Solution: Recruiter On-Demand

The UK Talent Shortage: How to Engage & Support the “Missing Million”

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

When Dame Sharon White, former Chief Executive of Ofcom and current Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, was recently interviewed on BBC radio, she said: “One area that I think has not had enough attention is what has happened in the jobs market over the last 18 months.” Not enough attention? The UK talent shortage, and the tightness of the labour market, has been at the heart of many mainstream news stories in the UK over the past year: petrol shortages, queues at air and sea ports, and general “skimpflation” in the customer experience.

In this case, White touched upon an interesting factor in the dynamic between an oversupply of job vacancies and an under-supply of job seekers—the “missing million” in the UK workforce who have left employment all together since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

Who Are the Missing Million?

White identified that there are “1 million fewer people in work,” adding that, “Some think about it as the ‘great resignation’. I think about it as the ‘life reappraisal’, because this is predominantly people in their 50s.”

This latter point is broadly correct: four-fifths of the recent rise in economic activity is among older people, and while the concerning increase in long-term ill health negates the idea that this is most often the result a positive “reappraisal” of life priorities, growth in early retirement started in summer 2021 and remains persistent.

White rightly called for government action to address the challenge of encouraging early retirees back to work, and it’s possible that “flexible retirement” will in the future be discussed as often as “flexible working.” In the meantime, there is much that employers can do directly to support and re-engage early retirees including approaches to recruitment, job design, workplace support, and – yes – flexibility.

How to Attract and Retain Older Workers

A clear and informative job profile that brings the role to life and amplifies these factors can be the first step to finding the right candidate, including engaging overlooked or under-engaged audiences like the missing million. Job seeker priorities are often straightforward and are typically unaffected by age. Salary and flexibility—especially work from home considerations—lead the way when it comes to potential job switches.

To succeed, employers must recognise that temporary solutions to business problems, such as hybrid working, have turned into ongoing employee preferences and expectations. If you can’t advertise jobs as flexible and leverage that advantage due to the type of role, investment in pay or upskilling offers may be the answer.

At PeopleScout, we are certainly giving the UK talent shortage our full attention. We’re offering our clients bespoke strategies and tactics to overcome these challenges. By helping organisations understand their audiences—including the missing million—we’re able to support targeted candidate attraction efforts that create real results.

Recruiter On-Demand: How Project-Based RPO Can Solve Your Toughest Talent Challenges 

Posted on by nfuqua

Our challenging labor market has made it hard to hire qualified workers and turnover is high. On top of that, it’s difficult to hire recruiters in the current market. According to LinkedIn, the number of open job postings for recruiters has increased nearly seven times year-over-year. Talent acquisition teams are spread thin—spending time sourcing passive candidates and working with candidates who have multiple job opportunities. 

These factors have left many employers looking for short-term talent acquisition support that can be set up quickly to respond to changes in the market. Rather than a full recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution, many employers are turning to project-based RPO, also called Recruiter On-Demand. In this article, we’ll walk through the different ways a project-RPO partnership can be deployed to address specific challenges within talent acquisition programs.  

What is Recruiter On-Demand? 

labor on demand

Project-based RPO and Recruiter On-Demand are interchangeable terms that represent talent solutions designed to meet the demands that internal resources may be unable to accommodate. Specifically, project-based solutions provide focused support for organizations in all industries during challenging periods of the recruitment cycle, such as peak hiring, hard-to-fill positions, compressed timeframes and more.  

The biggest difference between Recruiter On-Demand solutions and traditional RPO programs is that Recruiter On-Demand is a pay-per-hour model, rather than a pay-per-hire model. It’s a great option for organizations that don’t need or want a full RPO engagement, but still feel that they could benefit from some extra talent acquisition expertise and a small number of extra recruiters (or even just one). 

While these types of programs typically begin with a defined timeline and scope, they also have the ability to expand, extend and evolve as needs arise. There are three major use cases for project-based RPO engagements; below, we’ll cover what they are, how they work and how they fit together. 

Use Case: Top-of-Funnel Sourcing 

The first Recruiter On-Demand model is a top-of-funnel sourcing solution. This model is exactly what it sounds like: Your partner works to fill the top of your recruitment funnel with more candidates. From there, your own internal team takes over reviewing their applications, interviewing candidates and making all of the hiring decisions. 

When Should You Use it? 

This type of solution usually appeals to employers for a few reasons, but the overarching theme is that internal talent acquisition teams don’t have enough time or bandwidth to source enough qualified candidates for open roles. This could be due to a hiring surge, ramp up or expansion. We also see this challenge for employers that have great consumer brands: They often get a lot of applicants, but can struggle to source candidates for specialized roles that aren’t what their brand is known for. This is common when hiring for IT or technology roles at companies that are not in the tech space.  

Likewise, as many organizations work to meet their diversity and inclusion goals, talent leaders can also struggle to find enough candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. The challenge can be further amplified when employers have locations spread across dozens, if not hundreds, of communities. That’s because recruiters and sourcers have to understand all the demographics and nuances of disparate locales.  

How Does it Work? 

At PeopleScout, a top-of-funnel sourcing Recruiter On-Demand engagement proved successful for one of our clients, a national retail sporting goods company. The team at this company was experiencing two challenges: They needed to fill a few specialized IT roles and they were struggling to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds at their different locations. They also needed many candidates for their manager and assistant manager roles.  

In this situation, the retailer needed five sourcers: one person supporting their hard-to-fill IT roles, and the other four working to source for their high-volume area of retail and distribution roles. They had also identified several Midwestern states where they wanted to focus their diversity efforts and bring in more candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. To help them reach their goals, we created a detailed sourcing strategy. We also worked with local chambers of commerce and community-based organizations, in addition to leveraging social media platforms. By the end, the sporting goods store was able to meet its hiring and diversity goals, and the benefits even continued for weeks after the engagement ended.    

Use Case: Source/Screen/Submit 

Meanwhile, for employers that need slightly more support, there’s the next level of project-based RPO support: source/screen/submit. This type of engagement starts out the same as a top-of-funnel sourcing partnership; recruiters and sourcers support an internal talent acquisition team for a period of time, sourcing candidates to apply to open roles. However, rather than handing those lists of candidates off to internal teams, the recruiters take the next step of prescreening the candidates to ensure that they are both qualified and interested in the role before submitting prequalified candidates to hiring managers.  

When Should You Use It? 

We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of employers looking for this type of support. By taking on the front end of the recruitment process, these recruiters and sourcers give more time back to internal teams. This means that they have more time to interview candidates, put together competitive job offers and onboard new hires. 

This solution can be helpful for employers for a number of reasons, but the most common is that they need to hire for a large number of roles at the same time. This could be because they’re in expansion mode or rebuilding their team after the challenges of the last few years. Or, maybe they have a seasonal hiring surge as they gear up for a busy season, and it doesn’t make sense to have a large internal team when they only need the extra help for a few weeks or months at a time. We see this type of need frequently with retail clients gearing up for the holidays; educational organizations adding staff for the school year; and healthcare companies preparing for open enrollment.   

We also see a need for this solution when employers have a lot of branches or locations spread across a large geographic area—especially if hiring decisions are made at the local level and not at the corporate office. Similarly, we often see that local, branch-level teams don’t have the manpower to source and screen large numbers of applicants.  

How Does it Work? 

In practice, this type of solution can have a major influence. For instance, we have a client that provides early childhood education for children six months to 12 years of age; at one point, they had more than 900 openings across the country. Simultaneously, they were dealing with the Great Rehire, classrooms were reopening and they were working on an acquisition. Their final hiring decisions were also made by the school at a local level. Clearly, this was more than the small internal team could manage.  

When we partnered with this organization, our engagement started with two recruiters on a 16-week project. Those recruiters conducted the sourcing and prescreening of a minimum of 25 candidates per recruiter per week. Then, they sent prequalified candidates to the assigned school, where the hiring managers conducted in-person interviews, job offers and onboarding.   

Now, 10 months later, the project is still going strong. Because of the success of the initial team, the PeopleScout team has grown to six recruiters and, so far, they’ve phone screened nearly 3,000 candidates and submitted nearly 2,000.    

Use Case: Full-Cycle On-Demand Recruitment

Full-cycle project RPO partnerships are the most involved and most closely resemble traditional RPO partnerships. Think of them as “RPO light.” 

In a full-cycle partnership, recruiters support an employer’s internal team for the entire process—from intake to offer. There’s also even more space for a consultative partnership as the support extends throughout the entire process—not just bits and pieces. This means that there’s a greater opportunity to learn from the experiences and best practices that your partner has gleaned from years of working with employers across industries in all types of talent markets. Yet, despite the increased support, these types of full-cycle partnerships still retain all of the Recruiter On-Demand benefits—including the billing structure, shorter defined timeline to secure labor on-demand labor and more. 

When Should You Use It? 

This type of partnership typically works well for employers that are struggling to keep up with their hiring load. This could be due to attrition or a hiring surge and can cover every part of the process—from applicant management to interview scheduling to offer. 

We also see it work well for employers that want the best practices and experience of an RPO provider, but don’t have the need for a traditional, large, long-term engagement. In this case, these often start out as short-term projects, but end up being long-term partnerships.   

How Does it Work? 

At PeopleScout, we currently support a client that hires licensed clinical social workers. Because they provide virtual therapy and counseling sessions, their internal team was struggling to keep up with the increased demand caused by the pandemic. 

Once again, this Recruiter On-Demand project started small, with a 13-week planned engagement with two recruiters who handled everything form sourcing candidates to initial screenings and setting up interviews. The project also involved sourcing candidates from across the entire U.S. Finally, our team also handled offer letter execution and management.   

Now, 19 months later, the recruiting team has grown to 14, and we’ve hired more than 1,000 licensed social workers. We’ve also extended our services to support the client’s hiring needs in their call center and IT department.  

A Growing Partnership to Provide Labor With On-Demand Recruitment

Project-based RPO engagements have built-in flexibility, which makes it easy for them to shift in scope. In this way, a partnership can start out focusing solely on top-of-funnel sourcing and then later expand when needs change to cover more of the hiring process. A project RPO partnership can even migrate to a traditional RPO partnership.  

To learn more about project-based RPO engagements, view our webinar. 

Are You Ready for RPO? 3 Questions to Ask

Posted on by akessler

Shrinking talent pools, widening skills gaps and high turnover rates are driving companies across industries to look for new ways to boost their global talent acquisition program—including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO).

Whether your organization is thinking of outsourcing some, most or all parts of your recruitment, an RPO partner can help. It’s not just about outsourcing your recruiting, it’s important to find the best partner to help manage the people, process, technology and strategy behind your talent acquisition function, which touches every employee, team and department within your business.

So, how do you know if RPO is the right choice for your organization? In this article, we’ll cover three questions to ask to understand how your company can benefit from RPO.

Why RPO?

RPO is a cost-effective and scalable talent acquisition solution. Whether you’re looking for a regional solution or a multi-country partnership, RPO has been proven to boost the ability to hire at speed, manage the employer brand, streamline the candidate experience and maximize economies of scale across geographies.

Here are just a few of the benefits of RPO:

Improved Candidate Quality

Your RPO partner can help you boost your number of qualified candidates and the quality of hires. In fact, according to Aberdeen Group, 81% of best-in-class organizations say RPO helps to fill their skills gaps. This keeps hiring managers happy and helps your organization achieve its goals while also boosting retention.

Better Candidate Experience

You want your recruitment process to leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get the role, with a positive experience. Your RPO team will provide consistent and honest feedback throughout the recruitment process, so they know exactly where they stand and what comes next.

Improved Hiring Manager Experience

Your RPO team reduces the administrative burden on your hiring managers by taking over résumé and CV screening, candidate assessment administration, initial interview steps, candidate communication and feedback tasks. RPO partners prepare hiring managers for interviews, provide them with feedback and identify any candidates at risk of dropping from the process so managers can make informed decisions.

Reduced Time-to-Fill

The longer a position goes unfilled, the more likely your business is to experience productivity loss—and loss of revenue. RPO teams are able to find candidates and fill roles faster by building and maintaining talent pipeline, providing quick access to qualified talent. By streamlining and optimizing recruitment processes, improving the time-to-hire and retention rates, RPO providers can increase your recruiting return on investment and deliver real cost savings to your bottom line.

Improved Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

In their global Diversity Wins report, McKinsey revealed organizations in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity outperformed laggards by 36% in terms of profitability. So, it’s imperative that recruitment is an element of your DE&I journey. RPO teams are knowledgeable about different talent attraction options and can expand to new job boards, social media groups, online forums and events to engage more diverse candidates. Plus, RPO recruitment companies understand the regional nuances of DE&I issues. For example, in some countries like Poland, it is not legal to ask candidates their ethnicity, gender, etc.

❓ Not sure if you should go for RPO or staffing agencies? Here are the top differences.

Is RPO Right for Me?

So, how do you know if RPO is right for your business? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • Is your talent acquisition approach slow and clunky or failing to meet your organization’s talent needs?
  • Do you lack the ability to scale your recruitment efforts up or down quickly as your business needs change?
  • Are you seeing high candidate dropout rates or low offer acceptance rates, which could indicate a bad candidate experience?
  • Are low conversion rates more pronounced for candidates from diverse backgrounds?
  • Are you hearing complaints from hiring managers about the quality of candidates?
  • Are new employees leaving your organization less than a year after joining?
  • Do your assessments and other selection tools need to be updated?
  • Do your in-house teams lack the cultural literacy to support recruitment in all regions?
  • Are your hiring costs going up?
  • Is the time it takes to fill positions getting longer?
  • Is your usage of talent acquisition technology immature or out-of-date?
  • Do you lack access to the right data to make workforce planning decisions?

If you answered “yes” to even a few of these questions, RPO can help you meet your talent acquisition goals.

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Is RPO Right for You?

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What Should I Look for in an RPO Partner?

If you’ve decided to that RPO will be a good for your organization, you may be wondering how you go about choosing the best provider. Below are just three things to consider in order to make RPO a truly transformational model for your business.

Partnership

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in 30 years of developing talent acquisition programs, it’s that no two organizations are the same. That’s why it’s important to look for an RPO partner that is collaborative, that will listen to your ideas and take the time to truly understand your business and pain points.

We hear a lot from clients who have worked with other providers who tried to squeeze them into their standard program, and it just doesn’t work. RPO creates efficiencies and improvements to the candidate experience through repeatable processes, but these processes should be adapted to your unique needs and challenges. Look for an RPO partner who understands the balance between consistency and customization.

Talent Advisory

The success of your recruitment program starts with your employer brand. Many RPO providers offer talent advisory solutions that help you to develop and improve your employer brand, EVP, recruitment marketing approaches, candidate assessments and more.

So often we see companies who have agencies that execute recruitment marketing campaigns separate from their RPO program. However, with this siloed approach, the agency is less likely to be held accountable for their campaigns leading to high quality candidates entering later candidate journey stages like interviews and assessments. On the other side, the RPO partner has limited means to provide feedback on the campaigns and the impact the ads have on recruitment outcomes. By having both functions under one partnership, you get a holistic program that not only attracts candidates—but truly delivers against your hiring goals.

Look for a partner with in-house resources (not one who outsources to an agency) who takes a consultative approach to maximizing the effectiveness of your whole talent acquisition program, beyond just filling vacancies.

Technology

Digital transformation has hit HR and recruitment, bringing an influx of new solutions to the market that offer a range of benefits. RPO partners increasingly offer tech consulting and can show you how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics can boost your ability to attract top talent.

Some RPO partners have proprietary technology, like PeopleScout’s Affinix®, while some offer expertise in well-known platforms. Look for a modular approach that can integrate with your existing systems, so you can continue to benefit from existing investments and grow your recruitment tech stack as your needs change. Any technology you implement must comply with data privacy regulations in all regions where you’re recruiting, including any rules about where data can be stored. A SOC 2 certification is a great way to tell that a vendor takes information security seriously.

In this era of tight competition for talent, augmenting your recruiting capacity and ability with an RPO provider could be a crucial step for the future of your business. When it comes to RPO, there is no single best option, only the option that best aligns with your organizational needs. By understanding your current recruitment challenges and requirements, you can find an RPO partner with right capabilities to support your global recruiting goals.

Learn more about RPO in our ebook, The Buyer’s Guide to Global RPO.

[On-Demand]: Recruiter On-Demand: How Project-Based RPO Can Solve Your Toughest Talent Challenges

Posted on by edyson

[On-Demand]: Recruiter On-Demand: How Project-Based RPO Can Solve Your Toughest Talent Challenges

Right now, employers across all industries are dealing with a difficult talent market as demand accelerated at a record pace. If your organization is struggling to meet a sudden need for talent or your internal recruiting resources are stretched thin, selecting a project-based RPO solution can drastically improve your talent acquisition outcomes.

Join PeopleScout’s Trish Koester, senior director of client delivery, and Karen Wendelberger, operations manager for our Talking Talent webinar, Recruiter On-Demand: How Project-Based RPO Can Solve Your Toughest Talent Challenges, available on-demand now.

Trish and Karen discuss the advantages of project-based RPO and how employers can best leverage an on-demand recruiting solution to source and hire top talent.

This webinar will cover:

  • Common challenges faced by employers and how project-based RPO can help solve them
  • The difference between working with an agency and a project-based RPO provider
  • How sourcing specialized talent through a project-based RPO reduces time-to-hire metrics
  • Real-world case studies from PeopleScout’s Recruiter On-Demand team
  • And more!

Finding the Right RPO Provider for Your Healthcare Staffing Needs

Posted on by epadmin

Fuelled by an aging population and the growth of chronic conditions, jobs in healthcare are expected to grow 13% by 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations. In fact, nurse practitioners are predicted to grow by 46%. So, finding the right recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider is critical for healthcare organizations looking to hire top healthcare talent. Whether a healthcare organization is looking to improve its recruiting processes, improve healthcare staff retention or enhance its employer brand, developing a strong relationship with a trusted RPO provider begins with the selection process. In this post, we review the best practices when it comes to selecting the right RPO provider for your healthcare staffing needs.

What is Recruitment Process Outsourcing for Healthcare?

To understand RPO solutions, it’s important to understand what they are not. RPO providers are not healthcare staffing companies or head-hunters. Rather, RPO providers implement solutions designed to streamline and improve the hiring process, and as a result, fulfill your healthcare hiring needs.

👉 What is Recruitment Process Outsourcing?

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CONQUERING TOP CHALLENGES IN HEALTHCARE TALENT ACQUISITION

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From employer branding to employee engagement, hiring, onboarding and much more, a well-executed RPO program can make a huge impact on a healthcare organization. RPO solutions are not one-size-fits-all plans. Each RPO solution must be tailored to meet an individual company’s needs and take industry specific concerns into consideration.

Healthcare Staffing and RPO: Getting Started

Before contacting an RPO provider, a healthcare organization must first assess both its hiring and business needs. The following is a list of common healthcare staffing needs fulfilled by RPO solutions:

  • Recruit a small number of employees for niche positions, like NICU nurses.
  • Provide scalable engagements to fill a large number of open positions quickly with high-quality candidates.
  • Help healthcare organizations increase employee retention and improve employee turnover rate.
  • Help healthcare organizations staff positions that require specific technical experience or certifications.
  • Provide transparency by tracking metrics and milestones outlined in SLAs.

Once you have considered your own needs, you need to research to see what your prospective RPO partner brings to the table. When consulting with a prospective RPO provider ask yourself the following questions:

  • Does the prospective RPO have expertise in fulfilling the specific staffing needs of healthcare organizations?
  • Do they have multiple healthcare organizations as current clients?
  • Can they provide scalability with full-cycle, partial-cycle or modular recruiting solutions?
  • Where do they source healthcare professionals to build their talent pipeline?

How Does an RPO Provider Support Healthcare Staffing?

If you are looking to streamline your healthcare organization’s talent acquisition processes and procedures as a means to become more cost-effective, then engaging an RPO provider can help you reduce spend with healthcare employment agencies, yield lower turnover and create a higher quality pipeline of candidates for your open positions. The work of a good RPO provider will save your organization money throughout the new employee’s tenure at your organization, beyond when they’re hired.

RPO Providers Can Secure Specialized Healthcare Talent

The right healthcare RPO provider understands the unique challenges presented by the healthcare industry and has experience sourcing quality candidates for niche/technical healthcare positions.

RPO providers with expertise in the healthcare industry will quickly target and assess both passive and active candidates for hard-to-fill positions rather than placing an ad and waiting for job seekers to answer it. By understanding your healthcare hiring needs, an RPO provider reduces the need for training internal personnel or hiring those with healthcare-specific experience.

RPO Providers Can Provide Scalable Solutions to Accommodate Growth

As the U.S. population ages, the need for healthcare services is on the rise. As a result, many healthcare organizations are growing rapidly to meet the demand. If your organization is experiencing growth, an experienced RPO partner can source the right talent quickly to make sure your organization is staffed adequately to meet growth demands.

RPO providers can handle background checks, drug screens and other onboarding tasks as needed. They will make sure that all the applicants presented to you for interviews have the specific skills required for your open positions.

RPO Providers Can Improve Your Employer Brand to Attract Better Talent

Whether your healthcare organization is an established medical provider or a new player in the industry, building strong employer brand appeal can attract the best talent to your job postings. An RPO provider can help build your brand and your reputation as a good place to work. An RPO engagement can provide solutions to help you maintain healthy relationships with both prospective candidates—including ones that are not hired for open positions—former and current employees, which improves your employer brand in the healthcare industry.

Which RPO Provider is Right for Your Healthcare Staffing Needs?

Choosing the right RPO partner for your healthcare staffing needs is a carefully thought out process with many factors to take into consideration. You are not only selecting a company to help you with your recruiting processes, but you are also choosing a partner that will help you improve multiple business functions for your organization. Just like when choosing other products or services, you need to identify your specific business needs and what you want an RPO provider to handle or assist you with. This primarily means identifying your weaknesses/pain points and your organizational objectives, such as staffing cost reduction, organization expansion or reconfiguring your recruiting structure.

The Right RPO Provider Values Accountability

When hiring for healthcare, accountability is one of the most important factors in the relationship between an organization and an RPO provider. When you select the right healthcare RPO provider, they will deliver a high level of transparency and will encourage you to hold them accountable for how well the hires they make work out for your organization. A good RPO provider will also want to be judged on how quickly they can fill open positions and on how cost-efficient their service is for you.

The Right RPO Provider Understands Healthcare Staffing

The right RPO provider knows healthcare staffing top to bottom. They have strong connections with healthcare professional organizations, they understand the technology used to source top healthcare talent, they know how to screen candidates effectively and they understand the compliance requirements for each healthcare position.

An RPO provider who is knowledgeable about healthcare hiring can easily fill any position in your organization and will help you find the best candidate both in terms of cultural fit and fitness for the position.

They Understand Your Needs

Each healthcare organization is unique, so a cookie-cutter approach to your healthcare staffing needs may not work to your advantage. The right RPO provider will take the time to form an in-depth understanding of your staffing needs and preferences, and will work to tailor a seamless RPO plan for you.

No matter how many positions you need to fill, the right RPO provider will take that into consideration and make sure your new 10 or 1,000 employees all hit the ground running and seamlessly integrate into your organization.

They Employ Best-Fit Technology and AI-Powered Sourcing Methods

In a tight healthcare labor market, sourcing and attracting the best talent can be difficult. The right RPO provider understands this, and will employ cutting-edge recruiting technology and sourcing methods to meet a client’s healthcare staffing needs.

Healthcare recruiting technology that utilizes AI and machine learning to source and screen candidates give healthcare organizations a distinct advantage in finding the right candidates quickly. What’s more, recruiting technology can reduce the cost-per-hire and streamline the often disjointed healthcare staffing process by merging multiple recruiting functions into one easy-to-use interface.

They Understand Your Talent Market

Whether your healthcare organization has one location or multiple locations across many regions, the right RPO provider understands the laws, regulations, customs and structures in your regions of operation. Your RPO provider should possess the know-how and have experience in sourcing candidates in your talent market(s) to make sure you hire the best talent available. The right RPO provider will take as little time and money as possible sourcing your new workforce, and get them hired as quickly as possible.

Healthcare staffing can be complicated, that’s why partnering with the right RPO provider is crucial for success. Once you have found the right RPO provider for your staffing needs, it can take time to build a strong relationship. Once the relationship is established, you will see all of the benefits the right RPO provider can bring to the table, and you will see how much easier the healthcare staffing process can be.

Specialized Nurse Recruitment at a Not-for-Profit Healthcare System

Posted on by jpatel
Specialized Nurse Recruitment for a Not-For-Profit Healthcare System

Project RPO for Healthcare

Specialized Nurse Recruitment for a Not-For-Profit Healthcare System

A not-for-profit healthcare system serving the New England area of the United States engaged PeopleScout to help find specialized nursing candidates through a project-based recruitment solution.

6 Weeks to Fill Vacancies that Had Been Open for Over a Year
13 Week Engagement Renewed —Twice
Improved Quality of Hire
Improved Quality of Hire

Situation

This healthcare facility is the only level III NICU and level I trauma center in the region. Offering this kind of specialized medical care requires specialized nursing recruiting. The client’s HR team had difficulty sourcing candidates who met the minimum education and experience requirements.

The client engaged PeopleScout for Recruiter On-Demand™ project-based recruitment solution to hire nurses at two facilities, included labor and delivery nurses, surgical nurses and emergency nurses.

Solution

PeopleScout deployed a Recruiter On-Demand solution with virtual recruiters working alongside the client’s internal TA team by sourcing and recruiting specialized nursing talent.

Our recruiters developed a close relationship with the client’s hiring managers to better understand their needs and company culture. This helped us to source candidates that closely aligned with the organization’s values and expectations.

To attract nursing talent in a competitive labor market, PeopleScout positioned the client’s employer value proposition to better align with candidate expectations for career growth, sign-on bonuses and educational assistance. We also monitored the regional labor market and identified recruiting opportunities at competitors or facilities closing operations or laying-off staff.

Our healthcare experts also posted on job boards and updated content regularly on niche healthcare sites, social media and medical association sites to source both active and passive candidates.

Results

Unfilled Positions Sourced Within Six Weeks

In the first six weeks, PeopleScout sourced and hired nurses for eight vacancies that had been unfilled for a year.

Contract Renewed

As a result of the success of the program, the client renewed its initial 13-week project RPO contract with PeopleScout, not once but twice.

Dedication and a Quality Partnership

The healthcare system’s HR team valued the quality of candidates our dedicated nursing recruiting brought to the table, and the relationship continued to improve with each engagement.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Not-for-Profit Healthcare System
  • INDUSTRY
    Healthcare
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • About the Client
    This New England-based not-for-profit healthcare system operates a level III NICU and level I trauma center in the region.
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Three Potential Pitfalls of High-Volume Hiring and How to Avoid Them

Posted on by akessler

A fairly large handful of colleagues and clients are aware that my family and I are having some fairly extensive renovation work done on our home. Partly because I have moaned about it on a weekly basis since January. Partly because the endless background sounds of drills, hammers and circular saws— and on one particularly fraught occasion, a builders exposed backside descending from a loft ladder behind me—have all permeated some of my Zoom video calls. 

Now that the work is 90 percent finished, I look back on the project, and there are some aspects of it that I wish we had done differently. In doing such a lot of work at one time, we inevitably compromised on our standards in some small ways when faced with the size of the project ahead. 

Hopefully, you can see where the analogy is leading. When we, or our clients, are faced with a mountain to climb in terms of the complexity or scarcity of required talent in big numbers, it’s easy to deviate away from best practice. And this is never more common than now. 

As organisations switch from hiring freezes to acute growth mode, we are seeing a dramatic shift back towards a candidate-driven market. As the next 12 months play out, I personally believe this will prove to be one of the most dramatic shifts in several decades, and employers will be scratching their heads at just how they are going to close the hiring gap. 

During these impending and inevitably large-scale campaigns, there are three potential risks that stand out to me:

1. Introducing new people will impact the company culture.

Firstly, hiring lots of new people can present a risk to the company culture you’ve spent a lot of effort crafting. This may be more prevalent within smaller organisations or for those hiring at the leadership level, but no organisation is truly immune. With any hiring that significantly impacts a team, you must consider not only the skills and competencies match, but also how the existing cultural makeup of that group will be affected. One way to counter this is through thorough training to help align old and new employees on the same cultural path. This should be led by leadership and serve as a catalyst for people—old and new—to embrace your organisation’s mission and values. 

2. High-volume hiring can increase the risk of compromising on quality.

When it comes to high-volume hiring, hiring managers are more inclined to drop their standards on quality-of-hire. Not so much in terms of matching skills and experience, which tends to be a more objective. Plus, a deviation away from the requisite profile can be harder for the hiring manager to justify in their own mind. However, I’ve seen a “lowering of the bar” when it comes to the softer skills—the personality traits and competency matches which are naturally more subjective. One effective antidote here is robust candidate assessment practices. Backing up your gut feel with a bespoke or even “off the shelf” assessment package can help make your judgement more objective. 

3. Diversity amongst new hires suffers.

Thirdly, there is naturally a risk to diversity in your hiring. We’re all hopefully well-versed on the myriad benefits that fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce can bring. But, what is a valid, primary consideration when hiring one or two team members can begin to feel like an added challenge when filling a large number of openings starts to weigh down on a manager. Is there a temptation to let diversity standards slip if the challenge of filling critical gaps on your team already feels impossible? Is one allowed to be pragmatic in the circumstances and just hire, regardless of the diversity credentials? 

I would argue that you wouldn’t hire someone who has the wrong skills for your team, so you shouldn’t be any more inclined to lower standards on diversity. As we all know, the wrong hiring decision now, only costs us in the long-term when we have to re-hire down the line. Better to get it right first time, whether that be a diversity match or a skills match. 

Ultimately, any short-term concessions we might be tempted to make under pressure to hire at the time will be a source of regret. So, don’t lower your standards and suffer from these pitfalls. Take it from me—the decision not to fit underfloor heating in our family bathroom will likely haunt me for the next decade or two!

Candidate NPS: What are Candidates Saying About You When You’re Not in the Room?

Posted on by akessler

We hear a lot about ‘customer-centricity’, putting the customer at the heart of everything you do. For years, organisations have been using Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure their customer experience and to generate feedback that boosts data-driven decision making. However, when it comes to measuring the candidate experience, companies are missing out on candidate NPS.

What is NPS?

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, began as way for organisations to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. By asking one question—“On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?”—organisations can gauge which customers are promoters, and which are detractors.

Graphic depicts how candidate NPS is scored.

Overall NPS score can range between -100 and +100, and the higher the score the better.

Why Candidate NPS?

Why is NPS an important measurement for talent acquisition leaders? Our research into candidate experience revealed that: 

  • Only 5% of candidates rated their experience excellent
  • But 66% of candidates have never been asked to provide feedback on their recruitment experience.
  • Yet, 9 out of 10 have provided feedback when asked.

With such a small percentage of candidates having an excellent recruitment experience, it’s imperative for organisations to start benchmarking their candidate experience in order to make data-driven improvements.

Yet, so few organisations are leveraging Candidate NPS. In a recent poll, we asked whether our database currently use, intend to use or have no plans to use NPS to measure their candidate experience. Our audience told us the following:

  • 7% currently use NPS
  • 21% don’t plan to 
  • 64% intend to start
  • 7% have other plans

Getting Started with Candidate NPS

Consider adding a communication to your CRM after critical stages in your recruitment process like the assessment centre or hiring manager interview—regardless of outcome. By asking one simple question and the candidate’s reasoning for their rating, you can gather valuable data to drive continuous improvement in your candidate experience.  

After gaining an initial benchmark, you can measure Candidate NPS overtime to see how your process improvements are impacting the candidate experience. Combined with other metrics, you’ll be on your way to understanding the impact of your talent acquisition program and improving your recruitment outcomes.

A Dynamic IT Recruiting Solution to Support Growth and Improve Candidate Experience

Posted on by skatz
A Dynamic IT Recruiting Solution to Support Growth and Improve Candidate Experience

RPO Recruiting for IT Professionals

A Dynamic IT Recruiting Solution to Support Growth and Improve Candidate Experience

PeopleScout partnered with this healthcare revenue and payment cycle management company to provide RPO recruiting solutions for niche IT roles.

3,000 + Annual Hire in IT Roles
40 % Reduction in Time-to-Hire
Tech-Enhanced Candidate Experience Powered by Affinix<sup>®</sup>
Tech-Enhanced Candidate Experience Powered by Affinix®

A healthcare revenue and payment cycle management company needed an RPO partner to support the rapid growth that occurred when it acquired a healthcare IT business. Healthcare IT is a niche field with a limited number of candidates and many hard-to-fill positions. To meet its new workforce demands, the client engaged PeopleScout to implement a full-cycle RPO program for both exempt and non-exempt hiring. In addition, they partnered with PeopleScout to provide additional support to their internal talent acquisition teams in areas where hiring volume increased through our Recruiter On-Demand (ROD) solution. 

Situation

The client requires a scalable RPO solution that is flexible enough to navigate hiring spikes throughout the year and to access talent in the niche healthcare IT field. PeopleScout’s RPO program spans high-level technology roles as well as HR, finance, marketing, sales, legal, customer service and sourcing for executive-level candidates. Due to COVID-19, the client also required a new digital interviewing platform to create a consistent experience for candidates as they move through the hiring process.

Solution

Solution Highlights

  • Full-Cycle, Exempt and Non-Exempt Hiring  
  • 3,000+ Annual Hires 
  • Recruitment of Hard-to-Fill Roles 
  • Dedicated Veteran Hiring Resources  
  • Tech-Enhanced Candidate Experience Powered by Affinix® 

SOURCING FOR LEADERSHIP ROLES

The client leverages PeopleScout’s experience and expertise to source executive-level candidates to fill key leadership roles. 

SOURCING FOR NICHE ROLES

PeopleScout’s expert recruiters work with the client to identify qualified candidates in the competitive healthcare technology talent landscape. 

EMPLOYER BRANDING

PeopleScout’s RPO teams consult with the client to craft precise employer branding messaging and a social media strategy to attract talent for hard-to-fill open positions. 

ATS IMPLEMENTATION

PeopleScout assisted the client in the implementation of a single ATS platform to decrease redundancy and recruiting errors and create a pipeline of better-quality candidates. 

IMPROVED CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE 

PeopleScout implemented Affinix digital interviewing technology to ensure a consistent experience for candidates as they move through the hiring process.  

EMBEDDED RECRUITMENT SUPPORT

PeopleScout recruiters are embedded within the client’s organization and work with their internal teams to navigate sourcing, screening and hiring challenges to improve talent acquisition outcomes for all positions in scope. 

DIVERSITY & VETERAN HIRING

To support the client’s commitment to diversity and veteran recruiting, PeopleScout has a specialized focus and dedicated resources in this area. 

IMPROVED METRICS

PeopleScout’s RPO team provides the client’s leadership with full transparency by monitoring and reporting on metrics important to them including time-to-fill, candidate quality and the speed of the recruiting program.

Results

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

PeopleScout has improved the client’s recruitment performance by merging people, process and technology to enhance the experience with the recruitment process for candidates, recruiters and hiring managers. Average days to offer accept dropped from 62 days to 37 days for exempt positions, and from 40 days to 22 days for non-exempt, below the client’s target goal of 50 and 40, respectively.

INSIGHTS & EXPERTISE

The client values the input and insights provided by PeopleScout’s experienced RPO team and their ability to quickly source and hire candidates for hard-to-fill positions.

ACQUISITION SUPPORT  

The client has successfully navigated the challenges presented by its acquisition of the previous client’s healthcare IT business with the support of PeopleScout talent acquisition professionals. 

EXPANDED TALENT POOL

PeopleScout’s RPO solution has expanded the client’s talent pool and now sources veteran and diverse candidates more efficiently. 

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Healthcare revenue and payment cycle management company
  • INDUSTRY
    Healthcare Technology
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    3,000+ IT roles
Let’s Connect

Transport for Wales: Recruiting a Crucial Tax Expert

Posted on by akessler
Transport for Wales: Recruiting a Crucial Tax Expert

Transport for Wales: Recruiting a Crucial Tax Expert

As Transport for Wales’ RPO partner since their inception, PeopleScout helped TfW find a Tax Accountant to support the management of their finances.

Situation

Transport for Wales (TfW) is on a mission: to deliver an integrated travel system across Wales and revolutionize travel. To achieve this, they quickly expanded their workforce in partnership with PeopleScout, their RPO partner.

They were now looking for a new Tax Analyst, a qualified VAT subject matter expert, to provide guidelines in line with legislation to help TfW reclaim VAT to reinvest into the transport network. This is a highly competitive sector, and the Tax Analyst needed specialty skills.

Solution

This was a particularly challenging role to recruit. There is a very small talent pool of qualified candidates in Wales. This market is competitive, and many candidates are reluctant to move jobs unless for a significant increase in salary. Plus, these roles are known for low turnover; tax professionals are risk-averse and require significant consultation before considering a new opportunity. In addition, the global COVID-19 pandemic was at its height—a climate that contributed to candidates’ reluctance to change jobs.

We adopted a fully consultative approach and took a detailed brief from the hiring manager. By using a blended approach of media, advertising across a number of well-known recruitment websites to drive applications, and hands-on sourcing of passive candidates.

Attraction did not produce results, so we doubled down on a thorough search of the passive market. Our specialist recruiter knew straight away when they found a candidate that would be a good fit for TfW. This candidate had worked as a tax expert for a similar government body, they understood government processes and they were a strong fit culturally for Transport For Wales.

Results

In total, we approached over 100 qualified professionals in South Wales and beyond. Our strategic passive candidate search produced an ideal candidate who has moved into the Tax Analyst role.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Transport for Wales (TfW)
  • INDUSTRY
    Public Transportation
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Amplifiers
  • ABOUT TfW
    Founded in 2016, Transport for Wales (TfW) was set up by the Welsh Government to make sustainable travel a reality in Wales. Their multimodal, integrated transport network aims to increase the number of journeys on public transport by 40% by 2040.
Let’s Connect