Because needs vary, solutions must vary, while always being characterized by a set of common denominators. Some of the characteristics that distinguish our services are:

Reduction in overall recruitment costs
High-volume and high-quality resume flow
Improved quality of service delivery
Standardization of internal and external best practices
Improved compliance with diversity goals
Enhanced reporting for better decision making
Retention of strategic role of HR
Ability to accelerate organizational change
Improved stakeholder satisfaction and productivity, including senior management, Human Resources function, hiring managers, and applicants

Keeping your hands on the wheel with Hybrid RPO

As the RPO industry matures and begins to consolidate the fact remains one size really does not fit all. Each service provider has its own unique strengths and weaknesses with the largest providers rebranding themselves as full service delivery organizations.

Who is steering the ship, you or the RPO?

As you search for online RPO literature and companies you will find a number of full service RPO organizations that emphasize end to end service delivery. These companies have been commonly referred to as Tier One service providers basically reflecting the large number of annual hires they can provide to an organization.

As an example let’s assume you are a large national property management company with extremely high turnover rates and you have an on going need to hire thousands of lower paid groundskeepers and service technicians in multiple locations across the company. A Tier One provider may be the right type of RPO delivery organization for you, because they typically will have a large number of clerical personnel in retail staffing outlets across the country or the world that can accomplish high volume staffing requirements with competitive volume pricing.

One thing you may not read about the full-service providers – and even medium sized providers with agency roots -- is the fixed term binding contracts from 2-to-5 years you may be offered on the back end of your negotiations. There will also be lengthy implementation cycles as well as the wholesale replacement of your informed and experienced corporate recruiting staff. You will then have to make way for a completely new group of outsourcers that will be on a steep learning curve with regards to your company’s processes, requirements and culture.

What are the risks of this all or nothing approach? How will the wholesale departure of your trained and qualified team members impact your relations with your strategic internal management clients? How will your VP of Sales feel about involuntarily losing his or her trusted and informed senior recruiters for an unknown? What are the risks to your organization and your career as owner of the RPO vendor relationship? As you analyze your vendors and get to the short list, be sure you have a very thorough understanding of the contractual terms and conditions that you will be expected to meet on your new engagement.

Even many of the medium sized providers are prone to imposing restrictive terms and conditions on their clients, and are also reluctant to partner with members of your internal recruiting departments. Like an agency that will often seek a direct line to the hiring manager and sponsoring VP - bypassing all HR and recruitment function involvement - these providers typically have their own agenda. In their view they know what is best for you, and the provider is always right and they do this all for a hefty price as well.

Flexibility of the Hybrid RPO

As you continue your search a third group of RPO organizations will soon come into view. This group realizes the importance of flexible client partnerships while emphasizing the importance of retaining key corporate recruiters (your trusted business advisors), fluid on-demand delivery options, and scalability (up or down) allowing you to know your fixed or variable costs.

So instead of starting with a new group of eager outsourcers that will be phased in over a typically long implementation cycle, this group of Hybrid RPO providers prefers to establish an evolutionary partnership that will escalate the operational synergies between your retained internal business advisors and the new outsourced support teams. Your client VP retains his trusted business advisor that he has developed a trusting and working relationship with over the years, but in the “engine room” of your recruiting department a new “crew” will be stoking the boiler to power your “ship” to its destination.

“Hybrid RPO is quickly gaining popularity because it is seamless, easy to implement, completely scalable in either direction, cost effective and risk free”
Miguel Terrizzano, CEO Pierpoint International

Let’s say you are a global designer of the latest generation of mobile phones and PDA´s and you require a combination of financial project managers, a mixed basket of radio frequency, test, mechanical, and optical electronics engineers - you might consider partnering with one of the more flexible Hybrid RPO providers that are experienced in sourcing and screening for your particular types of human capital requirements.

Under this Hybrid RPO model you would not have to layoff your entire recruitment team. Instead you could carefully select and retain your key senior recruiters who have a depth of knowledge about your particular corporate culture as well as their hard-earned trusted business advisor status within the management teams in your various business units.

As experienced members of your internal recruitment team your proven and trusted business advisors are in a unique position to partner with your new Hybrid RPO by not only offloading the more tedious requirements of your recruiting functions such as passive sourcing, sifting and sorting through the large number of applicants, internal and external referrals, job board and corporate career site applications and perhaps even the process of conducting early stage selection testing. They could also do reference checking or even coordinating the background screening process from your own background company

Now that your senior recruiters no longer have to deal with all this administrivia they will have the time for higher value and more strategic activities. They will be able to focus on more workforce planning initiatives with their departmental or regional Vice President, as well as fine tuning their own talent acquisition delivery programs to meet the needs of staffing forecasts within your organization.

Most importantly, the senior recruiter will now be able to function as the manager and supervisor of the new team of outsourcers and coordinators that will be providing an on going qualified pipeline of candidates to meet the strategic requirements of their department.

A great example of how this works is probably already happening in your own legal department. Do they outsource their entire operation or do they retain a key legal team to manage contracts with a larger legal vendor who they can use for specialized legal expertise? Your in-house corporate lawyer probably wears two hats. They are the trusted business advisor to the management team, and the vendor liaison as well.

A recent confidential memo from one global firm lists the keys to success in its Hybrid RPO partnership:

The vendor does not compete with the internal recruitment team…they form a hierarchical partnership functioning as one team across organizational boundaries.
The internal recruiter serves as an officer on the “ship” and is responsible for coaching, mentoring, motivating the RPO “deckhands”.
The RPO “deckhands” remain invisible to the company’s management team who engage directly with the internal recruiters.
There is one candidate attraction strategy encompassing job boards, a corporate career site, all manner of passive sourcing by the vendor, employee referrals, email blasts and video advertisements.
Early stage applicant screening and qualification from all sources is handled by the “deckhands”, who also scour the company ATS to update potentially relevant candidates for open roles.
The screens are vetted by the internal recruiter and emailed to internal hiring managers for their review.
The candidate management and thanks-no thanks messaging is handled by the “deckhands”.
Standard searches are handled by the “deckhands”, and niche hard to fill or executive roles by the internal recruiter.
Extremely hard to fill roles are given to agencies for a fee between 20-30% of base salary yet should never represent more than 5% of overall hires.

Now that the internal recruitment “officer” is no longer vetting CVs, performing telephone screens and reference checks he or she has more free time to engage in meaningful value added activities on behalf of business management as you – the client – see fit.

Corporate Captain and RPO Deckhands

In this model all concerned parties are working together to get their “ship” to a common destination. All remain accountable to the internal client – not the vendor. A few trusted business partners manage the daily operational interface between the vendor and the firm’s business units. The RPO “deckhands” become a variable cost instead of fixed cost for the host organization, freeing headcount which can be now utilized in more strategic areas of the organization such as research and development or sales. Sixty percent of the fixed costs in your internal staffing organization are now applied to administrative tasks that are now handled outside your firm by variable cost resources. Keeping this process internal becomes an ineffective use of your staffing budget. Your senior corporate recruiters should be doing much more than just administering your talent acquisition program. They should actually be well on their way to being human capital consultants to your business units.

The one size fits all approach of the full-service RPO organizations may be perfect to manage the hiring of your receptionists, administrative assistants or plant workers for your multinational firm in the US, Canada, and the UK - perhaps even across Europe.

Your sales and marketing group will have different requirements. They will require a robust and qualified pool of experienced Channel, Enterprise and Public Sector Account Managers, and a team of System Engineers across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. And you will probably have a hard time finding many of these candidates on the job boards. You will need some experienced passive sourcing expertise to meet the demand for these positions. (at least 20 profiles per job requisition to obtain three interested and relevant candidates). It is highly unlikely that a staffing organization can deliver effectively on this requirement.

And how would this vendor be able to source candidates for you in Latin America or Eastern Europe? Do they have anyone on their staff that speaks Spanish, French, German, Dutch, or Russian? Do they have experience in these international zones and do they have a database populated with relevant candidates? These are just some of the operational complexities which make it very desirable to consider a multi-vendor Hybrid RPO approach.

So in the end, one size does not fit all. Certain providers may be suitable for administrative hiring, while others are adept at professional recruitment. Others are experienced in multilingual international recruitment while others are biased toward North American or North Atlantic recruitment in specific professions. And the costs savings are compelling when considering a Hybrid RPO engagement. You can cut 30 to 50% with a Hybrid RPO so the savings can have a true impact to your budget’s bottom line.

When you consider an operational change of this magnitude be very cautious when asked to give up your power to an outside vendor for extended contractual periods at hefty rates. Explore your options and consider the risks and rewards for your organization.