The Rise of Global RPO 'Partners'
As the talent war rages and emerging economies join the fray, organizations see outsourcing non
core activities that are not proprietary or essential to their strategic advantage, as the only way
forward. And much of this activity has gone offshore. While reducing costs and increasing the
availability of talent, offshoring has brought its own share of challenges. Among these is establishing
an effective recruiting and hiring network across cultures so as to maintain quality standards in their
workforce globally. Therefore, recruitment too has been outsourced to recruitment process
outsourcing providers who take responsibility for all permanent and contingent staff recruiting
requirements of organizations. This is gradually moving offshore as well, and rightly so. As
organizations turn truly global, they have begun to look for RPO providers who not only recruit
candidates for local operations, but across its offices in various parts of the world. In other words,
they have begun to differentiate between vanilla RPO providers and those who can partner with
them in their global recruitment strategy. Indeed, organizations realize the need for Global RPO
'partners'.

The Need for a Global RPO Model
Today, there is a need to find talent across borders and establish a dependable and steady source of
expertise for specific positions or job categories. Many organizations that lack the internal resources
to assemble talent quickly and seamlessly are turning to RPO to fashion management teams or
specialized project teams so that they can achieve performance-driven growth.

Taking the case of continental Europe, where countries have been slower to adopt solutions such as
RPO than their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K, it is evident that organizations have begun to feel
the heat from competition. In today's environment, where human capital separates winners from
losers, the need for strategic hiring has led several organizations to rethink their plans. It is important
to point out that RPO isn't just another form of outsourcing. It provides great financial return and
performance enhancement when used as a quality initiative-with the goal of efficiently locating and
retaining the best talent.

More than anything else, RPO brings forth measurable and definable standards. Rather than a
company or HR department losing control which is a common misconception about recruitment
process outsourcing, organizations actually gain greater control over their recruitment processes.
With established qualitative and quantitative metrics up front, it's possible to monitor decisions and
hiring methods and adapt as needed. And apart from reducing the direct costs associated with
global hiring, RPO helps to maximize investments and results.

The issue of debate is not if but how soon RPO will move from being a country specific service to a
truly global service. The majority of RPO providers are bracing themselves for the challenges of doing
full service RPO (geographically and functionally).

The 'Must-Haves' for Global RPO Partners
So, what is needed to enable a truly global deal and, more importantly, ensure it is sustainable? The
solution hinges on three key aspects:
o Technology
o Pre-existing bandwidth
o Continued innovation in strategy

The single biggest factor for the successes in the market today is enabling technologies. Attempting
to implement global RPO without a well-designed and implemented enterprise RPO solution is
impossible.

Secondly, the RPO provider must have the pre-existing bandwidth to meet the demands of the client
across geographies. Although one always needs local experts to support the peculiarities of different
geographies, it is important to have a global approach to delivery. A properly deployed offshore RPO
strategy benefits companies by increasing the quality of their search through a combination of
technology and expanded manpower to each job search. The ultimate goal is to find the best
candidate available for each job, which is accomplished by sifting through a plethora of candidate
choices. This model works for temporary staffing as well as permanent hires. By selecting an RPO
partner with a global delivery network, companies are able to find not only the best talent locally,
but talent which exists in other regions of the world. It is especially important to work with a partner
who has an advanced visa immigration department, to alleviate any challenges to the importation of
talent

In order to elucidate the innovation aspect, it is appropriate to look at the example of a Sourcermodel
devised by RPOworldwide. Online recruiting and globalization have opened up the market like
never before. Successful online recruitment requires capabilities in sophisticated Boolean search
strings, knowledge on how to refine job searches, and the knowledge on how to get to the smallest
number of candidates with the best fit for the job, minimizing search time. No matter how effective
a company is at these searches, the number of candidates required to screen in order to find
someone that can fill a position is significantly greater than in the past. This has created an explosion
in the amount of manpower needed to contact and recruit these candidates. This has led to the need
for a new role, which we call a candidate sourcer.

These individuals specialize on the initial search and screening of candidates from job boards but
stop short of actually completing full recruitment. The role of a sourcer is to help sift and funnel
down to a smaller pool of candidates which can be handed to a recruiter. It is necessary to sell the
position to the candidate/prospective employee, understand the needs of the candidate/prospective
employee, and in the case of a staffing company, communicate with the customer. The Sourcing
model maximizes the efficiency of the recruiters. This is a must-have role, for without sourcers,
staffing companies need to expand the number of recruiters they have, which is not cost-effective.

How do you afford to expand when at the same time customers are looking to compress the
margins that you make on the business? It is possible through offshore RPO, and through a Sourcing
model. One of the most significant advantages of an offshore RPO model which incorporates
sourcers is the ability to have 24x7x365 coverage of resume searches, given the time zone
differences across the globe. While the U.S. sleeps at night, sourcers in locations abroad scour job
boards for candidates, giving U.S. companies a head-start the next morning.

Companies who adopt this innovative strategy, and begin partnering with global providers of these
services will prosper.

RPO - A Continued Long Term Engagement
Organizations need to keep in mind that RPO is no stop gap answer to their recruitment woes. RPO
is most effective when it's part of a broad strategy to find talent where it resides-regardless of
geography. Organizations in the USA have been the frontrunners in adopting an RPO-based
recruiting model. Although the largest European corporations have understood this concept, many
medium-size and smaller companies in the EU are only beginning to recognize how RPO fits into a
global growth strategy and its positive impact on various divisions and departments, including IT,
finance, operations, marketing and sales.

Another advantage of RPO is that it helps deliver consistent messaging to candidates across the
world. An effective campaign can improve or solidify a company's image and appeal by creating
consistent marketing and advertising messages-ensuring that all candidates receive the appropriate
message. This is bears special significance for organizations functioning across the European Union
where consistent messaging remains a challenge. Numerous languages and ongoing cultural
differences drastically affect the way candidates view and interpret messages.

Organizations considering RPO should weigh their options carefully-especially as demand for talent
heats up across the globe. Executives should understand their company's needs, goals, opportunities
and risks and search for a partner that is able to provide maximum value and global capabilities. At
the same time, they must work with their chosen provider to clearly define their quality standards,
search metrics, completion metrics and financial analysis methods and ensure that there is
continuous communication throughout an RPO engagement. This is essential for the success of the
RPO-based model of recruitment for any MNC.

About the Author:
Steve Shangold
CEO, RPOworldwide
Learn about Steve: http://www.rpoww.com/about_us/steve.aspx
Learn more about RPOworldwide: www.rpoww.com
Send us an email: info@rpoww.com