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Recruitment process outsourcing explained: the models, what it costs in outline, when it beats an agency, and when it honestly does not.
Recruitment process outsourcing means an outside team runs some or all of your hiring process — sourcing, screening, coordination — while you keep the employer brand and the final decision. For SMEs it is usually a fixed-fee project or a short embed, not a multi-year enterprise contract.
If you already know you want the service, use recruitment outsourcing. This page stays third person, including the cases where RPO is the wrong answer.
Enterprise RPO assumes a large, ongoing requisition load. A 40-person company almost never needs that. The models that fit are project RPO (a named headcount), a monthly embed for a quarter, or hourly cover while you hire an HR manager.
Cost in outline: you are buying recruiter time and process, not a percentage of salary. That is why five hires can cost less than one traditional agency invoice. Commercial detail: RPO pricing.
| Agency | Internal recruiter | RPO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost shape | % of salary | Salary + bench time | Fixed / scoped |
| Best at | One hard role | Steady year-round hiring | A burst or a gap |
| Stops when | The role fills | You still employ them | The scope ends |
Do not buy RPO if you need a forklift driver tonight — that is labour hire. Do not buy RPO for a single executive search where a specialist agency is genuinely better. Do not buy RPO to avoid making a hire/no-hire decision; the provider cannot want the role more than you do.
If the honest advice is “hire a junior recruiter and we will set the process”, a good RPO provider should say that. We would rather lose a scoped fee than run a theatre of weekly reports.
RPO is paying a provider to run hiring as an extension of your team for a defined period or volume, usually on a fixed fee, instead of paying a percentage of each salary to an agency.
It can be, when you have a burst of hires, a vacant HR seat, or a campaign you do not want to staff permanently. It is the wrong tool for one specialist search or for staff needed tonight.
Read how we run it, then book a scoping call. If it does not fit, we will say so.
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