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What You Need To Know About RPO Fees & Pricing


RPO Payments & Fees

Recruitment process outsourcing remains one of the best opportunities for businesses large and small to access scalable growth regardless of their hiring needs.


Maybe you’re attracted to RPO because of the need to single out the right talent in a fiercely competitive job market. Perhaps the decision was born out of your concern about the long time to hire and the need to decrease your ever-growing hiring costs. But then, how much would RPO cost your business? Today, we discuss pricing!


In this post, we’ll dive deep into the actual costs of recruitment process outsourcing services. We’ll also shine the light on the different RPO pricing models. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get an idea of how much your business can budget for good RPO services.

What is an RPO payment?


RPO payment is as self-explanatory as it gets. It is the financial cost or payment an RPO company receives for the provision of recruitment services for a particular business client.

A lot of factors tend to influence the costs of RPO services.


Due to this, RPO pricing is usually a very murky subject. Naturally, however, your RPO cost will depend on the services provided in the RPO contract.

How Much Does RPO Cost: RPO Cost Models and Comparisons


An RPO recruitment agency has different ways of pricing its services.


Most RPO providers often use a management fee model where a base price is paid monthly to the RPO provider for fixed recruitment services. While this can be a standalone pricing model, it can also be combined with other RPO cost models that include cost-per-hire, cost-per-transaction, and cost-per-slate models.


RPO Management Fee Model


In this case, the RPO provider is paid a monthly fee for managing the company’s entire hiring needs regularly. This RPO cost model tends to increase with the increasing number of hires.


And along with sourcing for qualified candidates and hiring the right talent, this type of pricing also includes other services such as managing candidate experience and advancing employee retention.


RPO Cost Per Hire Model


This model is popular among companies that need to fill open roles for short-term project RPO, for example. Rather than a monthly fee, the RPO provider is only paid for every new employee hired and onboarded.


Payment in this model is usually made as a percentage of the employee’s annual compensation, around 10% on average although this can vary between staff levels and management positions. It’s a mutually beneficial model with the RPO provider only paid when they can accomplish certain results such as filling an open position, etc.


RPO Cost Per Transaction Model


This model requires the company to pay RPO partners for specific parts of the recruitment process such as initial screening, reference checks, candidate interviewing, etc. in this model, the overall RPO cost is based on an agreed hourly rate to determine the payment for the entire time spent on a specific recruitment process. This is popular with on-demand recruitment process outsourcing service models.

RPO Cost Per Slate Model


In this model, the contract and pay are based on the number of candidates sourced and screened by the RPO provider during the recruiting process.


This model usually requires the RPO providers to source qualified candidates to meet a company’s hiring needs. They are paid on the number of candidates sourced and presented to the company. The internal recruiting firm then proceeds with the remaining part of the recruitment process, from here. This is also popular with short project RPO models.



RPO vs Internal Recruitment Costs


The choice for most companies is always between setting up and managing their own internal recruiting teams or outsourcing the recruitment process wholly or partially to an RPO provider. Both of these come with inherent benefits and specific demerits to the hr department.


To choose either option, it’s always best to know what is involved and how the RPO provider can support and consult on the outsourced recruiting engagement with their methodologies, technologies and employees.


With an in-house team, you have a team on standby, within the four walls of your office managing your hiring needs. While this helps align human resource needs with your company's core goals, there are still other factors to consider. Key among these include the financial costs of assembling and managing a team of recruiters and staff. The costs will include the annual compensation for your recruiting team and the salaries paid according to job title, responsibilities and skills of the recruiter. Among the additional costs employers incur are those associated with training, software licensing, and overhead expenses.


RPO Cost & Cost-Effectiveness


Outsourcing to RPO providers also comes with its benefits and drawbacks.


Above all else, you should only outsource your hiring needs to recruitment agencies with proven experience in your industry, hiring volumes, locality or market, and other key aspects. As a result, companies have turned more and more to recruitment process outsourcing because of the ability, resources, cost-effectiveness and other benefits it offers.


Here at Accendi Group, we offer tailored talent management solutions for companies to optimize their recruiting needs. These solutions include flexible recruitment process outsourcing RPO services suitable for a broad range of clients, in addition to our strategic staffing, direct hire and executive search services.


We’ll take our time to first understand your business objectives and hiring needs. This helps us devise RPO solutions personalized to help you attract and engage the right talent at a reduced cost within the shortest possible time - all while helping you build/maintain an engaging employer brand.


We also offer flexible payment plans based on transparency and cost-effectiveness to help you get the most value out of your investment.


Interested in RPO solutions?


With Accendi Group, you can count on us for leading recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solutions, we excel in tech and niche recruiting and invite you to view our RPO service video. Want to learn more about what is recruitment process outsourcing? Watch our informational video.


For more info, visit our recruitment process outsourcing page to learn more.


This article was written by Consultant, Crystal Mano.

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