With the holiday season just around the corner, retailers nationwide will begin their large-scale seasonal hiring needs. Is your organization faced with the daunting challenge of recruiting hundreds—if not thousands—of workers this fall? If so, it’s time to consider recruitment process outsourcing as your solution.

By working with a proven RPO provider to deploy a custom-fit recruitment program, your business can benefit from a flexible solution that is designed to fill your open positions fast. Here are the most compelling reasons why retailers and other companies with seasonal hiring demands should leverage RPO to handle their recruiting needs and keep their businesses running smoothly.

5 Types of Recruitment Process Outsourcing: Choosing the RPO That’s Best for You

Greater flexibility and scalability

Every business’s recruiting needs are different, which is why RPO programs are not designed to be one-size-fits-all. Whether your organization wants to hand over some—or all—of its hiring responsibilities to a third-party provider, this recruiting service enables companies to remain as much control over their talent acquisition processes as they’d like. In seasonal retail businesses, it’s important to find a recruiting solution that can be scaled up or pared down at a moment’s notice, which makes RPO services so useful. Reap the benefits of this flexible solution to increase the size of your workforce before the start of the holiday season.

Creating a valued partnership

Upon aligning with the right-fit RPO partner, a discussion should take place between both parties to strategize on your recruiting approach. What types of candidates are you searching for? What kinds of skillsets do these candidates need to do the job—and do it well? How will these resources help bring value to your business? By holding these conversations at the onset of the recruitment process, your RPO provider will help to enhance your employer brand by implementing more effective strategies to attract talent. This valuable partnership will serve your organization well—both during the RPO program and beyond.

Lending support to internal TA teams

During the pandemic, talent acquisition teams were ravaged by furloughs and layoffs. But in today’s labor market, recruiters can be tough to find. If your TA resources are struggling to keep pace with a high number of open requisitions, it’s time to call upon RPO recruiters for help. Your RPO team can gain access to a customized email address, allowing them to become an extension of your in-house team and a spokesperson for your company’s brand. Candidates will never suspect that these RPO recruiters aren’t actually part of your organization. RPO offers a foolproof way to lend support to your internal recruiters.

Increased candidate quality

By leveraging support from an RPO partner, your organization will benefit from greater candidate quality. Why? RPO programs rely on advanced sourcing and recruiting platforms to connect with a wider candidate pool. With help from RPO recruiters, your organization can uncover even the hardest-to-find candidates that will help address your most pressing talent needs. Plus, with a suite of behavioral tests or skill-based assessments at their disposal, your RPO provider can examine candidates’ skills and abilities to determine their aptitude for the job.

Outsource specific roles

Does your organization need help with hiring hundreds of retail associates? What about recruiting dozens of skilled eCommerce experts? Experienced web developers? Supply chain specialists? RPO providers can do it all. Before beginning a large-scale project, RPO recruiters take the time to get to know the role they’ll be recruiting for and the local markets they’re recruiting in. They’ll learn industry-specific terms and lingo so they can “talk the talk” with prospective candidates. If your company is looking to outsource one specific position, deploying a project-based RPO solution can effectively scale your workforce within an expedited recruiting timeline to meet your retail needs.

Summary

As the need for seasonal workers ramps up in the weeks ahead, don’t let your internal TA teams get overrun by these hiring demands. In today’s hypercompetitive labor market, it pays to have a recruiting partner that can get you the results you want, when you want them. Engaging with a proven RPO provider presents a practical solution to quell your talent woes. Regardless of whether you need to hire frontline retail workers or bring on back-end eCommerce specialists, the right recruitment process outsourcing program can help you get the job done.

Interested in learning more about Broadleaf’s success with retail RPO? Check out this case study to discover how we hired over 2,200 hourly associates while lessening our client’s interview-to-hire ratio to 2:1.

For a more in-depth look at recruitment process outsourcing for retail businesses, download our RPO E-Book for Retailers here.

This blog was written by Broadleaf Senior Director of Business Development Gregory Gary.