Putting the client at the centre of the partnership

Recruitment process outsourcing is still in its infancy, especially outside the US. Vanessa Townsend discovers that the industry is evolving at an extremely fast pace - for both providers and clients alike.

In the early years of RPO in the UK, at the end of the 1990s, the compelling reasons for a firm opting to outsource its recruitment were cost and time efficiencies. Chris Herrmannsen, chief executive of talent management and recruitment firm Ochre House, told Recruiter: “Around 10 years ago, RPO was a more simplistic basic proposition. Customer expectations of RPO were low; clients weren’t very good at measuring what was going on in their recruitment processes.”

So has the RPO concept changed over the years, particularly during the past 18 months? The answer is a resounding yes.

Robert Leggett, managing director and founder of OmniRMS, says: “The model has moved from agencies to preferred suppliers to master vendors to managed service providers and finally to RPO. RPO has changed because of the marketplace constantly evolving due to technology and business practices.”

Richard Pearson, MD of ResourceBank, says that RPO is evolving rapidly, mainly because clients and candidates have new needs. “Technology is changing the way RPO is carried out. Clients and candidates both want speed, as well as better customer service, which have to be done throughout the recruitment process. The bar has been raised, and quite rightly.”

In common with all the RPO firms Recruiter spoke to, Herrmannsen emphasises the long-term partnership aspect of the latest RPO models. “Customers want a more holistic offering,” he explains. “They want their RPO partner to move from efficiencies to effectiveness; from quantity hires to quality hires. They are demanding better people, a better experience for candidates and eventually better employees.”

Ochre House is heavily involved in understanding what a high-powered staff member should look like in their client’s organisation, and so they carry out competencies, run talent programmes on behalf of a client and partner the client in long-term strategic resourcing needs.

Source: Recruiter

Posted by Recruiter