by Richard Barrington
As with any outsourcing decision, human resource outsourcing should be driven by the opportunity to achieve measurable results. In that respect, recruiting may represent the greatest opportunity from human resource outsourcing. For fast-growing companies in particular, outsourced recruiting offers resources that would be virtually impossible to create internally.
Those resources include contact networks and something that has traditionally been underutilized in recruiting: technology. The following points outline how such resources can make recruiting faster and more effective.
Building a Network
A company may not want to outsource HR functions entirely. After all, there are aspects of HR which require communication within the company. Recruiting, on the other hand, is almost the antithesis of an internal function--it is all about outreach. This focus outside the company makes recruiting a natural way to at least partially outsource HR functions.
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Good recruiting is about contacts. An internal recruiter might place an advertisement, which will only reach the few thousand pairs of eyes that happen to look at it. Thus, the candidate pool is limited from the start, especially since the most qualified candidates are usually not actively looking for a job.
In contrast, an outsourced recruiting organization is constantly building its network and is ready to start making contacts as soon as a job search is launched. This can expand the reach of a recruiting search considerably. For example, online recruiting firm Accolo, Inc. offers its clients access to a network of 560,000 members. This can give a recruitment drive a candidate population well beyond the scope of what an internal recruiter could develop.
This access yields tangible results. SellingSource.com, an online marketing and technology firm, used Accolo's network to find better-matched candidates for its recruiting searches. As a result, SellingSource.com was able to drop the number of hires with relocation costs from 80 percent to 10.7 percent.
Technological Efficiencies
Outsourced recruiting can do more than provide access to a ready-made pool of candidates. It can also introduce technological efficiencies that could only be developed by an organization specializing in recruiting.
For example, Accolo uses automation to implement client hiring parameters quickly and thoroughly. Their use of technology makes all phases of the hiring process more efficien
- Candidates are pre-interviewed electronically, so the field can be sifted for the most qualified applicants.
- A proprietary search management tool is used to present candidates to the hiring manager for interview scheduling or rejection.
- All candidates are notified of outcomes by e-mail.
Besides making the process more efficient for companies and applicants alike, this use of automation can be especially vital to companies with far-flung operations. For example, IDEX Corporation has 5,200 employees operating on six continents with a decentralized organizational structure. Accolo's hiring technology provides a centralized process framework so that each hiring manager does not have to reinvent a methodology.
About Those Kangaroos...
Accolo's searches include a healthy share of the traditional, mainstream positions one would expect: CEOs, VPs of Finance, sales & marketing executives, etc. However, recent listings also included one for a kangaroo trainer and another for a juggler. This goes to show that with the right network and technology, the range of possible recruiting searches is unlimited.
Sources:
Accolo
Richard Barrington is a freelance writer and novelist who previously spent over twenty years as an investment industry executive.
