Everyone has the right to be skeptical when it comes to choosing a specific product or service. Especially if it’s one that many believe HR executives and hiring managers are capable of handling. However, smart organisations and HRs understand that there are many benefits to using the help of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) agencies that their competition miss out on.
In this blog, we discuss some of the main benefits of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO):
1. Advice from top industry experts
Sure, hiring managers and HR executives are generally capable of finding the right hire for the job. But when it comes to hiring specialised positions that involve certifications and understanding skill sets, it’s always better to pick the brains of industry experts with the latest know-how. Hiring for roles such as cybersecurity, finance, insurance, and even common technology roles such as software development can be tough for hiring managers and HR generalists to source.
With the recruitment process outsourcing, your company will be exposed to a list of active and passive talents in their niche. Additionally, a recruitment agency will pool only the best talents for you to consider.
2. Reduced time to hire
This depends greatly on the recruitment agency that you engage with. However, most recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers will give their clients an outline of their timeline to hire candidates.
Unlike internal hiring managers though, most recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers have a consistently updated database with talents in numerous niche industries (e.g. finance, insurance, technology, healthcare) who are open to suitable work opportunities. That means that most specialised recruitment agencies have their list of talents for you to pick from at your time of the request, which greatly reduces your time to hire.
3. Better talents to choose from
In addition to reduced time to hire, recruitment process outsourcing agencies have had years to build up their portfolio and quality of talent. This is very beneficial especially when trying to hire for talent-starved industries such as tech and cyber security.
For example, in the cyber security and tech sectors, most candidates can be termed as “passive job seekers”. They have no lack of recruiters trying on their trail. Passive job seekers are candidates who aren’t always willing to hear out a recruiter who has just reached out to them. Passive job seekers also refer to talents who are not willing to leave their workplace just yet. In the tech field, projects are long-term and longevity will allow them to finetune their skill set even more. In other words, these talents are not always ready or willing to entertain phone calls from recruiters.
Fortunately, some recruitment outsourcing agencies have spent time keeping in close connection with these talents by keeping up to date with their latest projects. This makes it easier for recruiters in these agencies to track when these passive job seekers are ready to become active candidates for you.
Pro-Tip: These recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) agencies are also equipped to find you, diverse candidates. Whilst having a diverse team might not be your top priority right now, there are many benefits to having a more diversified workplace. Some of the many benefits include lower employee turnover rates, more engaged employees, as well as varying opinions.
4. Minimize your organisation’s need to advertise
One major downside to internal hiring is the need to advertise constantly. If you are thinking of putting out a job ad to “fish” out the right talent at the right time? You are probably going to take a long while to find your perfect candidate. Job advertising does not come cheap and advertising on multiple job portals in Hong Kong can add up to your sourcing costs. To get around these additional costs, consider engaging a recruitment process outsourcing provider to take on this cost for you.
When a company outsources the task of delivering the right candidate to a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider the advertising cost portion is reduced to zero. Thanks to these specialised agencies, you won’t need to spend hundreds of dollars to have access to talents on some of Hong Kong’s most popular job portals.
5. Permanent recruitment
Let’s be honest, candidates are a flaky bunch. One month your organisation may have the ideal set of employees in your dream team. Next month, you’re on the lookout to fill three empty roles.
Recruitment process outsourcing agencies source for candidates based on their client’s needs. As a result, there is often a clause that an employee will need to sign, with the former to deter the employee from flaking out way before their term is up.
Alternatively, when an employee sourced by an RPO agency in Hong Kong leaves, agencies are often contracted to find a replacement within a stipulated time frame. Depending on the recruitment agency, there could also be some sort of refund system, if a replacement candidate cannot be sourced. This promise provides organisations with some form of guarantee against flaky candidates and employees.
6. More time for important tasks
By outsourcing the preliminary stages of recruitment to a third party, it gives the human resources team time to concentrate on other pressing matters. This might include measuring employee performance, working on business succession plans for emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the nation amongst others.
7. Benefit from the latest recruitment and hr technology
If there’s one thing that internal recruiters are missing out on, it is access to the latest recruitment and hr technology. A tight budget could be one of the many reasons why.
Recruitment outsourcing is often the core competency of a recruitment process outsourcing agency. That said, many agencies are willing to invest in developing or utilising some of the top recruitment and hr technology available out in the market.
In fact, some agencies such as BGC Group may develop their own in-house recruitment or hr technology (i.e.. Workforce management systems such as BGC Group’s WECARE™ portal) to pit themselves against other market leaders.
8. Agility
To a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) agency, time is money. Unfortunately, most hr teams are bogged down with other daily and more pressing responsibilities that can cause them to lose great talent.
Which is why most recruitment agencies tend to “move” quickly. For recruitment agencies, moving quickly is the key to successful talent acquisition. Why would anyone want to miss out on that?
