Organizations face the "build vs. buy" decision in multiple aspects of their businesses. Should I expand into a new market segment or purchase a new company? Should I buy a new location or build my own site? Should I gain market share by building a more robust team or acquiring a competitor?
Talent acquisition decisions are no different. Deciding between building your internal talent acquisition team or outsourcing your recruitment process can be difficult. However, understanding both can help you decide which option makes the most sense for your business.
What Is an In-House Talent Acquisition Team?
When you leverage your in-house talent acquisition teams, you hire or use existing employees to carry out your company’s recruitment functions. This can also involve investing in resources such as technology and training to support the recruitment process.
Your internal talent acquisition team can include several people with different roles and responsibilities to work together in sourcing and hiring new employees. Though the size of talent acquisition teams varies by company size and recruitment goals, typical positions can include:
- Recruiter: The recruiter is responsible for actively sourcing candidates and finding people interested in the company and job openings. They use various methods to reach out to potential candidates, such as job boards, social media, and referrals from current employees. Recruiters also conduct initial screening interviews with candidates to determine whether they fit the position.
- Recruiting Coordinator: The recruiting coordinator handles administrative tasks related to the recruitment process, such as scheduling interviews, preparing paperwork, and ensuring information is sent out correctly. They may also be responsible for scheduling candidate assessments or ensuring that interviews go smoothly by checking in with candidates and hiring managers throughout the process.
- Employer Branding Specialist: The employer branding specialist is responsible for developing and promoting the organization's employer brand. They work to create a positive image of the organization as an employer and attract top talent.
- Data Analyst: The data analyst is responsible for tracking and analyzing recruitment metrics, such as time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and source of hire. They use data to identify areas for improvement in the recruitment process and make data-driven decisions to optimize hiring.
- Talent Acquisition Manager (TA): The TA manager oversees all aspects of recruiting efforts within an organization, including hiring strategies and budgets. They may also develop compensation packages for new hires or oversee training programs after they join your team.
These are just a few examples of the roles that make up a talent acquisition team. Depending on the organization's size and hiring needs, additional roles or responsibilities may be added to the team, such as onboarding specialists and diversity and inclusion specialists, to help meet specific goals.
What Are the Pros and Cons of In-House Recruitment?
There are advantages and disadvantages to building your in-house recruitment team. Here are a few:
Pros:
- Greater control over the hiring process: When you build an internal talent acquisition team, you have complete control over the hiring process, including employees, technology, and operations. You can set your criteria and standards for the job and ensure data privacy and confidentiality.
- In-depth understanding of the company culture: An internal talent acquisition team understands the company's culture, values, and goals, which makes it easier to find the right fit for the organization. They can identify candidates who share the same values and beliefs as your company.
- Value-aligned candidate pool: When you're in charge of your own recruitment, you can build an extensive pool of pre-vetted candidates who align with your values and culture, making it easier to fill positions in the future.
Cons:
- High upfront costs: Building an internal talent acquisition team requires a significant investment in time, resources, and personnel. You'll need to invest in training, recruiting software, and other resources to build an effective team.
- Limited access to talent: An internal talent acquisition team may have limited access to talent, particularly for specialized roles or in niche industries. This can make it challenging to find the right candidates for your organization.
- Restricted scalability: An internal talent acquisition team may not be able to scale up or down quickly, which can be a problem if your hiring needs fluctuate.
What Does It Mean to Outsource Recruitment Services?
Outsourcing is when a company hires a third-party entity to fulfill its business objectives. Outsourcing recruitment is when a company transfers all or parts of its recruitment process to a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) partner. An RPO partner can offer its own recruitment process or may assume the company's operation, technology, methodologies, staff, and reporting.
The general responsibilities of an RPO include:
- Sourcing: RPO providers are skilled at sourcing candidates through various channels and building robust applicant tracking systems. Using technology to their advantage, RPOs identify candidates with specialized skills and experience to fill niche roles quickly.
- Screening: By leveraging an array of advanced screening tools and tailored assessments, an RPO efficiently narrows talent pools. A good RPO will also improve candidate quality while reducing time-to-fill.
- Interviewing: An RPO may handle the entire interview process for you, from scheduling interviews to ensuring candidates have a positive experience throughout onboarding. An experienced RPO partner will apply targeted techniques, like building custom candidate personas pre-interview, to find the ideal person for the job.
- Some RPO providers go above and beyond typical recruitment duties to attract talent and make hard-to-fill hires. For example, when you partner with Hueman RPO, our recruiters can handle and optimize general recruitment tasks, plus provide:
- Marketing assistance: Attracting top talent among competitors requires strategic marketing. We can help your organization craft a strong employer brand and run compelling marketing campaigns to engage value-aligned candidates.
- Technology access: We work with over 70 technology vendors to provide easy access to the right recruitment tools and software. We can also help your team maximize the use of your existing applications.
- KPI analysis: We use metrics like key performance indicators (KPIs) to help your team make data-driven decisions about your recruitment process. We also track and monitor the results and hold our recruiters accountable to these metrics.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Recruiting?
Let's review the pros and cons of RPO:
Pros:
- Expertise: RPOs are dedicated 100% to talent acquisition. They provide knowledge, experience, and best practices to leverage the latest technology, marketing techniques, and industry insights to hire better candidates faster. They can be a reliable resource by improving processes, forecasting hiring needs, and navigating times of economic uncertainty.
- Scalability: Whether you need to expand rapidly or you're experiencing a slow period, an RPO can cost-effectively scale recruitment resources. This way, you avoid investing or hiring excessive recruitment support that you don't need year-round.
- Enhanced candidate & employee experience: An efficient and enjoyable candidate experience, from timely correspondence to onboarding, can make or break the overall perception of your company. Hiring candidates who align with your company's values and culture results in happier and more engaged teams that want to grow with your company.
Cons:
- Less control over the hiring process: Outsourcing to a recruitment firm means giving up some control over the hiring process. While you can set the criteria and standards for the job, the recruitment firm is responsible for finding the candidates and conducting the initial screening.
- Lack of company culture understanding: A recruitment firm may not have a deep understanding of your company's culture, which can lead to mismatches between candidates and the organization. However, a good partner will learn and adopt your company's culture and values so they can recruit for you, as you.
- High fees: Depending on the number of services you need, recruitment firms may charge high fees, which can be a significant cost for businesses, especially for smaller organizations.
Outsourced Recruitment vs. In-House Recruitment: Which Is Right for You?
Both in-house recruitment teams and outsourcing have their advantages and disadvantages. If you’ve reached a point where you need to expand your recruitment efforts but are still having difficulties deciding which option is best for you, consider these factors:
Cost
Insourcing recruitment is an excellent option to keep costs low if you're leveraging existing resources. However, if you need to hire or invest in new resources, you may be spending more than you would if you had outsourced.
According to Indeed, the average annual salary of a recruiter in the United States is $56,092, not including benefits, PTO, office materials, or other employee-related costs.
An RPO partner bundles recruitment-related expenses into the partnership fee — including marketing and advertising, recruiter salaries, and office space. They also provide indirect cost-saving opportunities by reducing time-to-fill and turnover and improving the quality of hires.
Your Recruitment Needs
Why are you considering expanding your recruitment efforts? Is your company rapidly growing? Are the roles specialized or hard to fill? Do you need strategic expertise beyond recruitment? Do you need to leverage technology? Once you understand what support you need to meet your goals, you'll be able to make the best decision for your organization.
Your Existing Resources
Having a TA team with the bandwidth and resources to manage recruitment effectively is critical. If your existing TA or HR team seems overloaded with recruitment-related tasks, you may want to rely on the help of an RPO to avoid making bad hires or overworking your team. Plus, it is unlikely an internal team has access to the latest technology and systems — like an RPO provider. With an RPO, your internal TA personnel can focus on their core functions while a team of experts manages recruitment.
We Can Help
Deciding whether to outsource recruitment or keep it in-house can be a tough decision to make. The good news is you don't have to choose one over the other when you partner with Hueman RPO. Our recruiters can seamlessly work alongside your organization's internal hiring team, and you decide what type and how much recruitment help is needed.
Whether you wish to outsource part or all of your hiring process to us, you'll enjoy the following advantages:
- Talented recruiters who are fully dedicated to your account and recruit under your brand.
- A thorough implementation process so we can understand your organization's values and hire candidates who align with those values.
- End-to-end recruitment services with marketing, technology, and comprehensive reporting included.
- Flexible and adaptable recruitment solutions tailored to your needs.
If you're interested in learning more about how Hueman RPO can add value to your organization, contact us today for a no-cost, no-commitment talent acquisition consultation.
.jpg?width=1200&height=628&name=01-CTA-We-Can-Help%20(1).jpg)
Want to know more about how RPO works and which type of RPO solution is best for your company? Check out our Ultimate Guide to RPO today.
