Definition of RPO

[Bob Etheridge]

There are many different definitions as to what RPO is and what it encompasses. What's your favorite or best definition of RPO?

[MikeAstringer]

Bob! This topic happens to be one of my pet peeves and something it would take me more than a few quick moments to respond to. Unfortunately the term "RPO" has never truly been defined and every staffing firm who provides contract recruiters is now calling themselves an RPO firm. To me the definition of an RPO is just that, Recruitment Process Outsourcing. To qualify as an RPO deal a company must outsource all or part of their recruitment process to an outside provider. This does not mean providing a contract recruiter or working on a handful of reqs but truly a process outsourcing.

At Human Capital Consultants we do not call RPO anything other than what it is, a truly outsourced business function. The clients we have RPO engagements with outsource either their entire recruiting process to us or a portion of it. We typically have e-mail addresses, phone extensions, business cards, etc that go back to the client for a totally seamless candidate experience. We are the client's recruiting department on an outsourced basis.

If an engagement is anything else we call it what it is;

A Contract Recruiting Engagement
A Recruiting Project (that is not pure RPO)
Backend candidate sourcing
Retained Search
Etc.

Personally I find it an unfortunate situation that the term RPO has been so watered down. When talking to a potential client it always amazes me how some other firm has explained RPO to them.

I wanted to respond to this quickly as I only have a few moments. If this becomes an active thread I will write more and plan to write more about this on my own blog.

Mike Astringer, CEO
Human Capital Consultants, Inc.
Phone: [phone] X701
E-mail: [e-mail]

[Tony Steadman]

I truly think the only people that really care about a "definition" are those of us in the industry. RPO will never have a hard and fast definition that matters until the customer base demands it and right now they have not. In fact, most of them continue to alter the definition based on thier needs and delivery parameters. As for me RPO is whatever the client says it is, sees value in, and will pay for. The real debate is around the true competency of those companies that profess to be RPO companies or have a RPO service offering. I contend that the R (at least to our client base) is of much more value than the PO.

[Rob Jannone]

I agree with Mike Astringer in that every company that does staffing from a managed service approach or provides contract recruiting is claiming to be an RPO provider which only dilutes the value prop. that launched the latest wave of RPO services.

I tend to draw the line as follows:

Do you fully outsource and support all or part of the recruiting lifecycle?
Do your metrics and reporting support HR compliance issues?
Do you scorecard the individuals performing the service?
Do you own your technology and is it in compliance for EEO reporting?
Do you have a process model and disciplined approach for your RPO offerings and is the knowledge transfer available to your clients?
Are your RPO employees certified? By whom and in what? Is that certification process available to your client's internal recruiting team?
RPO implies having a process in place. How long have you worked on this process and what are the continual improvements based upon? (You don't want an RPO provider "cutting their teeth" on your project)
Is your service offering and recruiting process team based and segmented? What is the work flow of a requirement and candidate in your layered recruiting approach?
Is your service scalable to need and available on-demand?
Do you have testimonials, white papers and client references for your previous RPO engagements?
Will your references view your impact to their business as positively as you do as the provider?
Can your service delivery be tied directly to positive changes in your client's business operations and results such as top line revenue or bottom line profitability?

I think if you answer "No" to more than two of these, you have DQ'd yourself as RPO. That is not a value judgment, just a way to define the space more directly.

I see Tony's point as well. Demand drives the service definition and without it, we would have a lot of great things to say, but very little in the way of business. I think the client's perception of RPO and what it is will be driven by how they choose to use the services, and the degree of success they experience with it.

Rob Jannone, Business Development
CRI
[e-mail]
770-837-0015

[B Santosh Kumar]

Hi All

I agree with Mike ,Tony and Rob. I personally feel that if atleast a firm has good client base and Brand names they are working with, then we should treat it as RPO firm or else should be treated as " RECRUITMENT CONTRACT OR ENGAGEMENT"

Santosh
Encore RPO
818 357 2325
[e-mail]