Particularly, shared services model RPO is offering a great ondemand recruiting alternative to having full time staff.

Michael Brandt
BrightMove Recruiting Software
http://www.brightmove.com

How is Your Recruiting Process?
If your companies have a recruiter or recruiters, ask them about the process and sincerely solicit suggestions on how to improve the process. After all, they actually do the work! When you and your team go over the processes, it would be good to see if it’s practical to do WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS, and not just what reflects the prejudices of the sr. executives (but see Conclusion).

Are your recruiters spending more than about 5% of their time documenting what they do the remainder of the time? If they are, they’re spending too much- let recruiters recruit, not do data entry. If the information is vital, pay someone else a lot less to do it.

Look at Your Team
Are you paying your recruiters less than about $100k/yr equivalent for work they do? If you are, they’re probably performing the wrong kind of tasks for you, and you should eliminate, automate, and/or outsource the work that is less valuable than this. Examples: why pay an onsite or virtual phone sourcer $9,000/mo. when you can get very good phone sourcing for under $2,000/mo? Why pay onsite scheduler/coordinators $4,000/mo. when you can pay a virtual one under $350/mo. and have them contact every single candidate that applies, too?

Are you paying less than about $30,000 for a 3PR placement? If you are, paradoxically you’re probably paying too much- if it’s less than about a $100k salary for a full 30%, you can probably do it for MUCH less. Great TPRs are worth every penny they charge, and shouldn’t be wasted on any folks that can be found off a board or a SNA, or using a $2,000/mo sourcer. IMHO, great TPRs should be paid LOTS of money for finding purple squirrels and/or closing….

Look at Your Technology
Whatever you use, it should be recruiter-friendly. If Tiffany the Temp can figure it out and use it effectively with about 30 minutes of training (the “Tiffany Test”), then it’s probably good for your staff, too. On the other hand, if it takes half a day or more of detailed training, it’s too darn hard!

Once again, ask your recruiters. Your technology shouldn’t be purchased without detailed feedback from the people who actually will use it.

Social Media and Branding: let Marketing worry about that. IMHO, it would be better to spend the money on a generous Employee Referral Bonus Program and going after candidates directly- that’s Active Recruiting, while working to have them come to you is Passive Recruiting.

Conclusion
Politics has been defined as “the art of the possible.” If the existing system (however dysfunctional) has made your bosses look good, there’s probably not much you can do about it beyond tinkering around the edges. On the other hand, perhaps you work in an enlightened corporate environment and you will actually be able to make a difference. Either way: Good Luck!

-kh

I really loved your article it is timely and right on! I would add one more dimension – and that is to explore how to best manage your contingent workforce programs. As business leaders look at “fixing the mix”, the ability to provide the right mix of talent in a well managed and compliant way will be critical.

Regards, Tracey Friend