I recently read a piece on LinkedIn by a prominent figure in the Recruitment space, which predicted that RPOs, while feeling the pinch at the moment, would come back in an even stronger position than they were in pre-apocalyptic 2020…

I said at the time that I couldn’t agree with the opinion more and that RPOs have a chance to transform the way we and our partners work (more about how I think we can do that soon), but it got me thinking about why RPOs are so popular in the first place and why the results we produce for our clients are nothing short of astounding?

I managed to think of over 20 reasons why business should seriously consider RPO for their recruitment but settled on my Top 5 and wrote a bit about them.

This list is in no way exhaustive, and if anyone has more to add, or disagrees with anything I’ve written, I’d love to start a conversation about RPO.  Anyway, I can feel the excitement building to feverous levels here (hint of sarcasm) so without further ado, here are the 5 main benefits of using an RPO.

Recruitment is expensive! According to OnRec, businesses in the UK spent £38.9 billion (BILLION!!) with recruitment companies in the last year, OK that figure will shrink this year, but the fact remains that recruitment is very expensive. 56% of all the jobs in the UK were filled via an agency last year too, and if I were a betting man (I am) I’d have a flutter on everyone at some point using an agency to fill a job.

Agencies can be great, I’ve worked at a few and used some as a client too, but the bottom line is that it is costly, and there never seems to be a big budget for recruitment (which is insanity, but that’s another story). Using an RPO can significantly reduce the cost of your recruitment. Mainly because RPOs will charge less per hire because they have a much higher volume and exclusivity on your roles. Most RPOs will also cover any agency cost for you if they can’t fill one of your more difficult roles too.  In a recent project for a law firm, ResourceBank saved a client 40% against using the a traditional agency. I believe that If you pair the cost saving with the other benefits, RPO has a very strong case if anyone is looking at their TA strategy.

A good RPO partner will have a huge impact on your employer brand and EVP. Traditionally, recruitment agencies and in-house teams don’t have the time or expertise to really build this for you. That’s not to say they don’t appreciate or want to do it, it’s just that among all the other noise, this gets lost. RPOs will have people specifically employed to help you enhance your employer brand and candidate proposition. Being a magnet for candidates in today’s marketplace is so, so important. Not only will having a strong employer brand reduce turnover, the time and money it’ll save because candidates find YOU is invaluable

A good RPO will agree SLAs and objectives with you very early in your partnership and a quicker time to hire is one of any RPO's selling points. They absolutely need to deliver on a quicker time to hire.

A good RPO will deliver this in several ways; they should review your current recruitment process and suggest changes to make it quicker for you to hire the right people. They should also be constantly building and engaging a talent pipeline for your business, as an example, ResourceBank sets itself a target that 20% of all hires should come from our talent pipelines.  For key client Wolseley, ResourceBank has reduced the average time to hire from 100 days to 30 days.

This is tied into the last point and is of equal importance to your RPO partner.

Not only are there financial implications for hires that don’t work out, the credibility of both the RPO and the recruiter are on the line.  Losing the confidence of your hiring managers in an RPO environment can be a fatal blow. Your RPO partner should quickly understand your wider business culture, the type of person you need to hire and what works for you very quickly. They should be

focused on creating fresh assessment tools for you to hire against and they should be constantly adapting this based on the data they collect throughout working with you. Because of an RPO's rigorous selection and assessment methods, paired with working closely with your HR team, they’re able to directly impact on retention and quality of fresh talent coming into your business.

I know from experience that the recruitment process can differ from function to function, for example, an IT function I’ve worked with did two interviews, brought the candidate back for a test then made an offer. In the same building, a sales function brought candidates in for a 1-hour meeting with two people and offered from there. I’ve even experienced three different processes for the EXACT same job in three separate locations 20 miles apart! Needless to say, an RPO should be working constantly with you to refine and improve your recruitment process, and this should expand further into your onboarding process too.  The result should be a uniformed process across the business, that is more efficient and delivers exceptional talent quickly

As I’ve mentioned this list isn’t exhaustive. I could have carried on until Christmas.  But for me, these are the top 5 benefits of using an RPO. I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks, difference of opinion is what makes us who we are after all!

If you haven’t considered RPO as a solution, I really think you might have missed a trick.  But if you want a more detailed conversation about how it might be a solution for your business, please just drop us a line.  We don’t want to sell to you, we want to work together to solve your problems.

You can call me on 07540 902 259 or email me at gareth.jones@resourcebank.co.uk

Over and out

Gareth Jones