WHEN SHOULD RECRUITMENT AGENCIES OUTSOURCE?

Recruitment agencies can outsource to an offshore RPO in multiple scenarios. Outlined below are the typical scenarios for recruitment agencies can choose to outsource and partner with an offshore RPO that can fulfil their requirements.

Need access to the tools of the trade, i.e. job boards

Are you a recruitment agency start-up, solo-recruiter or a small size recruitment agency looking to achieve one of the following?

• Populate/Increase the pool of new candidates on your internal database?
• Want access to job boards you do not subscribe?
• Want to save on monthly job board subscription costs that range circa £1,200 per month?
• Want to save on the cost of recruiting a Resourcer?

If your answer is yes to any of the above questions, you can outsource to an offshore RPO that has access to multiple job boards.

The fee range from circa £200 per month on an average, and it is a perfect scenario that helps recruiters to outsource without incurring high costs.

Facilitate ad-hoc requirement 

Recruitment agencies irrespective of their size have ad-hoc requirement ranging from functions such as CV sourcing, CV formatting, CV processing, E-mail sorting, Skill-coding on the ATS, etc. that needs work.

Recruiters that have a low volume of jobs to work on and do not want to hire a perm Resourcer also can take the outsourcing route.

Many offshore RPOs have various engagement models that recruiters can avail. The commercial models are suited to support the recruitment agency requirement. Offshore RPOs have multiple models such as pay per vacancy, per CV, per hour, per man-day, man-day packages, etc. that fit the bill for almost every recruiter.

E.g. many recruitment agencies outsource their CV formatting function on a pay rate of per CV formatted. Recruitment agencies don’t have to hire someone permanently to fulfil this requirement; they can pay on the volume of CVs formatted per month.

Outsource to meet your ad-hoc requirement.

Cater to high volume low margin jobs 

• Are you a recruitment agency that operates in a high volume, low margin market sector?
• Are you concerned about your fill rate and low margins?
• Are you concerned about your increasing costs to serve and long-term sustainability?
• Are you looking to devote more funds towards new business development, but unable to do so due to low margins and fill rate?

Outsourcing would be a perfect solution if you answered yes to any of the above questions.

A competitive market with low margins needs a strategic approach. Just cutting costs and operating on skeletal staff leads to burnout and impacts productivity.

For recruitment agencies that not only want to ensure the sustainability of the margins but also increasing the fill rate and making more significant margins, outsourcing plays a vital role in meeting this requirement.

Several recruitment agencies from the healthcare and IT recruitment industry outsource to increase fill rate and improve margins. Many offshore Healthcare Recruiters generate a GM of circa £6k-£9k per month. Imagine having a team of ten such recruiters and the margins you would make?

Cater to the Service Level Agreements

• Do you have a high volume of jobs to fill within tight timelines?
• Do you work on VMS contracts that need a tight turn around time to meet the SLAs?
• Have SLAs for submitting candidates within a couple of hours on the receipt of the job?

Taking the outsourcing route can benefit from managing tight SLAs.

Several recruitment agencies with a high volume of jobs, managed services/RPO agreements outsource precisely to ensure they work within the SLAs. They are missing out on delivering as per the SLAs result into heavy penalties that erode the margins.

Partnering with an offshore RPO adds value both in quality and speed.

1. Tidying and cleansing the middle office functions

• A massive backlog of references to be chased?
• Falling behind processing those time-sheets and unable to process payroll on time?
• Falling short of the number of compliant candidates to increase fill rate?
• The fragmented process followed by branches nationwide impacting the process and timelines, looking to standardise processes and systems?
• Need help with generating candidate pipeline?
• Have a massive database of clients and candidates that needs to be cleansed for your team to optimise this asset?

Clunky middle office with fragmented processes, and uncleansed database of clients and candidates, etc. wastes more time against saving time and resources.

Partnering with offshore RPO addresses all these scenarios and the impact on your bottom line is a net positive. The bottom-line result is an increase in fill rate and improved margins.

Access niche talent

• Are you struggling to recruit multilingual Resourcers/Recruiters?
• Need candidates that have expertise recruiting in Asia?
• Difficult to recruit experienced SAP Recruiters?

Recruiting candidates with multilingual skills, be it German, French, Arabic, etc. can be a task. Exploring the outsourcing route can resolve these problem areas. Countries such as the Philippines and India have a pool of multilingual talent clubbed with sector expertise, especially within healthcare and IT.

International/Overseas recruitment

• Healthcare contracts to recruit Doctors and Nurses from overseas?
• Trades jobs to fill for your international clients in the Middle East?
• Need local onshore support to source and generate talent pipeline for your clients to interview?

Offshore RPOs come to your rescue. For years, the number of healthcare, construction and engineering recruitment agencies have utilised the outsourcing route to cater to the scenarios mentioned above.

Local knowledge and resources quicken the process. Both the recruitment agencies and clients do not have to experiment, saving them a lot of time and money.

1. Looking to scale the business in a short turn around?

• Looking for a bigger pool of candidates to select?
• Struggling to scale?
• Don’t have enough time and resources on hand that can recruit multiple team members in a short turn around time?
• Looking for trained staff that can hit the ground running?

Scalability has always been one of the significant features of outsourcing. Offshore RPOs enable the UK recruitment agencies by recruiting offshore team members at a scale ranging from 1 to 100s depending on your requirement.

A precise specification with expectations and timeline always assures qualitative outcome.

Outsource to scale.

Want to provide uninterrupted services, 24x7x365 cover?

• Have client contracts that need 24×7 cover?
• Skeletal staff covering out of hours, need dedicatedly guarded desk?
• Need to facilitate uninterrupted services to clients to stay ahead of the competition?
• Catering to the US region and need someone covering the desk to ensure delivery?

Time difference between the UK and India serves well for the UK recruitment industry. 4.5 hours and 5.5-hour time difference between the countries ensure a good overlap during the day.

Many healthcare recruitment agencies have them out of hours support based out of their offshore teams in India. The benefits outweigh the costs as the teams work on tasks ranging from making service calls, managing cancellations, booking last-minute shifts, etc.

Similarly, the IT recruitment companies utilise the time difference when the offshore RPO team contacts the candidates after work hours to increase contact ratio and to generate active candidates, enabling the recruitment agency to stay a step ahead of the competition.

The UK agencies also partner with the offshore RPO teams when they are developing the US region, primarily to ensure delivery during the regular US hours across time zones.

The outsourcing route offers 24x7x365 cover with uninterrupted services to your clients.

Reduce operating costs by 50%

• Short financial runway?
• Looking to increase your runway to sustain?
• Expanded middle office and back-office costs?
• Looking for flexibility and less liability?
• Want a lean middle and back office?

Cost reduction has been one of the biggest USPs of outsourcing. Pitched as the only primary factor and driver once upon a time, cost-saving is still one of the best features for recruitment agencies considering cost reduction.

Of course, the outsourcing industry has matured over the years and factors such as service level agreements, penalties on non-adherence of SLAs, etc. assure the quality aspect is covered along with the cost-benefit.

Outsourcing is no longer just about cost reduction. Outsourcing has been a vital part of success for many UK recruitment agencies. Several mid-to-large UK recruitment companies have offshore teams up to 400. The offshore teams cover almost every function within the recruitment life-cycle that does not require a warm handshake.

“Outsourcing has significant upside and only adds value to the recruitment agency that is not just looking to sustain but thrive”.