What is RPO and the benefits of outsourcing a recruitment process
Recruiting tips |

What is RPO and the benefits of outsourcing a recruitment process

Searching for resources, attracting and managing talent, and doing so in a fast if not timely, possibly cost-effective, but above all effective way, is one of the most important aspects for the HR function of a company, whatever its size. In order to meet this need, an acronym has been used to define RPO, which stands for Recruitment Process Outsourcing.

RPO refer to the process through which the activities of research and selection of direct employees within a company are outsourced, i.e. entrusted to employment agencies or other providers who, in synergy with the company, carry out the entire recruitment process. This process starts as soon as new positions are identified within the company. A process that, without an RPO, would have been or should be managed by the company in all its phases.

SUMMARY

What an RPO does

Relying on an RPO, therefore, may mean outsourcing the entire process or just some phases of the recruitment process.
In fact, the RPO’s activities may concern:

  • the definition of the job description to identify the hard and soft skills a candidate should have (requisition);
  • sector analysis and identification of recruitment channels to reach potential candidates and attract them to the company and the position sought (talent attraction and sourcing);
  • identifying the candidates most in line with the profile sought, analysing their skills, motivation, but also their expectations and potential (screening). In this phase, the management of relations with candidates is equally important: one of the most common mistakes in the recruitment process is the lack of feedback from the company;
  • identification of the shortlist of candidates who will then be selected in synergy with the company or by the company itself (selection);
  • job offer and insertion of the candidate into the company context. Last but not least, the last phase of the process. Managing onboarding means setting up training and induction activities within the team that have to be carried out with a new employee so that he/she can be fully operational.

It is, in any case, a modus operandi that for the company means one thing above all: to be able to focus more and more on its core business and at the same time implement strategic activities that can propel it further forward.

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Outsourcing the recruiting process: the advantages

But the advantages of outsourcing a recruitment process are many others.
For example, with an RPO you can:

  • reduce the time to hire, the time it takes to fill positions, speeding up the whole process. And considering that, as Glassdoor says, Italy has an average of 36 days to complete the whole process, compared to 27.5 in the UK, this is a significant factor;
  • consequently to increase the so-called fill rate, i.e. the coverage rate of positions;
  • reduce the cost per filled position (cost to hire);
  • improve the quality and efficiency of the process by identifying, in a clearer and more objective way, measurable KPIs (where KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator);
  • identify a wider network of potential candidates;
  • ensure that there is greater alignment between talent strategy and business strategy;
  • increase employer branding but also corporate reputation;
  • free up energy and resources that are invested in operational activities and, as mentioned above, focus on more strategic activities.
rpo benefits

ATS and RPO: why they improve the whole process

In all of this, the added value can be in relying on an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to make the entire RPO process perform better in terms of both customer outcomes and KPI achievement.

An ATS, such as Inrecruiting, allows for a smoother collaboration between company and client during the outsourcing of all or some of the phases of the recruitment process.
Moreover, ATS software, which is free and adaptable according to the needs of the company and, above all, to the type of search being carried out, makes it possible to optimise the entire process and to avoid ‘doing as we have always done’, perhaps not achieving all the results we hoped for.
Also because, as we know, finding the best resources to insert in an already structured work context is anything but easy.

Let’s take a closer look at how an ATS can improve outsourcing.

Facilitating collaboration between agency and company

ATS software in an RPO process enables collaborative management at every stage, thanks to the fact that it is a ready-to-use and intuitive tool that can be integrated with third-party software and, last but not least, is GDPR compliant as of 25 May 2018.

A guarantee for data management and processing for both the company and the candidates. ATS software is also scalable, i.e. it can be adapted from time to time according to the needs of clients in terms of search volumes and more. It is therefore highly customisable.

Finding the best candidates in the shortest possible time

What is a recruiter’s problem? If you are a recruiter, you will certainly say “Time”. Often companies are clear about the position they want to fill, but not about how much time and attention the selection process requires.
With an ATS designed specifically for the RPO you can, for example, create a career page that is integrated with the client’s website. And this is an aspect that is far from negligible: it often happens that an ad is present on LinkedIn and not on the company’s website, which, in the eyes of the candidate, can perhaps generate doubts about whether the position is actually sought after.
In terms of communication, having an ad on certain channels and also on the “work with us” page gives the idea of greater consistency on the part of the company and therefore an extra piece to build or improve the corporate reputation.

Some other important features of an ATS for RPO are automatic CV screening, multiposting of job advertisements on different channels, shared scorecards. These activities not only reduce time-consuming but also allow the company to be more aware and involved in the selection process.

Automating the workflow

ATS software also allows the workflow to be automated. As mentioned above, one of the aspects of ATS is flexibility, which means that the various selection steps can be carried out according to the desired workflow.

To give an example: with an ATS you can better manage rejections from candidates, an aspect which is very often neglected or even bypassed, but which is a fundamental part of the whole selection process. With an ATS it is therefore possible to match the reason for rejection to the update of the candidate’s file. This makes it possible to improve the database and subsequently to analyse why the candidate rejected the offer, again optimising the whole selection process.

In addition to rejections, thanks to the ATS and a library dedicated to communication with the candidate, it is possible to constantly update the candidate on the basis of the selection process. For example, you can give feedback on the application, an update on the selection process and so on. These are all actions that allow greater loyalty to the company and corporate branding.

In the automation process it is possible, for example, to include pre-screening questions, which help enormously when there are high volumes of recruitment requests. A question asked before the CV screening allows you to filter out candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements for the role you are looking for.

Constantly monitor the selection process

Last but not least, since in an RPO project control is fundamental, relying on an ATS allows you to constantly monitor the most important metrics of the process (time to hire, cost to hire, etc.), to analyse them at every stage and to create reports that allow both the RPO provider and the company to understand how the selection is performing and if it is going in the desired direction.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see how for both a company and an RPO provider, relying on ATS software makes it easier and more profitable to achieve results.

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