What Is The Difference Between RPO And BPO?
Updated: Apr 25, 2022
Hiring managers and business executives are always saddled with the task of optimizing the talent acquisition and hiring process to help their organizations achieve more flexibility and competitive advantage. This has made many organizations embrace outsourcing as a more attractive strategy for companies looking to achieve their business objectives.
With the popularity of outsourcing, terms like RPO, recruitment process outsourcing, and BPO, business process outsourcing, have also become more popular, and are now often used interchangeably. So, what is RPO in recruitment? How does RPO work and how does it relate to workforce planning? What is the difference between RPO and BPO? We’ll beam the spotlight on these and similar questions in this article.
What Is an RPO? - Recruitment Process Outsourcing
RPO, recruitment process outsourcing, is the business practice of outsourcing partial or full responsibility of a company’s recruiting and hiring-related needs to an external specialist.
In some sense, the RPO is a type of business process outsourcing, BPO, considering BPO itself has to do with outsourcing specific functions and services of a business to a third-party provider. However, the evolution of today’s current employment market means that recruitment process outsourcing RPO providers, as well as their RPO solutions, now have core benefits and objectives that are slightly different from BPO’s.
Types of RPO services
There are four common recruitment outsourcing RPO models, classified based on the nature of RPO services included in each of the different RPO engagements. These include:
On Demand RPO: Best for organizations in constant flux with volatile hiring needs. RPO models like this help manage spikes and rapid changes in hiring needs.
Project RPO: Project RPO providers are usually needed for specific business initiatives, contracts, launches, and similar business objectives where project RPO solutions might be needed for a specific project with a plan to continue with internal recruiters after the completion of such projects.
Hybrid RPO Models: This RPO model blends both RPO and MSP, managed service provider needs to manage both permanent recruitment needs as well as the entirety of the contingent workforce.
Enterprise/Full-Service RPO: Full-service RPO providers offer end to end RPO solutions from candidate sourcing to screening, interviews, employer branding, assessments, and more.
With the right RPO solution, businesses can easily access and deploy scalable RPO services based on their specific recruiting needs.
How does RPO work?
(Core goals & benefits of RPO solutions)
Recruitment process outsourcing RPO providers work as an extension of your organization.
This third-party provider helps extend your company’s recruiting capabilities by streamlining your recruiting processes and leveraging best-in-class recruitment technology to help your organization access a full spectrum of its recruiting needs while increasing the recruiting effectiveness of the hiring processes of your talent acquisition team.
An RPO service provider recruitment process outsourcing solution provides value added services that can be tailored to handle anything from candidate sourcing to candidate screening, interviews, management compliance, employer branding, onboarding, or even entire recruitment processes. Along with core cost savings advantage, recruitment process outsourcing RPO programs provide the organization a strategic partnership that optimizes the recruiting process;
Achieve greater flexibility and competitive advantage in a tight labor market
Find the right talent/qualified candidates quickly in a shorter time to hire
Improve candidate engagement, candidate experience, and employer branding
Attract a higher candidate quality that is often recruited in a more cost effective solution
Access modern recruitment technology implementation such as AI and machine learning, among others that are often out of reach for the average organization.
Access talent analytics and leverage real-time reporting to improve recruiting processes and make informed business decisions.
Manage the recruitment process to boost talent pipelines targeting top talent deploying scalable teams while helping the talent acquisition function avoid being overly overstretched.
No matter whether it is an end-to-end solution, a specific project, permanent recruitment, temporary hiring, a team of recruiters working off-site, onsite, or in a hybrid model, the client can achieve a tailored RPO journey for hiring. This is achieved by the RPO provider becoming an extension of their employer brand allowing them to identify talent quickly and fill their open positions to hire the best talent.