Featured Article: "Sourcing Advisors - The key to unlocking the potential of RPO"

We addressed the opportunity for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) in an earlier issue this year. During the past 6-12 months, recruiting departments have been forced to make cutbacks. Now, as the media has begun to declare a recovery, hiring departments need to prepare to ramp up for a lot of hiring activity and a flurry of resumes. RPO provides the necessary elasticity for the rapid contraction and expansion that organizations are confronting today. But like any change, selecting and implementing an RPO solution is not without its challenges, which is why this month's issue is dedicated to our friends in the Sourcing Advisory business.

If you are seriously considering RPO you will need:

• A Driver: You need a change leader who is passionate about it and can secure buy-in from top management and across functions. The balance of power has to be with HR, not with the lines of business and hiring managers - although their buy-in is essential.
• Supporting Data: Based on the data you have collected, an outside consultant or a reputable RPO organization can advise you about whether or not RPO is going to benefit your organization.
• Determination To Make The Change: Your organization needs a burning platform to make a commitment of this magnitude. The change will affect every hiring manager, so this is not something to take on lightly.

All of the above are more easily achieved with a sourcing advisor. Sure, most RPO providers will cringe when they hear a sourcing advisory firm is involved in the RFP process. "What do we need THEM for?" they'll ask. "They'll just get in the middle, between us and the client!" is the common complaint. But at Pinstripe, we've had a different experience. Win or lose, sourcing advisors are not the unwelcome third party on a date. They're more like the necessary third leg on a stool.

Following are Pinstripe's top five reasons why it is a good idea to have a sourcing advisor along for the RPO/RFP ride:

1. Sourcing advisors get the buyer ready to buy.
Selecting an RPO provider is a complex decision. Just to understand whether RPO is a possible solution for your organization, you have to perform an evaluation which can be arduous. For starters, you'll have to analyze your current cost per hire, your existing technology, and determine how close you are to best practice. Secondly, developing an RFP is harder than you think. Sourcing advisors can provide a great deal of help with both aspects. A sourcing advisory firm can provide templates for thoroughly evaluating your internal recruiting process and determining whether there is an ROI in RPO. Developing a request for proposal on your own is not impossible, but a sourcing advisor can usually accelerate the process and ensure that you're asking everything you really need to know to make a decision.

2. Sourcing advisors set timeframes and provide a process for decision making.
There's nothing worse than a long RFP process that ends in a non-decision or simply drags on for months. Sourcing advisors help their clients set reasonable expectations on turnaround times for the RFP responses, the RFP evaluation and down selection, the presentations, the due diligence and the final selection. Because they've gone through this process before they are familiar with the process and estimated timeframes and can provide honest feedback to a client if the process looks like it's dragging or, conversely, if the schedule is too aggressive.