Offering customized options, RPO will drive the next hiring lifecycle.
BY Jamie Minier
As economists debate the duration of the downturn, forward thinking recruiting and staffing executives are planning for a future upturn in hiring demand. With many companies now facing critical shortages in their talent acquisition departments, a silver lining might emerge. As the next generation of recruitment strategies comes to the forefront, many successful tactics and recruiting departments of the past are becoming ineffective or obsolete. Never before has there been a better opportunity for HR executives to explore the new opportunities driving tomorrow’s best practices as they plan to rebuild.
Between economic hardships, technology advancements, and a new generation joining the workforce, a recruitment renaissance is on the horizon. But while many companies understand why the wheel is turning, the real question is how to prepare? Today’s best-in-class organizations are turning to recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to support their hiring lifecycle. With a wide variety of customized options and solutions, RPO is driving the future of recruitment.
Pre-recession, many organizations housed large teams of in-house recruiters and hiring managers to manage their talent acquisition needs, but once the global economy went down, they were faced with a strategic business decision to cut resources. Now, as the economy scales up, the decision to re-hire internal staff has become complex and difficult to manage.
With increased emphasis on sourcing and recruiting the best talent, the daily challenges of talent acquisition continue to intensify. Heightened by reduced internal recruiting resources, the value of an RPO partnership becomes clear. Offering true expertise in talent acquisition solutions, RPO partnerships ensure that companies stay competitive by managing the hiring process, creating innovative recruiting strategies, and helping to reduce cost and boost quality of hire. With resources solely dedicated to understanding hiring trends, RPO allows clients to focus on more strategic tasks. In addition, RPO provides on-demand scalability that flexes with hiring demands without committing to a significant internal investment.
The following illustrates some of the most popular RPO models of the future. Companies that wish to test the waters in a low-risk fashion may find success engaging any of these models in a pilot. Most pilots have the option of extending the contract to a long-term solution if both parties are satisfied.
Overflow models. Growing in popularity due to their cost-saving and instantaneous nature, overflow models tap into outsourced resources during peak demands or for hard-to-fill positions, allowing companies to maintain an on-going talent acquisition program without fixed resources.
Project models. Engaging RPO on a project basis is a great solution for companies with short-term needs like a targeted, one-time hiring blitz, or an unexpected surge of activity. Since project models are temporary, they can be implemented quickly with a scalable team, saving companies time and money while also ensuring quality.
Front-end sourcing models. Combining strategic sourcing services with the latest recruitment technology, front end sourcing models target the portion of the hiring process that requires a high level of transactional work. These models typically take over administrative tasks such as sourcing, mining, recruiting, requisition creation, intake and management, scheduling, screening, and phone interviewing. Scaling up and down with the rapid ebb and flow of hiring demand, front-end sourcing optimization models are ideal for organizations looking to drive efficiency and a robust pipeline of candidates without the fixed overhead internal cost.
End-to-end models. From requisition creation through on-boarding, end-to-end models take on the entire hiring lifecycle, creating a consistent and streamlined process from start to finish. Using cutting-edge technology and dedicated experts branded as the client, these customized solutions offer clients the experience, metrics, and tools needed to run a world-class hiring model. End-to-end engagements also have the ability to manage all vendors, provide robust analytics, and take on administrative tasks such as recruiting, requisition creation, screening, phone interviewing, testing, event planning, reporting, and more. Typically, these engagements hold multi-year contracts to enable long-term improvement, as well as increased efficiencies and cost savings. HRO
Jamie Minier is president of recruitment process outsourcing firm, TheRightThing.
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