Recruitment Process Outsourcing is defined as a form of business process outsourcing where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service provider. A good RPO provider can either operate with its own staff or may assume the company’s staff. But in both cases, it differs significantly from regular recruitment companies in that they assume ownership of the whole recruitment process and the responsibility of results.

They say that "The war for talent has become the war for skills". As many organisations are struggling to find and retain good, skilled workers the need to recruit incentivise and retain high quality talent couldn’t be more essential to companies than it is today.

In the past, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) was considered to be an all-encompassing process. However today, it is increasingly used by many companies to supplement existing internal recruiting processes in one or more areas. It’s a critical tool in the war for finding and retaining the best talent.

If a company is considering such a program, it doesn’t have to be for the whole organisation, project-based engagements that help in specific technical areas or geographic locations are becoming increasingly popular.

If you are considering such a program, here are four important benefits that highlight how Recruitment Process Outsourcing can be effectively used today:

Focus – Many HR departments have generalists and recruiters who span the company and recruit for any open position. RPO engagements can be focused in specific areas, including rare-skilled areas or high-volume areas, they can bring a focused, concerted effort in the areas where they are needed the most.

Accountability – A good RPO program should include service level agreements or metrics that measure the effectiveness of the program. Whilst an internal recruiting program may have reporting, an external provider can be held to specific standards that help ensure you are getting what you pay for.

Expertise – Many outsourced providers have experience recruiting in specific hard to fill skill areas or industries. You are taking of advantage of their knowledge and increasing your reach into specific talent communities.

Resources – With so many different sourcing and recruiting tools, including social media and online services, it can be confusing and difficult to assess which tools to use. A good provider can bring experience with a variety of tools or work with your existing resources to maximise your investments or help expand your recruiting tool set.

Branding - Using an external agency in this way has multiple advantages to your own brand image. It focuses not just on the process of sourcing the best talent, but the very same process that attracts that talent is the often the first time potential recruits experience the recruiting company. This experience has to be positive if high levels of retention are to be achieved. Good RPO providers bring all of their expertise in this area under your brand, giving the best of both worlds.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing is one of the best tools available for companies to cost-effectively focus on finding great talent today that will be with them for the future