Recruitment Process Outsourcing

The process of finding suitable candidates for a job or a function is known as Recruitment. Recruitment generally is a prelude to hiring in many organizations. With many companies undertaking massive expansion plans in the USA, a lot of new employees are required to fill up vacancies in their organization. The company may decide its internal Human Resources Department to do the recruitment activities or it may do Recruitment Process Outsourcing to a 3rd party service provider who will do this function for them.

An ideal Recruitment process involves the following activities:

  • Identifying job vacancies in the organization and preparing job description for candidates who will be required to join the company. The job description would mention the roles and responsibilities of the candidates. The skill-sets required to do this function and the expected salary band in which he could be placed are also mentioned in the Job Description.

  • Advertising the Job Vacancy - The company advertises the job vacancy in the print and the electronic media. This is done so that possible and potential candidates can see this job vacancy.

  • Skill-Testing - After a candidate applies for the job, his skills are tested by means of an Aptitude Test or a Technical Test in case of a job where technical skills are required. Candidates who pass the test are scheduled to attend personal interviews or group discussions and other HR activities leading up to the candidate bagging the job offer.

If a company does Recruitment Process Outsourcing to a 3rd party service provider, it could allow the 3rd party provider to do head-hunting. Head-hunting is a practice by which the recruitment company searches job databases on the skill-sets and required experience details provided by the client company and follows it up with the testing process of the candidates. These 3rd party recruitment service providers may also decide to do 'cold-calling' of candidates, though the practice of 'cold-calling' may not be cost effective if the recruitment company is located overseas and candidates residing in the United States need to be called.

A company may decide if the entire recruitment process needs to be outsourced to a 3rd party provider. Based on my interactions with companies who have done Recruitment Process Outsourcing, I can tell you that hiring being a crucial activity to an organization, companies do not feel it safe and doable to outsource the entire process. As of today, it is only certain activities of the Recruitment process which are relatively 'non-core' to the entire recruitment activity are outsourced.

Outsourcing some activities of the recruitment process has generated tremendous cost savings and time saving for the company. Looking at the statistics of impressive results and the growing demand for Recruitment Process Outsourcing, outsourcing of the entire recruitment process is not very far away from today.