Blog

The Evolution of Recruitment Process Outsourcing: TalentReach’s Unique Offering

The Seattle job market is a unique animal. It’s one that evolves so quickly that every six months, it’s an entirely different beast, with new strengths and weaknesses. Top employers trying to tame this changing beast need a recruiting partner that likewise continues to evolve. TalentReach has grown so rapidly since our beginning because we have been able to do this. Our unique RPO model is just one of those reasons, and is one that is currently in demand. 

In a traditional recruiting agency model, an employer will pay a fee for agency-sourced candidates that fill the roles the employer is seeking to fill. It’s very transactional and works well for large companies who might use multiple agencies, have a robust human resource department, and don’t have time-critical roles to fill. The agencies, likewise, might have many clients, all seeking to fill similar roles, and can direct candidates to roles based on agency priorities. This is basically a performance-based incentive.

Other agencies have worked with a resource-based model, charging for time and materials. They take over (outsource) all recruiting, but have someone onsite as an inhouse recruiter. It is also very expensive, as employers must pay hourly for the onsite person, as well as a hefty upfront retainer or fee. Results can be mixed, as the performance-based incentive isn’t there.

Neither model is ideal in lots of situations. The startup that needs to scale quickly, and fill a large number of roles in a short time. The small company that doesn’t yet have HR set up. An organization that just received financing and needs to meet stringent hiring goals fast, to satisfy investor requirements.  

TalentReach has created a hybrid model, which gives our customers maximum flexibility, and significant savings. We’ve also seen it yield the best results. In our model, employers use TalentReach exclusively as their “in house” recruiters. In return, they get a much lower percentage fee, an on-site resource, and only  are charged up front for a smaller percentage of placements. We’ll handle all inbound resumes, job listings on the website, even onboarding logistics of new employees – whatever our clients need.

Here’s an example: a client with just 10 employees gets a large round of financing, and is tasked with hiring 25-30 people in the next six months. Hitting certain hiring benchmarks were part of their funding obligations. Clearly, this would be beyond the abilities of the small team who were focused on their core job functions. TalentReach could turn its attention to this client and focus on delivering. Instead of huge upfront costs or a hefty yearly retainer contract, the employer could pay up front for just three placements, with the fee being lower than average, and then pay every third placement.

This method can scale up or down with a client’s needs. It balances performance, cost and speed. No obligation for a pricey annual retainer, and also not waiting on a traditional recruiting model that could take time and resources that an employer doesn’t have. 

We’ve pioneered this method in Seattle, and we’re getting results. At one startup client, they had tech roles that had been open for as long as 7 months. They were moving into growth mode, and their old recruiting agency methods weren’t working. TalentReach came in with their RPO model. They took the time to really understand their product – a SaaS integration tool – and see the type of engineers they needed. They needed people who deeply understood systems software. The other recruiting agencies they had worked with did not have expertise at the system level – they were just trying to match keywords from job descriptions to resumes. TalentReach knew the domain and knew how to actively reach out and find the engineers who would be a good fit. They knew how to deliver results, not just a list of candidates with some of the skills for the roles. 

The CEO was impressed: “As a fast-growing startup, talent acquisition is key to our success.   We have relied on TalentReach to act as our recruiting team – working with our leaders to map out hiring needs, create compelling job descriptions, and deliver outstanding candidates.  By working on a more exclusive basis, TalentReach was able to develop a deep understanding of our needs and our culture, which is so often missing in outsourced recruiting engagements.”

Our RPO offering is just one way we’ve flipped the script on recruiting in Seattle. Give us a call and find out what we can do for you.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Apply Now