Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) as a talent strategy is not for everyone and every situation, but when there are large hiring needs tied to a specific business time metric, an RPO is more often than not the right solution and the best available solution.
Here are three tips when you’re facing a time-critical, massive hiring initiative:
- Consultation. The project leaders or search firm owners need to meet with the client for a two- to four-week period prior to engaging in the RPO project. During this time, it is imperative to understand the company and culture, establish project roles, responsibilities, and expectations, develop and confirm the success profiles and search parameters, and do a thorough information transfer/exchange (i.e., obtain the job profiles, salary information, contact list for all of the hiring managers, establish the rules of engagement and process roll out).
- Project team mobilization. During the consultation phase, the types of hires, the total number of hires, and the time metric to hire are established. Once they are clear, the RPO vendor needs to structure their project team to the specific needs and time metrics in terms of aligning skills and strengths of their people to the specifics of this client and their unique needs. Every project team consists of some form of project leaders, some form of recruiters, and some form of researchers/administrators.
- Execution. Once you understand the client and their needs, and establish the best team to deliver against those needs, you need to develop the tactical/logistical plan of attack to accommodate the hiring needs against the tight time metric. In mass hiring projects with tight timelines, the best approach is to create a series of “interview days†and proactively recruit “to†those days. An interview day would be where there are a series candidates set up to meet individually with a panel of hiring managers every 30 minutes. And at the conclusion of the day, the interview team meets as a group and tags each person with a “red†(don’t move forward), “yellow†(some concerns), or a “green†(make an offer) designation.
What’s the biggest key and definer of success of any RPO engagement? It is contained within the thoroughness and level of detail covered in the upfront planning. It is paramount that the “plan†be collaborative in nature between the RPO vendor and the client, transparent to everyone involved, and that it receive 100% approval from the senior executive team.
Each party (client and RPO vendor) has individual commitments, responsibilities, and production metrics they need to hit on a pre-planned schedule. This is only achieved if they are working as a unified team representing a unified cause.
The results are almost limitless when capable professionals working as one have a goal to hit and work with the mindset that anything short of achieving that goal is a complete failure.