The short answer — RPO partners and recruitment agencies have very different recruiting strategies based on:

• Service offerings
• How they find top talent for a business
• How they slice and dice their service charges

What is a recruitment agency?

The primary role of a recruitment agency is to match employers to employees. They recruit under the recruitment firm's brand and their fees are contingent on the firm placing employees for their client.

This means that instead of an employee referral program or a candidate applying to a job online, businesses can hire an agency to find the individuals they seek. When the agency finds the qualified fit for the job and the business hires the candidate, the hiring agency gets compensated. Thus, recruiters are motivated by hiring quickly and efficiently to move on to the next job.

At the end of the day, job openings are filled quickly because different recruitment agencies are trying to beat each other out to find a candidate for their job. While this is an effective recruitment option for some businesses, it's not a long-term solution for businesses looking to hire quality candidates that will stay in the organization for the long run.

What is recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to a recruitment agency. An RPO partner can offer its own recruitment process or may assume the company's staff, technology, methodologies, and reporting.

An RPO partner is not like a recruiting agency or a contingent/retained search provider, because the RPO firm assumes ownership of the design and management of the recruitment process and the responsibility for results.

An RPO partner offers dedicated recruitment teams who can focus on critical recruitment pain points including:

• Decreasing premium labor
• Finding the right culture fit
• Increasing employee retention

For example, when Hueman recruits, we recruit under the partner's brand, not our own.  For each partner, we have dedicated recruiters, marketing efforts, custom recruitment strategies, and technologies implemented to fill that partner's open job requisitions.

Why would an RPO partner be the right choice for your business?

Choosing an RPO Partner for your business means choosing a talent strategy. An RPO partner doesn't hire one or two people here or there, they are an extension of your Talent Acquisition team, becoming part of your brand in the marketplace.

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