If you are not sure exactly what recruitment process outsourcing is, check out our previous article on how RPO has revolutionized hiring for startups.
All caught up? Great!
The future of work policies ranges from a full return to in-office, to a hybrid approach of work from home and in-office, to a fully remote, fully distributed team in perpetuity.
The ongoing discussions about the future of work – on Zoom meetings all across America – have complicated the dynamics of an already white-hot talent market.
Companies are now forced to balance not only their own needs and preferences for existing employees, but are staring down the barrel of what analysts are already saying will be a massive flux in the workforce. With growing economic stability in 2021, more and more employees are signaling that this is the year they plan to make a career change.
We wrote previously that in a world in flux, companies must be prepared to flex — on locations and remote policies to remain competitive with candidates who want to remain working from home, or on salary and benefits that make a return to an in-office environment more appealing.
So, how does that affect how your company will approach recruiting new talent?
Here are a few ways that Recruitment Process Outsourcing could be a game-changer in ensuring that regardless of what the future of work looks like for your company, you are in the best position possible to bring in the best talent at the lowest cost:
Expanding Your Network For A Remote-First Workforce
Expanding your network of potential talent is a key component of finding and attracting the best talent at the most competitive rates, regardless of your company’s return to work policy. In a now majority-remote workforce, expanding recruitment reach beyond your traditional geography is critical to attracting new talent. We no longer live in a local job market — tech and engineering talent is a global commodity and one that is rising in value, quickly!
RPO increases your search reach through either entirely outsourcing your talent search to a recruiting firm with its own network, or combining the firm’s network with your existing network to even further expand the quality and scope of candidates entering your pipeline. Our own RPO approach at hatch IT even combines a traditional recruiting network of engaged jobseekers with a nation-wide community element through content distribution, thought leadership, company profiles, and an online engineering community page.
Cost Control
Even before our workforce went remote, RPO offered an integrated and relational approach to recruiting that scaled with your hiring needs and offered a fixed priced solution as opposed to the fluctuating costs of a contingency or direct placement model.
Today, tech salaries have skyrocketed and the cost of contingency hiring has never been higher. RPO’s fixed price controls for these market fluctuations and guarantees a set deliverable at a set price, month over month. Compare that to a direct placement model which, depending on timing, could leave you paying significantly more for a single position, than several months of an RPO where several candidates could be brought on board.
Not only does the cost of hiring fluctuate based on candidate salaries, but in a remote workforce where many internal tech recruiters and HR personnel remain distributed, RPO solutions mitigate the software costs for smaller companies and startups that would otherwise be forced to buy the latest and greatest in search tools to have access to the same types of candidates a Fortune 500 can easily identify.
Additionally, engaging RPO versus bringing on full-time, salaried resources like a full time HR lead, recruiters, coordinators, etc. at early stages is also a way to reduce cost. If your company isn’t confident on long-term hiring needs to justify internal resources’ salary and benefits, an RPO firm that can be turned off or scaled down as needed is a good solution to reduce the cost of uncertainty.
Flexibility
It is impossible to turn on CNBC, log onto LinkedIn, pick up the Wall Street Journal, or read the Morning Brew today without having a future of work headline front and center. Countless studies and surveys have been conducted from companies big to small, early stage seed investments to revenue positive IPO stage. The catch is that even through all of these analyses, companies still aren’t 100% sure what the future is going to look like. We’ve already seen announced return-to-office policies pulled back, or previously 100% remote and distributed companies express their interest in some form of in-person interaction at off sites or co-working spaces.
This kind of uncertainty within a company makes it very difficult to pitch the value of your culture to prospective candidates.
RPO’s approach is to remain flexible, maybe your hiring will focus on in person in one location, while other teams will remain distributed and remote. hatch I.T. provides an analysis of feedback that includes your successful candidates as well as those that drop out of the hiring process. That kind of tracking and monitoring of data will allow your team to make better hiring decisions and trend forecasting even after your engagement in RPO concludes.
Getting Started
The typical summer-slowdown in hiring has not materialized in 2021, companies are looking to get ahead of fall recruiting’s most competitive market. If you’re interested in learning more about how hatch I.T.’s integrated community — RPO approach could help build out your team, tell us a bit more here!
Still want to learn more? Check out our overview of how we help build tech teams at the most innovative startups through our RPO program, Scale.
