditional search & selection recruitment firms were the main providers. With the increased sophistication of the RPO market, so-called pure players have now conquered the vast majority of the RPO business. These companies, that are not attached to a traditional recruitment firm but have RPO in their DNA, bring one major advantage: avoiding the inherent conflict of interest that used to exist. |
Basic RPO Delivery Models
Now that we have an overarching definition of what RPO stands for, let’s look at some concrete models of outsourcing the recruitment process. Three basic models exist:
RPO Model 1: End-to-end RPO
End-to-end RPO is literally the full package, the A-to-Z outsourcing of all possible recruitment functions and steps, including:
Preparation
Advising on job descriptions
Position approval
Preparing and planning
Managing the hiring manager and candidate experience
Sourcing candidates
Executing recruitment marketing activities (candidate attraction)
Reviewing resumes
Candidate screening
Interview scheduling
Interviewing for open positions
Candidate assessments
Hiring
Negotiating salary and benefits
Extending job offers
Hiring, including managing contracts
Post-hiring
Onboarding
Conducting reporting and data analytics
Compliance monitoring
This model spans the whole recruitment lifecycle (from position approval to its marketing; candidate selection, assessment, and interviewing; offer management and total or partial onboarding). Consequently, the RPO consultants master the tactical day-to-day recruitment challenges, starting with managing and administrating workforce planning and requisitions and including direct contact with the hiring managers.
In this recruitment model, the embedding into the client’s HR team is such that the RPO consultants share office space with their client “colleagues” and are fully integrated and assimilated into the client’s HR function. As such, they are part of the client company and have company email addresses - most of the non-HR employees do not even know they are not internal recruiters. For all intents and purposes, the recruitment team just happens to be on the payroll of an external partner. This means that a large part of the success of this model is dependent on the healthy integration of third-party consultants into the internal recruitment process.
Evidently, for such a set-up to be viable from a financial and organizational perspective, the contract between the RPO provider should span over a few years.
One of the most significant and often overlooked advantages of this RPO model is that the client company benefits from the talent pool (most importantly – a passive talent pool), intelligence, talent sourcing, proven hiring strategies, and recruitment marketing capabilities of the RPO provider. The provider has, as in the case of Serendi, considerable recruitment resources, multiple offices, and geographically diverse, which enables it to be close to talent pools.
As an example, IT specialists are hard to source in Western Europe but plentiful in Central and Eastern European countries. But if you are located in London, how do you go about approaching them in Belgrade, Sofia, or Prague? That’s where the regional offices and market knowledge of your RPO provider come into play: they are at home almost everywhere!
One of the benefits of recruitment process outsourcing is global reach. Clients can rely on offshore sourcing specialists who are constantly scanning the market to attract and engage the right candidates for open positions. The client also benefits from digital talent sourcing, talent communities, improved hiring metrics, and recruitment under its brand name, including best recruitment practices and regular reporting. The cost of this set-up is shared by the other clients of the RPO provider.
RPO Model 2: Talent Sourcing
This recruitment process outsourcing model (also called shortlisting) covers the first part of the recruitment process. Talent sourcing solutions help organizations identify and attract the right candidates efficiently. By leveraging data-driven insights and strategic sourcing techniques, they enable companies to access top talent from the most relevant talent pools.
It is mainly used by organizations with an HRBP[1] structure (including the talent acquisition responsibility for the HRBPs), or used by smaller organizations and fast-growing start-ups with an HR generalist function.
The external talent acquisition partner - the RPO provider - takes care of the external positions for which it sources, screens, and qualifies candidates with a pre-assessment, generally a telephone or video interview. It then delivers a shortlist of the most suitable candidates.
The next step is the client’s: the internal team uses the qualified shortlist to go straight into the selection process with its hiring managers.
This RPO delivery model is particularly useful for companies experiencing:
High demand for skilled talent and the need for a more agile recruitment process.
The necessity for advanced candidate sourcing tools to improve engagement with top-tier candidates.
Overwhelming volume of hires that exceed the internal recruitment team’s capacity.
A focus on enhancing the candidate experience by improving attraction strategies and engagement.
As an alternative or add-on, the RPO partner can support recruitment administration such as, but not limited to, the coordination of interviews, communication with candidates, etc.
RPO Model 3: Project Recruitment
With the emphasis on a project, this RPO model is characterized by a beginning, a middle, and, first and foremost, an end, as with any project. Therefore, project recruitment is ideally suited in situations such as: hiring for a new production site, launching a new business unit, spinning off a business activity, or relocating an existing business.
Project recruitment also comes into play in certain ramp-up situations. Project recruitment model is particularly useful when your business keeps on changing, which today is a given, and you need the same flexibility in your talent acquisition department. Project recruitment allows for this additional support just when and where a business needs it.
Using a restaurant analogy, you may either order a set menu, with or without a few changes or eat à la carte altogether and build your meal according to your taste and envy. Pursuing the analogy even further, you can also order wine pairing, i.e., associating the right wine with whatever you have ordered, which, translated into RPO language, means adding the right service when and where you need or want it. |
In this case, the external partner gets involved when the project starts – or shortly before – and leaves at the end of the project. The intensity of the collaboration is dependent on the existing structure at the client’s: in other words, one can imagine an end-to-end RPO activity, limited in time, or only a partial takeover of specific recruitment activities, depending on the situation and the client’s needs, internal recruitment capability, market knowledge, etc.
You may need to deliver on a very niche requirement. For example, recruitment statistics show that 69% of HR leaders find AI-skilled roles harder to fill than other tech positions. You may be struggling to fill a big number of key roles, but the requirements are so unique that the job requisitions remain open longer than it should. Project RPO could help find the required talent, and ensure that the entire process runs effectively for everyone concerned.
In a way, project RPO lets you test-drive a full-scale RPO solution. It gives you a sense of what it’s like to design, implement, and deliver RPO. |
Hybrid RPO Models
In addition to the three basic models, hybrid RPO models are current too. Here, you can mix-and-match a bit of everything.
Below are a few examples of what these additional services may look like, keeping in mind that full recruitment process customization is possible.
Temporary Recruitment Projects
Do you need to ramp up a business project, staff a new green-field production site, or run a dedicated recruitment campaign? The RPO provider offers a range of support modules to add capacity to your recruitment teams on a temporary basis.
Partial Recruitment Support
Do you want to keep the larger piece of your recruitment process with your in-house team, but need support during specific recruitment steps? The RPO provider supports your organization during certain stages of the talent acquisition process, such as application management, interview scheduling, and background checks.
Shortlisting Solution
Wish to keep recruitment in-house while continuously receiving the best-qualified candidates for your open positions? RPO service providers offer talent sourcing services to identify the best talent for your external positions and create a talent pipeline - while you control the candidate selection part. This recruitment process service includes active candidate screening, approaching passive candidates, and building talent communities as we go.
Advantages of Collaborating with Serendi
By putting the candidate attraction and handling into our hands, your in-house HR and line managers can focus on the candidate selection and assessment part. They know that talent sourcing, recruitment marketing, and talent targeting are in the hands of Serendi's sourcing experts.
RPO Models: Conclusion
Recruitment outsourcing is a strategic partnership. The right RPO solution can transform your recruiting operations, optimize efficiency, lower recruitment costs, improve quality and hiring speed, and drive a positive hiring manager and candidate experience that sets you apart as an employer.
The agility and flexibility an RPO solution brings to your (HR) organization is second to none. Serendi’s full life-cycle recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) model was designed to allow HR professionals to engage our expert talent acquisition team to execute the complete hiring process — from the second a job requisition is approved to sending over the offer letter and onboarding your ideal candidate.
When does RPO apply? |
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You haven't found the RPO model that fits your needs?
No problem! We are tailoring our talent acquisition solutions based on the client's needs.
Serendi is the integrated service partner for talent acquisition (RPO) in EMEA. We support companies and organizations with mid-size hiring volumes (100 – 1.000 per annum) with our highly customizable solutions, allowing them to play in the global competition for talent on the same level playing field as big corporates.
Our plug & play talent sourcing platform is at the top of digital and technological innovation enabling the identification and attraction of the best talent available and thus supports sustainable hires through customized onsite recruitment services at a reasonable cost, backed by high-performance KPIs.
Let’s explore RPO delivery models tailored to fit your company’s unique hiring needs.
Claus-Peter Sommer heads the Serendi Group as CEO. He has 20 years of experience in the recruitment business and more than 10 years in RPO services for multinational companies – in global and regional projects.
[1] Human Resources Business Partners