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11 January 2017

What technology do you need for RPO?

Technology can be a stumbling block when considering where or not to outsource your recruitment to an RPO specialist. After all, what will you do with your own ATS? And how do you keep track of the latest goings on?

Applicant tracking systems primarily register the results of all recruitment efforts, both quantitatively and qualitatively. ‘But users don’t only want to know how many candidates have responded or when they contacted you’, says Reinald Snik, CEO of ATS supplier Carerix. ‘You also want to register how recruiters compare to each other and to what extent you have effectively invested your time and money when trying to find appropriate candidates. Or whether clients and jobs match talent available in your database. This means extra variables must be registered and measured in order to make appropriate analyses.
Of course, this does not only apply if you use your own recruiters, but also if you’re assigning your activities to an RPO specialist.’

More is needed for successful partnerships

Many ATS’s primarily focus on recruitment and selection. However, more is needed for integral collaboration between clients and RPO suppliers, says Snik. ‘You must employ extra resources to bring both organisations closer together and to generate the same benchmarking and reports as your own recruitment set-up.’
It is very interesting for clients to see how the results of RPO specialists compared to the results achieved via the so-called inhouse model, he says. ‘Naturally, well designed RPO processes achieve better results’, states Snik. ‘RPO specialists also have many years’ experience. But this added value actually needs to be demonstrated. The success of an RPO is often measured intuitively because no solid information is available.’

And Snik wants to do something against this absence of solid information, using ‘clear analyses and reports based on facts and figures.’ You can thus identify potential failings at an earlier stage. ‘This is often the responsibility of the client’s internal organisation. But RPO specialists can only do something about this if they have a solid rationale. You must make sure process improvements can implemented at an early stage, thus allowing results to be further improved. This will improve important KPI’s like time-to-hire and quality-to-hire. And last but not least, it will reduce the client’s costs.’

‘A specific RPO platform has been developed for RPO specialists, and then enhanced further to support various RPO processes, so they can collaborate with clients via a single system. This helps to prevent errors, optimise inter-communication and provide a clear insight. RPO service providers sometimes have their own preferred platforms and processes, and introduce them to new clients. RPO specialists hereby give their clients a uniform system, which helps to further improve efficiency (and comparability).’

We can also see the same phenomenon in the insourcing world, where Managed Service Providers often introduce preferred VMS’s (Vendor Management System) to their customers. Although possible, it isn’t always necessary, of course. In the end, the client will determine which technology is implemented.

‘Another important aspect of RPO technology involves having a wide range of functionalities. Some clients have different preferences and requirements than others. For instance, the use of video functionality, which allows candidates to use video pitches for their job applications, or the use of digital validation for documents like CV’s, passports and permits or the use of assessment tools as part of the recruitment process, etc. This allows the RPO process to be better organised in accordance with the client’s wishes, without requiring major investments and long implementations, and resulting in proven success for intermediaries and RPO clients.’

In order to effectively meet all these needs, ‘partner eco-systems’ are now being developed so various specialised suppliers of recruitment support can be given a place in the RPO platform. The client (or RPO specialist) can then decide which functionality of specific suppliers they actually want to use. Integration with the ATS is thus arranged in advance, and the customer is in complete control. To conclude, some platforms and systems available on the market are now so advanced that the success of RPO assignments is no longer determined by the selected technology.

In other words, users and people make the difference. From this perspective, people are still an essential part of the recruitment process…