Hiring people is a time-consuming activity. While technology helps, it is still not fun to sift through tens and hundreds of applications every week. General HR wastes valuable time in finalizing the right candidates – like picking up needles from haystacks. This gives them less time to fulfill other responsibilities like planning appraisals, attending to employee grievances, managing payroll, training new recruits, onboarding, etc. This is a significant challenge in most companies worldwide. Especially when there is high demand for an open position and a comparatively low supply of qualified people. In such cases, it is the job of HR to leave no stone unturned. Every detail for every applicant must be logged and considered before deciding to either reject, hold, or accept applicants. How must one solve this inefficiency problem then? The secret is simple.

Pre-screening Interview Questions

What are pre-screening interview questions? These are simple questions that help you know more about your candidate. Each open position in your company comes with a different objective of recruitment. For example, open positions for customer service reps. Most employers hire and train freshly graduated folks with good communication skills and decent temperaments. These are low-budget roles that may or may not require expertise in a particular field. On the contrary, extremely specific knowledge-based roles like data scientists, software architects, or high-rise heavy crane operators need to be selected with the utmost attention. These roles require candidates to show great expertise and experience in what they do. Your pre-screening interview questions must therefore be crafted on a case-by-case basis and must never be a one-size-fits-all type. This is to ensure the maximum potency of your recruitment marketing strategies.

Why Pre-screening Interview Questions?

Opportunity cost: When you ask specific questions about the candidate, you get a clear understanding of their thought process. Asking general questions like, “What are your expectations from this role” or “Give an example of your involvement in a team-based activity/project from your previous role” gives you an idea of the candidate’s soft skills and ability to work under different, diverse scenarios. Similarly, asking role-specific questions like “How would you optimize a Google Ads campaign when X happens” or “What is a pixel tag, why is it important” gives you an idea of the candidate’s general level of awareness and expertise in his/her industry. When you carefully design such questions that serve a specific purpose, you essentially build an auto-filtering machine that accurately rejects and accepts candidates based on the parameters set by the manager or HR. For example, 100 candidates apply for 5 open positions in your company. This means, eventually, you will have to reject 95 candidates. If you don’t have a pre-screening strategy, you may have to call up each candidate to get to know them better and decide if you want to let them go further up the chain. This may take a week or even two weeks, depending on the number of people allocated to do this task. You waste valuable time during which your resources could have easily completed other non-recruitment-related tasks that needed their attention. Instead, they might have had to push their other tasks further to accommodate this task in their daily schedule or might have had to work overtime to complete recruitment and non-recruitment tasks on time. Either way, you lose out on holding off other tasks or risk burnout of existing employees. This misuse of opportunity cost can be avoided with a proper pre-screening strategy that is tested and well-placed.

Better candidate experience: Candidate experience is one of the most important aspects of recruiting. Better the candidate feels about the entire experience, the better the probability of them completing the full process. One of the biggest problems recruiters face with candidates, especially top talent, is ghosting. Think for a second from the perspective of a talented professional. She/he is in high demand because they have notable experience and a good track record of solving complex problems in their field. This makes them victims of ruthless headhunting recruiters. They often have multiple offers lying in their inbox at any given time. This is where they come from. Now, imagine such a talented person choosing to spend their valuable time interviewing with you and choosing to engage with your style of recruitment. So, if your company does not care about candidate experience, they have zero reasons to continue interviewing with you. They will find the next company that respects their time and is willing to keep things as simple as possible. A pre-screening strategy expedites the entire recruitment process. It filters out the bad apples from the good ones in the first step itself. This makes the rest of the process a cakewalk. Candidates are then more likely to stick to your method of recruiting because they will find it simple, clear, and direct rather than confusing, time-consuming, and indirect.

How to Build a Pre-screening Strategy

As discussed earlier, your approach to pre-screening interview questions cannot be a one-size-fits-all type of method, mainly because it filters out poorly and is inefficient. A more efficient way to build this strategy is to spend a reasonable amount of time formulating proper, meaningful questions for each role in your company. Start with broad, subjective questions, then hone into more specific and objective questions. This is generally a good strategy because it gives the recruiter a holistic understanding of the candidate and not just a partial understanding of their work and thought process.

Read more: 8 Recruiting Hacks That Recruiters Know They Must Use but Don't

Examples of Broad and Subjective Questions

• How do you prefer to be managed?
• What is an ideal manager for you?
• Have you ever had a manager that is close to your ideal one?
• What are some characteristics of a workplace culture that can help you enjoy your work?
• What kind of career accomplishments can motivate you to thrive further in this job?
• Have you ever been part of an unmotivated team? What did you do to keep yourself motivated?
• What inspired you to apply for this job?
• Are you willing to travel for work?
• Are you available to work on weekends? For how many hours?
• In your opinion, what types of challenges are you likely to face in this position?
• What are you looking for in this job?
• Can you list three of your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you overcome them?
• Tell me a little about yourself.
• What was the biggest challenge in your previous role/ you have ever faced (if the candidate has no prior experience)?
• How do you describe your working style?

Length of the Questionnaire

Your main objective of building a pre-screening strategy is to grab as much information as quickly as possible. Ideally, a candidate must not be forced to spend more than 15 to 20 minutes on pre-screening interview questions. They might either lose interest and decide not to continue, or may answer dishonestly or inaccurately just to complete the formality of submitting the questionnaire – either not helpful to our cause. This is why it is important to test this strategy first, in a sandbox environment, before releasing it to the general public. Testing tells you what works and what doesn’t. Based on that input, you can tweak it and refine it to make it the perfect auto-filtering machine that takes the majority of the workload off your back.

Exela HR Solutions is a world leader in providing expert human resource outsourcing solutions right from recruitment and payroll to C&B, L&D, and HRBP services. Speak with us today to get involved.

Sources: google.com | en.wikipedia.org | reddit.com | recruitingblogs.com | ideal.com | indeed.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.

Recruitment is a challenging HR function. It is very subjective, making it even more challenging to execute when compared to objective jobs like software engineering. A developer writes code that executes exactly as it is written no matter how many times one runs the software. One plus one will always be equal to two. Recruitment, on the other hand, is complex and requires a higher degree of lateral thinking and decision-making to factor in different parameters and events that may or may not keep changing in the process of finalizing candidates. With such complexities that an HR recruitment professional might have to face on a day-to-day basis, it may be a good idea to look back on the wisdom of the experts that dealt with recruitment before us – the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

In this blog, we try to re-establish the solid recruitment hacks that have stood the test of time, ones that have churned out successful results consistently in the past.

Candidate alignment: Unwritten company values and culture exist and are probably more powerful than the written ones. The best time to align candidate experience and expectations with these values and culture is right at the beginning – in the interview process. This gives the candidates a clear view of the type of environment they would be stepping into if selected for the role, clearing any misunderstanding or confusion that they might have had before showing up for the interview. More often than not, candidates will have multiple offers in hand that offer similar compensation plans. In such cases, the primary deciding factor then becomes how they felt about a company and its culture.

Sell your strengths: Every company has its own set of strengths – a rare edge that might set them apart from their competitors. Do you have a culturally diverse team? Sell it. Do you have equity options? Sell it. Do you offer massive sign-on bonuses? Sell it. You have to let candidates know all your strengths during the interviewing process itself. This removes doubt and thoughts of considerations to join your competitors from their minds. Also, on the contrary, just letting the candidates know what you offer is not enough. You have to back your talk with concrete data to win their hearts. For example, if you offer guarded transport to female employees who leave office after 8 pm, you could show data on how it improved individual performance and reduced stress in X% of female employees over a period of X months.

Also Read: Reasons Why Your Employees Might Leave You in 2022 & How You Can Stop It from Happening

Transparency, transparency, transparency: Every organization has its own list of pros and cons. Being transparent with the candidates about both the pros and the cons is important because it paints an accurate picture of the organization. Not only that but, you will be perceived as an honest recruiter. One of the biggest doubts candidates will have about any organization is about the employer hiding something – caveats that might put them at a severe disadvantage. Being upfront about it will make them instantly loyal to you and your missions in the organization. For example, “Our star player is leaving the team because he/she got a better opportunity elsewhere, and you will be replacing him/her”.

Small talk works: Interviews tend to make people nervous, no matter how extroverted they might be. Recruiters might not always know what situations candidates are in or how desperately they may need a job. Sometimes, perfectly capable and experienced candidates might score poorly in an interview because they felt threatened or dominated which further made them nervous and prevented them from speaking their minds. This is why small talk is important. It breaks the ice and works like a charm, preventing top talent from mentally slipping away from your organization.

Identify long-term benefits: Recruiters often make this common mistake of having a short sight. Recruiters are usually in a hurry, trying to fill positions that need immediate attention. Recruiting in a hurry is not always bad, but there is one major drawback with this strategy. Hiring managers don’t get to spend enough time with potential candidates or their team to plan for growth. This can lead to several problems. For example, X, Y, and Z are three closely related tasks where your company is urgently looking for people who can do X. Candidate A has 2 years of experience doing X and zero years of experience doing Y and Z, while candidate B has one year of experience in each task. On the surface, you look at candidate A with more experience and hire him/her. However, after six months you realize you need people to do tasks Y and Z. Now, not only is there a deeper learning curve for the hired candidates to learn all 3 tasks, but your organization wastes more time and money on hiring more resources or training existing ones.

Preparations: Candidates prepare for their interviews. Similarly, it is always good for a recruiter to prepare for an interview. Hiring managers will often have no idea of what is going on and will look at the resume of a candidate for the very first time when that candidate is sitting three feet away from them in the interview room. This increases the probability of recruiters missing out on subtle accomplishments of candidates that can be very important for the role you’re trying to fill. For example, you’re trying to fill in a supply chain position that requires strong negotiation skills and the candidate you are interviewing has mentioned in their resume, somewhere at the end, that they won a state-level debate competition in the 11th and 12th grade, but you didn’t quite catch it. You will have had missed an excellent negotiator just because you didn’t prepare for 5 minutes before the interview.

Feed your candidates with feedback: People love to hear back, no matter the situation. Although it is an unwritten rule in the job market that if you didn’t hear back, they picked someone else, it is always satisfying to hear a concrete yes or no shortly after an interview. Closure has a positive effect on our mind, while on the contrary, if there is no communication from the other side, it leads to confusion, dissent, and overall negative experience.

Say my name: Call people by their name and make a genuine effort of pronouncing it correctly, especially if the name sounds ethnic. You would be surprised how delighted people feel when someone calls/spells out their name correctly, especially if it is difficult to pronounce/write. If the first name is not shortened, ask them politely if you can call them by the short form. For example, Ben is short for Benjamin. If their friends and family call them by that name, you will, subconsciously, appear to be friendly and likable.

Exela HR Solutions is a global leader in recruitment process outsourcing. Our experts help small and medium businesses with all their recruitment needs at a fraction of the cost of running the entire operation in-house. Decades of experience and world-class HR infrastructure enable us to help businesses reach their maximum potential. Get in touch with us today to learn more.

Sources: google.com | en.wikipedia.org | reddit.com | forbes.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.

The healthcare industry has been in the limelight for well over a year now because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, people and businesses have grown to know the importance of this industry and how quickly hospitals and medical centers can get overburdened if the demand is not managed properly. This realization has got the industry thinking about RPO and similar challenges, which is why we are currently in a major state of shift in terms of people management.

The healthcare industry is one of the very few industries where error rates have to be kept minimum. Half a milligram (more or less) or half a second (more or less) can decide whether a person lives or not. With such an unusual requirement for extremely high accuracy, recruitment becomes the single most vital function for all the players in this industry. However, with challenges like shortage of qualified & experienced professionals, constantly changing healthcare reforms, and frequent budget modifications, “recruitment” easily becomes the most essential yet the most difficult-to-perform function for any healthcare provider.

Let us have a closer look at some of these bigger challenges that keep healthcare providers up at night.

• Shortage: The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has projected a deficit of around 60,000 to 90,000 physicians in the next four years – in the United States alone. Moreover, one CNBC report mentioned that the healthcare industry has been experiencing a 20% to 30% shortage of medical coders for the last several years. Additionally, the demand for cleaning staff has been increasing year over year while the supply has been dwindling steadily. With such challenges lying ahead on the horizon, internal hiring teams experience a constant uphill battle trying to fight increasing demand with a fixed, and in some cases, shrinking supply to function and thrive in the industry.
• Turnover: Historical data suggests that the healthcare industry has been one of the poorest performers in terms of attrition and turnover rates. The Department of Labor Statistics data revealed a turnover rate for healthcare jobs at a whopping 30% since 2012! This number is not only high but dangerously high, second only to the hospitality industry. With such high industry numbers, the active decision to not invest in a reliable and scalable RPO solution can have long-term disastrous effects on the company.
• Expectations: Keeping up with applicant expectations is a never-ending game that companies must play to attract talent, especially high-quality talent. For example, a recent PeopleScout survey concluded that 78% of applicants preferred to apply via mobile. A small personalization like this enhances the overall experience for applicants. Applicants, like patients, go through a similar journey with the hospital/medical center. At the end of this journey, one of the two outcomes is inevitable – positive or negative. An engaging and delightful hiring experience can elevate the perception of the hospital/medical center in the minds of the candidates. This difference alone can change minds and push applicants in your direction instead of your competitor. Moreover, applicants are motivated to refer their contacts to your hospital, taking a significant chunk of the burden off the shoulders of talent acquisition professionals. On the contrary, a negative experience can quickly spread like wildfire on platforms like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, hurting your company’s reputation in the long run because once the review is posted, it will be there for everyone to see and for as long as the platform lives.

These were some of the biggest RPO challenges that the healthcare industry is facing today. Now let us look at some highly effective solutions that could be implemented to overcome these challenges.

Also Read: How to Spot Great Talent?

• Innovative Sourcing Strategies: The ability to source talented candidates quickly is critical to winning in today’s healthcare industry. Now, healthcare workers have more options than ever, which automatically means that hospitals and medical centers must have a good reputation to attract a talented workforce. Partnering with a recruitment process outsourcing provider can help healthcare organizations develop strategic and innovative programs to find suitable candidates quickly for open positions.

At its core, outsourcing works so seamlessly because RPO service providers have a market view that internal hiring teams have a hard time achieving. In addition to providing a new perspective on talent acquisition, RPO partners also bring innovation in many types and forms, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, etc. For example, AI can almost instantaneously start searching and contacting suitable candidates after a position opens up. This simple automation can save hundreds of thousands of hours of manual labor in the long run. In addition, predictive analysis modeling can provide recruiters with information about the quality of applicants, their performance range, and the degree to which the candidate is likely to leave their current role. Using all this vital information, the entire hiring process can work faster and more efficiently.

• Scalability: An internal hiring team’s ability to hire effectively has changed in recent years. Gone are the days when organizations always had people lined up outside their door, looking for an open position. Today, market swings in the healthcare industry make it almost impossible to gauge the demand and supply of qualified individuals at a given time. This makes hiring much more complex and time-consuming. A sudden influx of new openings in newer departments or locations can put immense pressure on internal talent acquisition professionals.

When hospitals/medical centers work with recruitment process outsourcing providers, scalability is no longer a problem. Whenever the organization requires urgent staffing, the RPO provider can allocate more resources to meet the sudden influx. Conversely, whenever organizations go through a period of little to no demand, RPO providers can deallocate resources from you and assign them to any other client of theirs. It’s a win-win situation for both parties. This on-demand scalability is only possible when organizations partner up with recruitment process outsourcing providers.

• Applicant Experience Optimization: As mentioned earlier, a positive applicant experience is crucial to attracting top talent. But what constitutes a positive applicant experience? The biggest pain points candidates experience will come from an unorganized internal hiring workflow. Delayed responses, errors in communication, the unnecessarily long application process, etc., are some of the things universally hated by all applicants. RPO partners can help organizations in the healthcare industry create a simple and efficient application experience. Your RPO provider can also review your organization's current recruiting program to learn company expectations and hiring needs. The RPO can then provide opportunities to improve the program areas to provide more experience throughout the recruitment process. Advanced experiences include mobile recruiting, social media engagement, talent development, personal job descriptions, and custom job boards to provide a personalized, hands-on experience. Video interviews are also becoming increasingly popular. The most important aspect of a positive candidate experience is ensuring the right balance of human interactions at every stage of the journey.
• Conclusion: So, these were some of the major factors influencing the hiring activities of organizations in the healthcare industry. Recruitment process outsourcing can be a great way to minimize costs while building a reliable and scalable recruitment model that fits your organization.

By using recruitment services, companies can leverage the expertise of experienced recruitment professionals who have extensive experience in providing solutions to all types of recruitment problems. This helps to recruit the right employees who are most suitable for the organization.

RPO is the most effective technique used by successful companies to make profits and reduce costs. Therefore, for a business to prosper, the plan must be detailed and concise, and holding back on quality directly affects your standing in the healthcare industry.

Exela HR Solutions is an industry leader in recruitment process outsourcing. We understand these pitfalls, which is why we work closely with our clients to understand all their needs and exceed all their expectations. Speak with us today to learn more about our offerings.

Sources: google.com | en.wikipedia.org | peoplescout.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly, and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.

All businesses need people, some more than others. And hiring is a challenging yet extremely important activity that every business has to spend a lot of time and effort on. In recent years, technology has exploded, and with it, many industries like RPO have secured permanent leverage.

Many big companies like Coca-Cola, Pfizer, and Mastercard use recruitment process outsourcing to lower the cost to find rare talent across the globe. RPO has proven to work for most companies for a very long time, but there are certainly some anomalies associated with this method of sourcing talent. Let us have a look at how businesses miss detecting key signals that later result in a catastrophe.

If you own, manage, or lead a business, these are the things you must look out for while working with an RPO company.

• UNFORESEEN COSTS

One of the biggest reasons for the failure of this procedure is unforeseen labor costs. In these types of cases, a company may find that the cost to hire is higher than the original proposal. This might very well look like a breach of contract, but it is not.

There could be a myriad of reasons why the amount on the final invoice might look slightly higher than the amount originally calculated. RPO companies have to jump through many hoops to find the right talent, especially for high-demand-low-supply job titles like data scientists or people holding rare certifications, etc.

Finding this talent also depends on a lot of other factors such as job location, candidate’s location, compensation & benefits, commute time, the willingness of the candidate to relocate, and so on. This means RPO companies spend a lot of their time, money, and resources to find such people.

Companies that put too much emphasis on savings are usually unable to see the bigger picture. For example,choosing only the cheapest candidates reduces the quality of the organization, while on the other hand, choosing a top talent guarantees long-term success and profits.

TIP: Whenever negotiating with an RPO company, ask straightforward questions and scenarios to get the picture. Ask about hidden costs, taxes, the time required to hire a certain difficult position, what happens if you require more time to hire, who pays in such cases, etc. This way, you will foresee all costs before they get printed on paper in the form of an invoice.

• LACK OF COMMUNICATION

Communication is key. In many cases, operational goals and job descriptions are not clearly defined. Without having a clear understanding of the client’s expectations, the work cannot be structured according to the RPO company’s intentions. The work is outsourced indeed, but the cooperation cannot end there.

Outsourcing hiring processes requires regular, real-time, back-and-forth communication between both companies, and RPO companies must be seen as an integral part of the team.

TIP: Set a strong foundation of cooperation from day one. Schedule meetups in regular intervals, for example: once a day or once a week. Make sure the RPO company has fully understood the requirements and is working in the right direction. Avoid selected availability; important decision-makers on both sides must try to be available at all times until the objective is complete.

• POOR MANAGEMENT

Lack of communication causes unnecessary problems, which leads to poor management that is difficult to streamline. Employees who work in offices are in close proximity and therefore develop professional relationships. On the contrary, 3rd party service providers like RPO companies do not need to visit the client’s company regularly.

This can have a significant impact on the staff as it affects the existing management style. To address this issue, organizations must establish effective management relationships with RPO service providers.

TIP: Establish strict protocols with the RPO company to encourage and enforce clear communication practices. Once established, poor management can turn into great management in no time.

• LOSS OF PRODUCTIVITY & OVERBURDENING

A client companycan experiencea loss of productivity due to poor service offered by an RPO company. For example, your company requires three managers within the next 14 days, and your RPO partner assures you that those positions will be filled before the deadline.

However, that position could not be filled before the deadline and required around one month to hire three managers. This means your company experienced a loss of productivity for almost two weeks, and in these two weeks, existing employees were considerably overburdened, stressed, and had to work overtime.

Another recurring issue, especially for outsourced IT departments, is the risk of a complete network crash. Employees in such situations experience a considerable loss in productivity mainly due to poor customer service and usage of obsolete technology by the RPO company.

TIP: Ask RPO companies to disclose downtime figures. Negotiate on how to deal with extended deadlines.

• NO PLAN FOR SUDDEN GROWTH

Growth is great, but too much at once can paralyze your company. Take, for example, the mask and PPE shortage at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A huge, sudden spike in demand paralyzed medical equipment manufacturers who had to push the existing workforce into brutal overtime schedules just to try and meet the high demand.

Had they foreseen this demand and spoken to RPO providers beforehand who could supply the additional workforce, they would still be running at peak capacity, but this time, without overburdening and burning out the existing workforce.

TIP: Take into consideration sudden growth scenarios while negotiating with your RPO provider and understand their capacity to supply extra demand.

Also read: How to Spot Great Talent?

• ROADBLOCKS IN PROCESSES

One of the main reasons RPO relationships don’t work is that companies use recruitment and hiring processes that focus too much on the process rather than the actual hiring. Ideally, the recruitment process must focus on the only two players that matter the most – the hiring manager and the candidates themselves.

Instead, companies have complex processes that can often serve as a barrier against focusing on the important parts of the RPO process. This must be avoided at all costs.

TIP: Always remember, there is more than one way to get to the destination. Don’t get too caught up with the semantics of the arrangement, and trust your RPO partner to help you find the right talent.

• LACK OF EXECUTIVE SUPPORT

All types of RPO engagements need executive support, be it complete or on-demand contract-based. Analytics data from various sources indicate clients that had an executive assigned to them always had someone who knew the company’s goals and objectives in great detail. In addition, clients who adopted their executives’ methodologies, goals, and objectives resulted in very successful and profitable RPO relationships.

TIP: Check with your RPO partner if they could assign a dedicated executive to help your business oversee, manage, and reach the goals and objectives of your business. More often than not, you will be welcomed with an affirmative signal.

• LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT

Determining the involvement of internal hiring managers and interview teams is crucial. The biggest problem businesses have with RPO is not enough engagement from internal hiring managers and teams.

This non-cooperation often leads to communication gaps which eventually leads to the failure of the RPO relationship.

TIP: Make sure all your employees, especially managers who have hiring responsibilities, are aware that an external RPO partner is helping with hiring and that full cooperation is expected out of them.

• CHOOSING THE CHEAPEST OPTION & TREATING RPO AS A COMMODITY

RPO is not a commodity, and any attempts to save RPO costs beforehand may have long-term adverse effects. Providers with the lowest cost have the highest probability of doing a mediocre job, and when the results are not what you need, the money you save on the initial RPO investment will be lost in either maintaining the mediocre resource or in hiring a new one.

The people you hire are directly related to your success or failure as a company. RPO is not an area where you want to be stingy.

TIP: Don’t be afraid to spend money. It often pays off in the long run.

• FORCING INAPPROPRIATE OR INEFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES

Forcing your RPO provider to adopt technologies that it does not need or will not help the process will only cause confusion and inefficiency and hinder effective and timely results. Allow your RPO partner to do their job. Forcing something will force an unnecessary learning opportunity on your RPO provider.

They will take time to learn it, they will take time to integrate it with their systems, and they will take time to get used to it. This will affect the time-to-hire and not in a good way.

TIP: Allow your RPO partner autonomy. This boosts their confidence which results in you finding great talent on time.

• FINDING RIGHT CANDIDATES

This is the most common problem faced by recruiters. Not finding enough candidates for a job is not the problem. The real problem is getting qualified candidates to hit the Apply button. Skilled and experienced candidates are rarely desperate.

They are often confident in their skills and are sure in their ability to land a job whenever they like. However, this creates a problem for recruitment as it becomes very difficult to spot such talent before they apply anywhere else.

TIP: Ask your RPO how they source their talent and if they have a tried and tested methodology/process to find and reserve top talent.

• CANDIDATES GETTING OFFERS FROM OTHER COMPANIES

It is very common for applicants, especially those with skills that are difficult to find, to receive offers from multiple companies simultaneously. As a result, it is difficult for recruitment companies to attract them to accept their job opportunities. This problem can be solved by studying what the candidates hope to get from the job and what makes them happy about the job.

RPO partners can motivate candidates by clearly telling them what their clients offer. This may include wages, bonuses, employee benefits, etc.

TIP: Sit down with your finance or budgeting team and work out a plan to attract potential top talent. Research your competition, find out what they offer, and accordingly make your offer lucrative. Then let your RPO partner know about your plans so that they have all the necessary arsenal at their disposal to persuade and lock in top talent who have multiple options to choose from. This way, they come to you instead of going to your competitor.

• EXTENDED TIME-TO-HIRE

If the vacancy is left unfilled for a long time, it will hurt the company’s operations. In addition, recruitment delays put tremendous pressure on recruiters as suitable candidates often join competitors in the meantime.

RPO partners, along with the help of internal hiring managers, can attempt to solve this problem by reviewing the current recruitment process. Some unnecessary recruitment phases may be involved, which can be eliminated, thereby decreasing the time-to-hire.

In addition to this, after finding a suitable candidate, there should be rapid communication between hiring managers and candidates. The next phase of the recruitment process must begin soon. This helps to ensure that candidates do not have enough time to consider other vacancies.

TIP: Never keep the candidate confused and move with the speed of light.

Conclusion: If done well, RPO can become a huge asset for your recruitment and human resources functions and the entire enterprise. However, this happens only when the relationship is a true partnership. When all elements are in place and people are determined and motivated, the outsourced recruitment process can be used as an extension of the client’s own team to produce results in the form of cost savings and new hires.

By using recruitment services, companies can leverage the expertise of experienced recruitment professionals who have extensive experience in providing solutions to all types of recruitment problems. This helps to recruit the right employees who are most suitable for the organization.

RPO is the most effective technique used by successful companies to make profits and reduce costs. Therefore, for a business to prosper, the plan must be detailed and concise, and holding back on quality directly affects productivity and a good corporate culture.

Exela HR Solutions is an industry leader in recruitment process outsourcing. We understand these pitfalls, which is why we work very closely with our clients to understand all their needs and exceed all their expectations. Speak with us today to learn more about our offerings.

Sources: blog.rpoassociation.org | theplanetgroup.com | deloitte.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly, and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS OUTSOURCING. WHAT IS IT?

RPO has been around since the 1940s and has undergone a lot of change since then. In the beginning, before the invention of the computer, everything was manual and paper-based. Today, most of the RPO process is automated and highly efficient.

Definition:

Simply put, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a business process in which Company A hires Company B to find talented people quickly, and people at Company B are experts at finding good talent quickly.

Firms like these differ significantly from other types of outsourcing providers because they are accountable for the results they give, resulting from designing and managing the entire recruitment process. In addition, outsourcing the hiring process has had a great track record of having the ability to streamline a company’s current hiring system and accelerate access to talent.

A controlled recruitment process significantly increases overall productivity and allows prospective employees to respond quickly and more efficiently to the company’s business strategy. As a result, many businesses now regularly hire qualified people with the right skills in an effort to improve their internal recruitment process.

This solution dramatically improves personnel infrastructure and optimizes customer satisfaction while increasing service delivery efficiency.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST BENEFITS OF RPO?

With each passing year, the number of companies showing interest in outsourcing their recruitment process grows significantly. Why is this happening? Why is the internal recruitment process slowly dying? Let us have a look:

• RISK MITIGATION & COMPLIANCE
  
  Regional laws and regulations differ depending on the country or region around the world. However, employers must be aware of these laws to avoid an accidental violation, or even worse, an intentional violation for the sake of business efficiency.
  
  As service rules continue to evolve, this often becomes a major issue for HR departments in many organizations. An unstructured hiring process is not only a disservice for the companies involved, but also reduces the chances of attracting highly qualified employees. Using professional recruiting services helps prevent the employers you work with from not complying with the hiring rules.
  
  RPO service providers usually have extensive knowledge of national and international labor laws to ensure that their clients face the least amount of risk and limited legal exposure.
   
• ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE TALENT POOL
  
  The biggest problem faced by the global labor market today is the lack of suitable candidates for important positions in companies. Finding the coveted talent to achieve your company’s goals without the help of an RPO provider can be a nightmare.
  
  A lot of hiring companies may contact you, promising to deliver results first as quickly as possible. However, these temporary solutions treat just the symptoms. Chalking out a robust RPO plan and then implementing a solid RPO solution with a trusted partner will deliver high-quality output.
  
  RPO service providers also have extensive and detailed databases of hard-to-reach employees who are well-qualified to fill key positions. The proven track record of an RPO supplier, coupled with exclusive access to these talented professionals, allows client companies to access the services of potential in-demand candidates easily.
   
• FLEXIBILITY AND SCALABILITY
  
  Hiring terms and needs, for most companies, change throughout the year depending on their goals and objectives. Additionally, companies have to adapt to and survive unforeseen market events like the COVID-19 pandemic or the recession of 2008.
  
  In such cases, it can be difficult to reliably determine labor requirements for optimal performance in the workplace. This is something that a good RPO business can easily get rid of and deal with.
  
  When assessing the individual needs of different employers, employees could be hired on a project-based or on-demand basis to meet the flexibility and scalability needs of the company while also ensuring that the business manages its workforce with utmost efficiency.
   
• HIGHLY INSIGHTFUL RPO ANALYTICS
  
  RPO companies have an extensive talent database collected over years of thriving in the market. This allows them to analyze and predict future trends that will impact your business. They can use this information to advise employers, anticipate potential talent needs, and balance the supply and demand for key employees in key roles.
  
  RPO providers, therefore, have an edge in the market because they use an efficient and dynamic recruitment system based on carefully analyzed data to facilitate the progressive growth of their partner organizations.
   
• QUICKER TALENT ACQUISITION & BOOST IN EFFICIENCY
  
  To be successful in the long term, companies must quickly adapt to an ever-changing business environment. A delay in hiring skilled and innovative talent needed to achieve a goal directly translates to a disadvantage in a competitive business, which could quickly become a very serious problem.
  
  According to a 2015 Deloitte poll, it takes an average of 94 days to recruit scientists, engineers, and researchers.
  
  This problem can be solved by outsourcing the process to an independent RPO provider to provide the highest quality of options for a specific job as soon as possible.
   
• REDUCED BURDEN ON INTERNAL HR DEPARTMENT
  
  RPO does not mean you have to get rid of all your internal HR personnel. Often, outsourcing just the recruitment function reduces the workload of the HR department by a significant amount.
  
  This extra time and resources could be diverted intelligently towards more meaningful HR functions like employee development, retainment, or appraisal management.
  
  By hiring a professional recruitment service provider, HR departments can be confident that their efficiency and productivity will improve dramatically. In addition, when all aspects of the appointment are made through the RPO Company, the HR department can entirely focus on internal issues that arise within the organization.
   
• EMPLOYER BRANDING
  
  Companies around the world are constantly looking for great candidates for their employees. Therefore, the importance of upholding the company’s reputation and image cannot be emphasized enough. Hiring talented people can be very difficult if the company’s internal team of specialists does not have a certain place in the structure of the company’s rewards and values.
  
  Professional RPO service providers with effective hiring conversations with candidates to reflect the company’s brand, are why talented employees will choose to work for the company over their competitors. Whether attracting external talent or significantly expanding your HR department, a good RPO provider is a great ambassador for your brand and delivers the right message to the market.

Also read: Human Resource Outsourcing - Helping Businesses Control Operations and Growth

TYPES OF RPO

RPO providers do not follow any single, specific model. In general, RPO offers three types of engagement models:

• Full RPO: Where the RPO provider offers full internal recruitment outsourcing capabilities for your company, including access to their extensive resources.
• Role-based RPO: In this arrangement, the RPO provider will assume full control of any one specific department or division of a company. For example, the marketing department or the entire sales division of the company.
• RPO On-Demand: This is on a purely contractual basis that comes with an end date. For example, hire three managers and 75 customer support specialists before the next quarter ends.

IS RPO RIGHT FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION IN 2021?

The recruitment market is highly complex today. To effectively hire the best people, you need to defend yourself in a tough job market, learn about some related technologies that make your job easier, and mentor/lead candidates. The RPO companies are experts, and attracting talent is a core competency of theirs. They have the resources to hone their hiring skills to navigate the hiring environment and keep up with the latest hiring techniques to meet the needs of their employees. RPO firms also provide deeply insightful statistical data for high-quality talent acquisition.

Depending on what your business is looking for, an RPO solution can include the following benefits:

• Reduction in overall hiring costs
• Higher reliance on delivery companies increases the efficiency and productivity of hiring managers
• Reduction in downsizing times
• Improvement in hiring alerts
• Improvement in candidate experience
• Simplifies and optimization of the ordering process
• Opportunity cost, more involvement in other important tasks

In the past, RPO allowed only large companies to achieve a higher rate of hiring at a far lesser cost than other hiring options. However, RPO has evolved over the past few years to offer a flexible strategic hiring solution with the added benefit of making their services available for small businesses too.

Small businesses today face their own set of additional challenges like changing requirements. In addition to recruiting and hiring, HR staff in small businesses typically perform a variety of functions, including employee relationship management, training, payroll, compensation, and benefits. Also, varying numbers of employees throughout the year make it difficult for internal teams to hire employees on demand. Recruitment process outsourcing provides process scalability and cost variability. Furthermore, the RPO commitment can be customized and assessed according to the business needs to provide a flexible solution.

WHY CHOOSE RPO OVER OTHER OPTIONS?

Traditionally, companies choose from one of three talent sourcing options: internal recruiters, staffing companies, and contractors. Until recently, few companies knew that outsourcing the hiring process could be a viable hiring solution. Unlike other outsourcing models, the outsourcing process is a strategic partnership that adds value in the following ways:

• Assessment of candidates: RPO providers look after candidates, guide them through the hiring process, and ensure they have the basic skills, abilities, and motivation to get the job done.
• Job Marketing: RPO providers can market their clients; work through billboards, social media, referrals, and networks, making it easier to connect with a wider pool of talent.
• Planning & Analysis: When implemented effectively, RPO providers work with their customers to understand the business aspects of their work and business goals. This allows them to anticipate staffing needs and plan ahead to meet those requirements to achieve all business goals.
• Applicant Care & Sourcing: It is important to manage the candidate’s experience so that it is reflected in the employer’s brand. RPO providers help clients take care of applicants and manage their experience, whether in an interview, hiring review, or job search. In addition to sourcing talent, RPO providers develop brand awareness, job placement opportunities, and connect with future potential talent through our talent communities and talent channel. On the other hand, candidates can also evaluate some of the arguments and find out in advance if the company is a good fit or no.

HOW EXELA HR SOLUTIONS IS HELPING BUSINESSES WITH RECRUITMENT PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Exela HR Solutions is an industry leader in recruitment process outsourcing. With clients present on every continent of the world, we offer a fast and efficient talent acquisition process complete with requisition management and applicant tracking to interview assessments and full onboarding support.

At Exela HR Solutions, HR is what we do — day in and day out. We have a team of HR professionals, each an expert, dedicated to their slice of the HR pie to make sure all your HR tasks are carried out correctly and on time. Not only that, but we bring the best HR practices and robust HR technology to your company that minimizes employment-related risks and helps you take even better care of your employees.

• Fast and Efficient Talent Acquisition Process: Our well-built networks over the years allow us to find the right talent for your business as quickly as possible. This includes requisition management, sourcing and applicant tracking, interview assessments, offer management, onboarding management, and more.
• Global Payroll Processing & Full Employee Benefits Administration: Our powerful HR technology that will back your organization, has the ability to deliver payouts globally and on time. We also manage employee benefits like variable-component, hazard pay, overtime, etc., so your employees never get less than what they deserve.
• HR & Business Partner Services: Dedicated HRBPs for your employees to make sure every issue or concern of theirs is addressed effectively and on time. This includes grievance management, leave management, engagement activities and surveys, travel and expense management, rewards and recognition management, workshops, coaching and mentoring, virtual focus and open house meeting management, and more.

Try Exela HR Solutions today!

Sources: blog.rpoassociation.org | theplanetgrocup.om | deloitte.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Laws governing the subject matter may change quickly, and Exela cannot guarantee that all the information on this site is current or correct. Should you have specific legal questions about any of the information on this site, you should consult with a licensed attorney in your area.