While Recruitment Process Outsourcing is an industry that emerged from traditional recruiting, there are a few fundamental differences between the two.  Recruitment Process Outsourcing is “a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service provider. An RPO provider can provide its own or may assume the company’s staff, technology, methodologies and reporting. In all cases, RPO differs greatly from providers such as staffing companies and contingent/ retained search providers in that it assumes ownership of the design and management of the recruitment process and the responsibility of results,” – RPOA.

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is more than filling open jobs; it’s about improving an organization’s recruiting process. “An RPO provider is a people-process-technology solution with an element of consultative work.” Another difference is that RPO is based on a partnership between the RPO provider and buyer.  “We enjoy the relationship with our clients, looking at the long-term [factors],” he said. “RPO is more strategic, more programatic and not transactional.”