Introduction to recruitment process outsourcing

Written by: Sabah Karimi

Recruiting, hiring and retaining quality employees is an important goal for companies that want to become leaders in their industry and grow faster than the competition. A company's ability to attract and retain employees is typically dependent on its human resources department, which is often busy with other day-to-day HR activities. Companies that can't afford additional HR staff, or those with ongoing hiring needs, may want to turn to an HR outsourcing firm to coordinate essential recruitment efforts. Recruitment process outsourcing offers businesses of all sizes a chance to obtain professional expertise for hiring. It also can reduce the overall costs associated with the recruitment process.

How recruitment process outsourcing works

Recruitment process outsourcing hands over the responsibility of finding, interviewing and hiring candidates for a particular position to an HR firm; this means that department managers do not have to be involved with recruiting until the final selection stages. The entire process of reviewing resumes, setting up interviews and coordinating any assessment tests can be managed by the outsourcing HR firm, and a company can rely on its professional expertise to make the best decision on a candidate.

Senior managers of a company can work directly with the HR firm to evaluate different applicants and determine the best match. Recruitment process outsourcing tasks also may include:

• Pre-screening all applicants for a particular position
• Posting job requirements and positions on relevant job boards
• Scoring candidates after phone and in-person interviews
• Creating a tiered list of quality candidates for other positions a company may need
• Providing quantifiable reports and statistics on results

Key benefits of outsourcing recruitment

Since the cost of recruitment is especially high for companies in rapidly-growing industries such as technology, research and Internet businesses, recruitment process outsourcing is particularly valuable for companies that need short-term employees to handle a project, or for companies looking for employees with very specialized skill sets.

Recruitment process outsourcing can tap into the wide pool of available candidates and place these people in a position very quickly. Other benefits of outsourcing recruitment include:

• Reducing overall costs associated with the hiring process
• Eliminating the need for an external recruiter who may not have enough knowledge about the company's needs
• Using technology and statistics to qualify or pre-qualify candidates based on proven metrics
• Ensuring governmental compliance during the recruitment process
• Developing scalable systems that can be used for future hiring initiatives

Obviously you're putting a lot of trust in the expertise and competence of the company you choose. While you're still making the final decisions, you'll be counting on them to weed out unsuited candidates. For this reason, it's important to compare several potential services before choosing one to work with. When you want to start looking, use BuyerZone's free request for HR outsourcing price quotes service. We'll match you to several providers – you compare their professionalism and costs and decide which can help your recruiting the most.