Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) definition

Recruitment process outsourcing involves businesses transferring all of their recruitment activity to a third-party provider.

It’s a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) that aims to free up internal resources so firms can concentrate on mission-critical tasks. Other commonly-cited benefits include economies of scope and scale that the recruitment business can provide, and a higher level of service since the contract between the hiring business and the recruitment business will likely be tied to performance.

Cited disadvantages of RPO include potentially higher costs than recruiting in-house as well as potential devaluing of the brand as protection of brand reputation is not traditionally seen as part of the package. A lack of competition may also be an issue as the business puts all its recruitment eggs in one basket.