RPOlosophy

As a follow up to March RPO Madness and Recruiting Violations, I thought it appropriate to finish the Trifecta with “The RPO Final Four”.

So I got to thinking about the 4 remaining NCAA Basketball teams. What got them to where they are? Do the teams playing in Pontiac, MI next week have any traits in common with some of the leading RPO firms that seem to consistently make the RFP finals? Maybe not, but if anyone has been following RPOlosophy, you probably know that I will figure some way to make it work. Read the rest of this entry »

I graduated from University of Connecticut and I am a devoted basketball fan. As a matter of fact, I am wearing my 2004 NCAA UConn basketball championship t-shirt and waiting anxiously for tonight’s Sweet Sixteen game against Purdue.

However, all is not well with Husky basketball. Yesterday, allegations of recruiting violations were leveled against UConn.  I hope the charges are false, and if not, I hope the University takes the proper actions.

As a distraction, I got to thinking about RPO recruiting violations. Is there such a thing? And if there is what would constitute a RPO recruiting violation?

So I did a quick survey around the office.  We almost all agreed that it does exist.

Here are our top 3 RPO Recruiting Violations. Read the rest of this entry »

“I’m living the American Dream” – Dick Vitale

This month it has been difficult to find time to blog. March has been total madness with presentations, proposals and travel.

To be honest this surge of activity has nothing to do with NCAA basketball. Read the rest of this entry »

In the film, Bill Murray plays an egocentric TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again.

Well, I am working on a Request for Proposal (RFP) with 312 questions. Usually, I really enjoy this activity. I am in the minority; however, I like the challenge. I like being creative. I enjoy writing.

But this current RFP is getting to me. Not because of the 312 questions and not because I have to enter and format every answer in an excel spreadsheet cell.

No, I take issue with this RFP because every time I open up the worksheet to work on it, it seems like I am answering the same questions over and over, again and again. Could this RFP really be so redundant?

Am I the Pinstripe Bill Murray or is this Company playing a cruel hoax on me?  

During my 2 hour plane ride back from Atlanta last night, I decided to tally all the duplicate questions.

And here are the results. Read the rest of this entry »

On January 30^th, I posted a blog about the benefits of Sourcing Advisors in the RPO RFP process. One of my points was that the involvement of a Sourcing Advisor facilitates the selection of a RPO provider.

While I still consider the inclusion of Sourcing Advisors helpful, just last week 2 RFPs under advisor guidance were canceled without a decision (or as one consultant explained, our client’s decision is that they have decided in favor the status quo).

I’m not terribly concerned by the events of last week. After all after 10 years, this is my first (and second) experience with this unfortunate occurrence.

I’m curious; does anyone think this is the beginning of a trend or just 2 isolated instances?

5 reasons why RPO might have failed the first time and why you might want to give RPO another try:

1. If you outsourced more than 3 years ago, and things did go well please do not despair. Suppliers have really grown and matured in the past few years. There are now industry organizations and standards which has lead to greater supplier transparency and accountability. The RPO Wild Wild West days are long gone. Read the rest of this entry »

The Business Tools Committee of the RPO Alliance, a Special Interest Group of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association (HROA), recently sought to create a standardized definition of RPO to benefit both vendors and buyers.

The recently approved definition states:

“Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) 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.”

I know that these endeavors are difficult and political Read the rest of this entry »

“A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?”

Isn’t this a common problem that many RPO decision-makers face? Read the rest of this entry »

“When faced with two equally appealing bales of hay, the donkey could not make up its mind which to eat and so died of starvation”. – Jean Buridan, circa 1295-1358. French philosopher and theologian.

How can this possible have anything to do with RPO?

Well, if you have read any of our other blog entries then you know we can make everything relevant to RPO. 

So let’s make Buridan’s parable relevant to RPO. Read the rest of this entry »