In this article we’ll focus on one specific type of recruiter, the RPO model. RPO is short for Recruitment Process Outsourcing, or as we call it here at InRessidence: Recruiter-in-Residence, and it refers simply to a Talent Acquisition Manager who takes on a fixed-term assignment to help a company recruit new members of their team.
Recruitment is above all, highly contextual and depends on three things: 1) the company itself, 2) the industry and 3) the maturity of the organisation. The need for adaptability is even further emphasised in an RPO context, where the role is fixed-term, ultra-strategic and the Recruiter in Residence is immediately operational from day 1.
The number one quality of a great recruiter is therefore, adaptability.
When you think about it, the job of a Recruiter in Residence actually draws upon skills borrowed from several different types of jobs.
On the one hand it’s a sales job, because knowing how to pitch a company and role to a candidate and vice versa, is primordial. As is knowing how to close the deal.
Marketing skills also play a role, to be able to attract candidate attention in a highly competitive market. Knowing how to craft a message and being creative go a long way towards making a successful Recruiter in Residence.
And finally, there is also a human resources aspect, as RPO and Recruiters in Residence are often also tasked with putting in place recruitment processes and tools that fit into the broader HR strategy of the company.
A great Recruiter in Residence must also be a trusted advisor. A good understanding of the candidate market and what’s possible will allow you to set realistic expectations for the client when they’re looking for a candidate who doesn’t exist, or to help them raise the bar on what great looks like.
The job also requires digging into the request for recruitment and challenging the brief. The Recruiter in Residence must understand the job description, the reporting line and the opportunities for progression for the role. For example, if the client wants to hire a “senior” candidate, the recruiter’s job is to understand what senior means in this company, this department and what experience is required to qualify someone as senior. For some, senior may mean 5+ years of experience whereas for others, it could be as much as 15 years. It’s important to fully understand the brief before starting the recruitment process and not make any assumptions.
For a Recruiter in Residence, striking a balance between established internal processes and how things already work, and your experience and external perspective on how things should be, is key.
Figuring out the illusive candidate fit: with the role, the company, the culture, the manager and with their own career aspirations, requires a savvy recruiter with the ability to read between the lines.
A great RPO recruiter is one who manages to align all the requirements on both sides of the table to ensure a successful hire for everyone involved.
Curiosity may have killed the cat but for a recruiter, it’s the key to survival.
A great recruiter must be curious to keep up to date with the trends and latest market changes, understand how jobs and skill sets are evolving for a range of job types and industries. Without this, a recruiter will lack the necessary legitimacy to have great candidate conversations.
Curiosity must also extend to recruitment tools. There are so many tools on the market these days that that can make a recruiter’s life so much easier, whether it’s an industry-leading ATS (applicant tracking system) a next-generation sourcing tool, or other key platforms and software solutions like: LinkedIn, Mixmax, Prospectin, Lever, Team Tailor, and specific tools for reaching technical audiences on their home turf like Github or Stackoverflow.
One key quality all successful recruiters have in common is being incredibly organised and methodical in their processes. This might be learned from early career roles in structured environments like recruiting agencies or acquired via professional development training such as the excellent sourcing masterclass offered by Guillaume Alexandre.
Recruitment requires switching between many different tasks during one single working day, from taking recruitment briefs, challenging the client, hunting for talent, qualifying calls, interviews and every step in the recruitment process through to having your offer accepted. It’s essential to have your own organisation and careful process to keep up with all the open recruitments under your purview. Even more so when working within the RPO model.
Each step of the broader recruitment process demands its own mini-process, such as the STAR method for interviews, or using scorecards to evaluate candidate skills.
Being details-oriented and situationally intelligent goes hand-in-hand with using tools and automated solutions for scrapping, Boolean search, or sourcing in general, to avoid being the sender of a dreaded recruiter outreach for a job that has nothing to do with the candidate’s past career or skill set.
The following KPIs are useful for measuring the efficiency of a recruiter
You’ll note that there aren’t specific figures attached to these KPIs as with everything recruitment-related, context matters. The industry, the types of jobs and the resources dedicated to recruitment all play a part. The one KPI however that everyone tends to agree on is time to hire, particularly in the context of fast-moving, high-growth companies.
Other important KPIs:
It’s worth noting that recruitment is an ever-evolving industry involving humans in every interaction, as such there are a great many factors out of any one individual recruiter’s hands.
Above all, a good RPO is one that knows how to quickly adapt to all facets of the client’s environment and context and deliver on the client’s needs.
At in Residence, each recruiter is dedicated to giving and seeking out regular feedback and communicating transparently in order to achieve their recruitment goals and complete an assignment successfully. That is what makes a great recruiter.
