Frequently Asked Questions about RPO

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a service that allows organisations to outsource entire or parts of their recruitment process to an external provider. An RPO provider can source, select, screen, interview and onboard talent while the client can be as involved in the process as they wish or require. It’s important to mention that all hires are made for internal positions in the organisation. The RPO process is developed to suit the client’s needs as the RPO provider acts as an extension of an internal HR or TA team of the hiring organisation.

No, RPO acts as an extension of an existing team. In most cases, RPO takes over high-volume and time consuming tasks which frees up the time of the internal team that can focus on other duties.

RPO can be a long-term solution, which is especially attractive for businesses that experience fluctuations in their hiring needs. In such cases, the RPO team can be easily and quickly increased on decreased to match the recruitment requirements.

Project recruitment is short-term RPO solution that serves the purpose of supporting organisations that move through the period of growth. It is especially useful for those who require support only during peak hiring season or due to the international expansion. Project recruitment therefore is a common choice among companies that need to hire high number of employees with niche skills in a short space of time.

In other words, an RPO partnership can last from a couple of months to several years.

As  you now know, RPO services are highly flexible and often designed to meet the unique needs of each company. These are not simply off the shelf services, but bespoke solutions. As such, the pricing structure is slightly different to traditional, percentage based recruitment. RPO offers more cost efficient pricing models: resource and performance-based. 

A Resource Based Pricing Model operates based on an agreed fee and  includes a defined team of recruiters and specialists who are measured against a predetermined Service Level Agreement. Whilst this is often a highly cost effective approach, it should be noted that under this model elements such as structure, processes, tools or headcount can only be amended through a formal change to the original contract.

Performance Based Pricing Model on the other hand, offers significantly more flexibility as it’s designed in a way that allows to address any fluctuations in the hiring volumes. 

There are several different pricing options that depend on the organisations specific needs and on the type of support required. If you’d like to know more, fill in this form to request a free consultation and a quote.

In traditional recruitment model, a client works with an agency to fill a single or several different vacancies. The agency plays only one role here: to find you candidates that will help you fill your job(s). Once a candidate is successful, you are charged an agreed in advance fee. 

 On the other hand, an RPO provider can be involved in all or some of the recruitment activities from the candidate attraction to onboarding. RPO partner is concerned with your employer branding and candidate experience. The entire recruitment process is built with the candidate in mind. RPO is therefore more strategic partnership while tradition recruitment is more transactional.

Term RPO is often used as an umbrella phrase for several different types of recruitment outsourcing solutions. While all the solutions are flexible, there are certain elements that allow to distinguish different types and approaches:

RPO - also known as end-to-end RPO, is a full-circle or complete outsourced recruitment solution. Usually, it’s long-term and may consist of all elements of the recruitment process or only some of its parts. 

MSP - MSP is similar to RPO, however, it refers to temporary workers. If you’re looking to outsource hiring and management of your contractors, MSP could be the right choice. 

Project Recruitment -  aims at helping organisations to solve urgent or mission-critical hiring challenges. As such, it is usually a short term solution, fixed and focused on addressing a specific challenge or project. 

Graduate recruitment - is the transfer of the end-to-end recruitment for a graduate, intern or apprenticeship programme to an external provider.

Talent pooling -  The goal of the talent pool is to identify professionals who may not be ready to move to a new job or who you may not be ready to hire just yet, but who meet all of your potential hiring requirements and would be willing to work for your organisation in the future. The candidates entered into your talent pool that you can tap into when you’re ready. 

Finally, it’s worth noting that some companies might need a mixture of all or a few of the above solutions. In such cases, a bespoke service is designed based on an in-depth research and analysis.

Our solutions are not only bespoke but highly flexible. Majority of RPO providers offer fixed and rigid solutions. Our RPO programmes are adaptable and can be adjusted throughout the duration of the project. This is especially beneficial for the companies who have unique needs and are not looking for a standard solution.  

M3S has a global footprint with offices located on 4 continents and experience with remote delivery. Our innovative technologies allow us to source and recruit talent in and from the countries in which we don’t have a physical presence. We also have experience with setting up successful new hiring teams in remote locations for our clients.

We’re also proud to state that M3S has a 98% average delivery rate. This means that working with M3S can guarantee that all your hiring needs will be met on time.

There are different types of RPO solutions available including those that focus on recruiting only contract workers. What’s more, many of our solutions are designed for our clients to meet their unique needs. Requiring to hire different types of employees is a common need among companies right now. RPO can offer a centralised approach to hiring that brings together recruitment of permanent and contingent workforce. In fact, this provides a more user-friendly experience to hiring managers and internal stakeholders involved in the process as they always work with only one accountable partner.

The quick answer to this question is: it depends. The long answer? Cost-saving is one of the main benefits of RPO. The efficiency, the expertise, the pace of recruitment, improved processes, stronger employer brand, smoother and more positive candidate experience - all these contribute to higher ROI than an in-house team could generate. Yet, RPO is an external cost as opposed to a headcount budget and before it saves you money, it needs to be invested in. Engaging in RPO will, in the long run, generate hire return and lower your cost per hire and in that sense, it is cheaper than an in-house team. The RPO team can also be downsized at any time. That being said, setting up an in-house hiring team is cheaper than entering RPO partnership.

Majority of RPO providers will appoint an account or programme manager who acts as the main point of contact for the client. He/she is responsible, among other tasks, for monitoring data and delivering regular performance reports. If required, live tracking is also available. 

The choice of specific metrics that can be used to measure RPO performance depends on the client and their specific goals and objectives. Typically some of the metrics are related to cost per hire, time to hire, number of applications, the quality of candidate pool. Diversity of candidates, job views, job applications, source of hire and similar. 
In fact, the RPO projects depend on the data and the monitored metrics are used to adjust and optimize it throughout the process. Check out this blog post to learn more about measuring RPO performance.

MSP might be a way to go! Whereas RPO focuses on the recruitment process (usually, but by no means always, for permanent staff), MSP programmes offer a client end-to-end control and visibility over the non-permanent workforce. These can include temporary workers, contractors, consultants and freelancers engaged under a statement of work.

M3S is a part of Morgan McKinley group that has been operating in the recruitment market for over 30 years. RPO has been one of the services offered throughout this time, however, it was only a few years ago that we decided to launch it as a separate brand. 

Our people come from varied backgrounds, from leaders with numerous years of experience in the RPO world to young professionals specializing in sourcing or recruitment. Our company is our people.

The clients can be as much involved in the entire process as they wish. There is full transparency across the board and all hiring decisions are made by the client. In most cases, the RPO team sources and screens candidates while the face-to-face interviews are conducted by the client. The RPO team will arrange interviews and coordinate the communication with the candidate, whether it’s to negotiate the salary, make the offer or manage regrets.

According to research that we conducted, the main reasons why companies outsource their recruitment processes to third party providers are as follows:

• Because they don’t have access to the right candidates.
• Their internal HR team is small and doesn’t have a recruitment experience.
• The company is facing hiring needs that are beyond the capacity of the existing team.
• To reduce recruitment administration and support the existing HR team.
• To transform and improve the internal recruitment processes and build positive experience for the hiring managers and candidates.