Early Careers Recruitment Success for an Australian Construction Giant
PeopleScout embarked on a strategic project to revitalize the graduate recruitment program for one of Australia’s largest development and construction companies. Through our early career talent expertise, we brought in more innovative approaches to candidate engagement and elevated the graduate recruitment experience, cutting renege rates in half.
18Weeks Cut from Time Spent of Recruitment Activity
50%of Graduate Hires Identified as a Woman
50%Reduction in Candidate Drop Off & Reneges
Situation
One of Australia’s largest development and construction companies had a graduate recruitment program consisted of a short burst of marketing and campus engagement (six weeks), two recruitment phases in March (16 weeks) and August (12 weeks) and a long “keep warm” period. This approach heavily impacted their HR and recruitment teams as well as a line manager resource. Plus, the long recruitment process and keep warm periods resulted in drop off or renege rates of up to 30%.
They engaged PeopleScout to help them create a more efficient graduate recruitment process, while ensuring they connected with bright emerging talent.
Solution
Seeking to strengthen the connection with students and to drive more efficiency, we executed an early careers talent solution that shifted the focus of the campaign—adding more meaningful campus engagement (24 weeks) and one short, sharp recruitment window (10 weeks).
Laying the Foundation
The first step PeopleScout took in updating the program was to conduct in-depth job analysis interviews with a variety of stakeholders including: high performing graduates and interns, their line managers and visionaries across the business. This allowed us to develop a robust success profile, which defined what good looks like now and into the future.
Then we reviewed and updated the early careers value proposition and updated the campaign materials to tap into candidates looking to build a purpose-driven career. We also tailored our approach to ensure we connected with the client’s target diversity groups.
We created an always-on expression-of-interest portal for the client which allowed us to build a talent pool for the whole academic year. With the Affinix™ Student Engagement Platform, we delivered tailored content and shared employee stories showcasing ‘a day in the life’ and career journeys. This helped us to drive interest and change minds about a career in construction and property by myth-busting common misperceptions.
Campus Engagement
Recognising the importance of genuine and authentic communication, we identified graduate ambassadors across the breadth of the business. Moving away from pure reliance on careers fairs and job boards, our campaign involved the delivery of 38 student engagement events, including site tours, “meet the team” sessions and panels with female leaders leveraging our ambassadors.
Recruitment Process & Candidate Assessment
Now, having driven engagement with the target student population, it was important that the recruitment process was also effective, efficient and engaging. Our client had been following the traditional path of online testing, group assessment centres and hiring manager interviews to deliver their graduate program. But there was opportunity to ensure the process amplified their brand, provided candidates a realistic job preview, and levelled the playing field for all, enabling candidates to demonstrate their potential.
Using the insights from the internal client stakeholder interviews during our discover phase, we implemented the following changes:
Completely redesigned the assessment framework.
Adopted a CV-blind approach which helped to reduce unconscious bias.
Implemented a skills assessment in place of previous cognitive tests, which provided a more holistic view of the candidate, tapping into their motivation, cognitive strengths and behaviours, and measured the candidate against the client’s success profile.
Provided candidates with meaningful feedback reports, giving candidates an overview of their strengths and areas for development.
Revamped assessment centre exercises to bring the client’s construction project world to life, with candidates working together to deliver solutions involving the client’s core areas of focus, like community and sustainability.
Used our virtual assessment centre technology to encourage participation, especially for working candidates, rural candidates or those unable to afford the travel who previously experienced barriers during in-person events.
Leveraged our technology to improve accessibility for candidates with a disability and for those with ESL requirements.
Results
Reduced time spent on recruitment activity from 28 weeks down to 10 weeks.
Achieved client diversity targets, with 50% of graduates hired identifying as women (compared with 15% of graduates with construction and engineering degrees identifying as women) and 3% of graduates hired identifying as First Nations (compared with 1% of graduates with construction engineering degrees identifying as First Nations).
Reduced candidate drop off and reneges from 30% to 14%.
“The process was very well run, and we had strong candidates. Thank you for the hard work and efforts with this program. It was a very thorough process with great results.”
“Very modern and innovative approach to the regular interview process. Allows busy applicants to complete in their own time.”
“The interview process was very innovative and provided additional insight into the role.”
“Overall has been a great experience. The assessment provided me with feedback that I can take into account in the future.”
“Very user friendly interface and didn’t feel demeaning or intimidating.”
“Thank you for making it such a smooth application process. I really appreciated all of the support provided, and I’m looking forward to working in such a supportive work environment. I also really appreciated the quick turnaround time for my application.”
At a Glance
COMPANY: Large development and construction company
INDUSTRY: Building & Construction
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
Talent Consulting from PeopleScout Lays the Foundation for a Winning RPO Partnership
When a world-famous consumer goods brand split into two separate companies, their talent acquisition team needed help developing a sustainable strategy to support the future growth of two brands. They turned to PeopleScout and our Talent Diagnostic solution for help optimizing their talent acquisition strategy to prepare for this critical transition.
Situation
A world-famous consumer goods brand that specialized in breakfast foods and snacks engaged PeopleScout to support an over-extended in-house recruitment team. With our Recruiter On-Demand™ solution, our flex recruiters augmented their team, and we provided some much-needed sourcing technology through our Affinix™ CRM.
After a three-year partnership, the company split into two brands, one for breakfast cereals and one for snacks, throwing the talent acquisition team into new territory.
Solution
To support the transition to two distinct companies—and two talent acquisition teams—the client engaged PeopleScout for our Talent Diagnostic solution, part of the Amplifiers™ suite. They wanted an objective analysis of their talent acquisition model, including a renewed focus on finding high-quality candidates in highly competitive rural markets.
PeopleScout facilitated over 20 interviews with various stakeholders and assessed the entire talent lifecycle. Our final report gave an overview of:
The current state of their talent lifecycle
Recommendations to streamline their processes and create a more consistent candidate experience to improve quality and equity
Technology recommendations and tactics to optimize their recruitment channels for larger, more diverse candidate pools
Results
Following the presentation of the findings from the Talent Diagnostic, the client engaged PeopleScout for full-cycle RPO for their new snack brand to execute the recommendations we developed.
“The expertise from the PeopleScout team created a big lift with little lead time and a tight timeline for deliverables. I appreciate their thoughts, partnership and flexibility while we worked to align our approach with HR and our leadership.”
HR Director, Global Consumer Goods Brand
At a Glance
COMPANY: Global consumer goods brand
INDUSTRY: Consumer Goods
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory, Affinix
ABOUT THE CLIENT: This multinational food manufacturing company specializes in breakfast and snack foods that are manufactured and marketed in over 180 countries.
PeopleScout’s global RPO solutions help organizations to streamline recruitment processes and technology across regions, providing more control over global recruiting costs.
Traditionally, high-volume recruiting focuses on quantity, at the expense of quality. At PeopleScout, our high-volume recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution leverages unmatched scalability, the automation of our talent acquisition suite, Affinix™, and the experience of our talent advisory consultants.
PeopleScout Amplifiers™: Sure Start for Retention & Onboarding
As part of our suite of modular recruiting solutions, Amplifiers™, PeopleScout Sure Start is the ultimate onboarding and retention powerhouse, designed to ensure that new hires not only start on their first day but also feel valued and engaged from the get-go. With a perfect blend of personal attention and technology, PeopleScout Sure Start keeps your new joiners excited, reducing early turnover, boosting productivity and creating a path to success for all your new team members.
As part of our suite of modular recruiting solutions, Amplifiers™, PeopleScout’s Talent Diagnostic delves deep into every facet of your talent lifecycle. From evaluating your employer brand to enhancing your attraction strategy, from optimizing the candidate experience to maximizing technology usage, we leave no stone unturned.
For organizations that can’t wait for a traditional enterprise RPO implementation, PeopleScout Accelerate™ is a tech-powered, ready-to-go RPO solution that is up and running in just two weeks.
[On-Demand] AI in Recruiting: Hype, Ethics & Best Practices
AI in recruitment has been the buzzword on everyone’s lips lately. But while others were just talking, we were taking action helping our clients gain a competitive edge by leveraging AI to recruit smarter and more efficiently. At the same time, we didn’t just jump on the hype train. We dug deep to help employers grapple with crucial ethical questions around AI bias, privacy risks, and lack of human oversight when not implemented responsibly.
Join PeopleScout Director of Technical Solutions Architecture & Tech Implementation Chad Getchell and Sr. Implementation Training Manager Patti Woods in conversation as they separate fact from fiction for AI in recruitment and discuss the ethical implications for talent acquisition leaders. Whether you’re just starting to explore AI or already using it, this is a bite-sized 30-minute webinar to help you wade through the hype of responsible AI adoption.
In this webinar, Chad and Patti tackle:
The Real State of AI in Recruiting: Cutting through the hype to understand AI’s current and future capabilities in talent acquisition
Ethical Implications: Exploring the risks of AI bias, privacy concerns, and lack of human agency if not implemented carefully
Getting Started with AI: Practical tip to help you evaluate and implement AI recruiting tools successfully in your organization
By watching this webinar, you’ll gain a 360-degree perspective on the benefits, risks, and ethical considerations surrounding AI, equipping you with a clear roadmap to navigate the world of AI in recruiting responsibly.
The information provided in this webinar does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal or other professional advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available in this webinar are for general information purposes only. Viewers of this webinar should contact their attorney or legal advisor to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No viewer of this webinar should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information in this article without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this webinar are expressly disclaimed by PeopleScout, Inc.. The content in this article is provided “as-is”, and no representations are made by PeopleScout that the content is error-free.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured attention across nearly every industry for its seemingly boundless potential to transform how work gets done—including AI in recruiting. Yet for many talent acquisition (TA) leaders, AI remains shrouded in hype, myths and even fear that “robot recruiters” are taking over.
This handbook sets out to demystify AI tools for recruitment with facts about real-world applications across talent acquisition capabilities and provide guidance on how talent teams can start planning to use AI effectively and ethically. We’ll cut through the hype to bring AI down to earth—focusing on what works, not what’s flashy.
The message we want to reinforce upfront is that AI should not be seen as a replacement for the talent acquisition strategy you’ve already built, but rather a set of tools to make your teams better at tasks both mundane and meaningful.
📌 Before we go any further, here’s a note from our legal team:
The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal or other professional advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available in this article are for general information purposes only. Readers of this article should contact their attorney or legal advisor to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader of this article should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information in this article without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this article are expressly disclaimed by PeopleScout, Inc.. The content in this article is provided “as-is”, and no representations are made by PeopleScout that the content is error-free.
What is AI?
The term artificial intelligence or AI was coined by Stanford Professor John McCarthy, who defined it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs.” AI is technology with the ability to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence. Data and algorithms enable AI to “learn” how to accomplish complex tasks without being explicitly programmed to do them. It also includes the sub-fields of machine learning, speech and natural language processing and robotic process automation.
Over the last decade, AI capabilities have advanced tremendously due to increases in computing power, the abundance of digital data and improvements in machine learning algorithms. As a result, AI solutions can now match or even outperform humans in certain tasks related to object recognition, language processing, prediction modelling and more.
The disruption delivered by generative AI in particular arrived like a bullet train. In just a few short months, AI went from an abstract concept to a tangible force radically impacting businesses—and jobs—worldwide. With Generative AI (GAI) tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini (formerly Bard) and Microsoft Copilot, AI has gone from expensive and exclusive to an everyday tool accessible by the masses.
The State of AI in Recruiting
Top talent has become increasingly scarce and competitive, while recruiting resources and budgets remain strained. This situation demands that talent acquisition teams work smarter, and AI and automation could represent an opportunity for organizations to enhance human capabilities in recruitment.
According to Gartner, a massive 81% of HR leaders have explored or implemented AI solutions to improve process efficiency within their organization. HR leaders aim to use generative AI (GAI) for improving efficiency in HR processes (63%), enhancing the employee experience (52%) and bolstering learning and development programs. Plus, 76% of HR leaders believe that if their organization does not adopt AI solutions in the next year or two, they will lag behind those that do.
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What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of AI in Recruitment?
While AI holds tremendous promise, it also comes with some real concerns which talent acquisition and HR leaders must thoughtfully address. AI is largely unregulated and has received criticism for negative impacts on things like privacy, security, bias, and transparency in its decision-making processes. However, with care and diligence, you can establish sensible guidelines at your organization, so this technology enhances your talent acquisition capabilities while respecting human values.
Benefits of AI for Recruiting
AI can help the humans behind your talent program work more efficiently and effectively when used correctly. Applying AI across the various recruiting stages introduces a host of benefits, including:
Efficiency AI-powered tools can shoulder time-consuming tasks like communications and initial screening, allowing recruiters to reach more candidates at scale. AI systems help recruiters to focus their efforts on the most promising prospects, including helping identify passive candidates. This wider reach improves quality by putting recruiters in front of more qualified candidates.
Improved Candidate Experience Tools like AI chatbots and self-scheduling create a seamless 24/7 candidate experience. By fielding frequently asked questions and coordinating interviews, they dramatically reduce time-to-hire. Candidates get quick responses instead of waiting for recruiters to come online, making the hiring process faster and frictionless.
Improved Matching Advanced AI algorithms surface qualified prospects that may have been overlooked. By analyzing candidates’ skills, experience, and other attributes and matching them to open roles, AI systems ensure better candidate-job fit. This improves quality-of-hire and unlocks hidden talent pools recruiters may have missed.
Enhanced Diversity and Inclusion With the right data to learn from, AI reduces unconscious bias from hiring by focusing decisions on data rather than gut instinct. By objectively evaluating candidates’ skills without prejudice, AI-assisted recruiting enhances diversity and creates a more equitable hiring process.
Cost Reduction AI can reduce the cost-per-applicant in some cases. Recruiters can outsource low-impact, repetitive tasks to AI, and spend more time interacting with candidates and hiring managers. This optimization of talent acquisition teams enables resources to be allocated more efficiently, reducing vacancy rates and lowering costs.
Risks of AI in Recruiting
While there are benefits, talent leaders must thoughtfully address common concerns around AI transparency, interpretation of outputs, data privacy and ethics.
PeopleScout POV
PeopleScout is committed to striking the right balance between next-generation technology and maintaining the trust we’ve built with candidates and clients. As our clients’ trusted talent advisors, we do our due diligence and work touphold our standards for quality and compliance when helping clients adopt new technologies like GenAI.
As organizations prepare to capitalize on the efficiencies of AI, they must be particularly discerning about AI when it comes to supporting people decisions. Effectively deploying and scaling AI across talent acquisition functions introduces some common challenges, including:
Biased Algorithms Despite its ability to reduce bias, if AI models are trained on biased or incomplete data sets, they can unintentionally perpetuate inequality. In many countries there are laws prohibiting discrimination in the recruitment process, and the use of AI must align with these laws. Leaders need oversight into data inputs and must remain vigilant when considering recommendations made by AI. That being said, bias in AI can be corrected much easier than bias amongst humans. Proactively monitoring and mitigating possible areas of bias is essential for driving more inclusive, equitable hiring—regardless of whether AI is involved.
Disproportionate Impact Certain demographic groups face higher exposure to the potential harms of AI in recruitment. For instance, if an AI screening system relies heavily on standardized test scores that have racial biases, it could automatically filter out qualified minority candidates. Similarly, lower income communities may lack access to the digital tools and internet connectivity required for AI screening. This digital divide could automatically exclude qualified candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds. Without proactive measures to address these systemic issues, AI recruitment tools risk amplifying real-world inequality. Organizations must consider disproportionate impact with their use of AI in order to improve diversity and reinforce equity.
Lack of Transparency Organizations may experience resistance amongst candidates and employees when there is a lack of understanding of how AI is being used in the hiring process and how AI arrives at certain outputs or recommendations. You can nurture trust through training and effective communication to help recruiters, hiring managers and applicants understand the reasons behind AI-generated outcomes and their role in the hiring decision-making process. Use clear and understandable language to describe the factors influencing decisions and put mechanisms in place to capture feedback and reporting of potential issues. Transparency promotes ethical AI use in recruitment and also reinforces organizational values and establishes a positive reputation in the industry.
Data from Pew Research Center shows that 61% of Americans are unaware that employers are currently using AI in the hiring process. A majority (71%) oppose AI making a final hiring decision, while 41% oppose AI being used to review applications. However, the more people understand about AI, the more they’re in favor of its use in the recruitment process. For example, 43% of those who’ve heard a lot about using AI in the hiring process support its use for reviewing applications, compared with 37% who’ve heard a little and 21% who’ve heard nothing at all.
Lack of Accuracy GAI is prone to making up statistics, sources and even case law—known as hallucinating. There are no safeguards in place to validate the generated content or to check the accuracy or appropriateness of the outcome. Organizations leveraging tools like ChatGPT for recruiting open themselves up to risks. Recruiters must be aware of the importance of the human touch and using their judgement when using GAI tools for creating content and communications.
Over-Automation Heavy reliance on AI also poses risks if the recruitment process becomes overly automated and fails to incorporate sound human judgment as a check. Too much automated communication can feel depersonalized to a candidate. AI should never replace the human touch—rather it should enhance human capabilities. Plus, companies using AI for recruitment must ensure compliance with all relevant regulations. For example, under GDPR, there are strict guidelines around automated decision-making, and individuals have the right to obtain human intervention and contest automated decisions that significantly affect them.
Data Privacy Issues Collecting and analyzing extensive candidate information required by AI systems can raise concerns around consent, data protection, and ethical usage. Any talent data feeding the AI systems must be compliant with regulations, like GDPR and CCPA, that are relevant to your locations. Organizations should create a framework around the usage of AI recruitment tools to provide transparency around what data you’re collecting, gain consent where applicable, and put access controls and encryption in place to protect sensitive candidate information. Your data security team should vet any AI usage to ensure candidate data is not being scraped for other uses.
Workflow Integration Implementing AI recruiting tools requires integrating them into existing systems and processes. Too often, companies adopt AI in isolation, without considering its impact on surrounding workflows. Instead, organizations should evaluate how AI technologies will interface with current infrastructure. For example, your applicant tracking system (ATS) may need API connections to import AI-screened candidates. With careful integration planning, AI can be a seamless augmentation to talent acquisition rather than an isolated add-on.
Proactively addressing these concerns through governance, oversight and continuous improvement of AI systems and processes is key to managing the risks responsibly. Overall, the use of AI in recruitment is permitted but becoming more and more tightly regulated. Systems cannot make final hiring decisions and must be transparent, fair and accountable. Adhering to data protection laws and anti-discrimination regulations is crucial for the ethical use of AI in hiring. Undergoing regular audits to assess for unintended bias and maintaining the human touch to review, override or contest automated recommendations is crucial.
📌 We recommend you consult your legal team before implementing any AI technologies at your organization.
Use Cases for AI in Recruitment
As recruiting grows more competitive, organizations are turning to smart technologies to gain an edge in attracting and engaging candidates. From chatbots to video interviews and skills assessments, AI-powered solutions are streamlining efficiencies while enabling deeper insights across the hiring funnel. Here are some examples demonstrating AI’s immense potential to boost recruiting outcomes while improving the candidate experience.
How to Use AI for Candidate Attraction and Sourcing
Identifying, contacting and engaging prospective candidates is ripe for AI augmentation. Building a robust pipeline of talent typically involves highly manual, repetitive tasks that can divert focus away from higher-value tasks. Here are some of the ways AI can support you in filling your recruitment funnel.
Building Candidate Personas
AI can pull from the profiles of existing employees and historical hiring data for a given role to surface patterns and common characteristics. These patterns, combined with qualitative data gathered from interviews, can help you to define a persona profile of the ideal candidate for the role.
A persona is a fictional character profile that represents the different types of candidates who would be successful in a role. Personas focus on individual characteristics, behaviors, interests, goals, motivators and challenges. With these in place, you can create alignment across your recruitment and sourcing strategies. Your persona profiles should provide specific guidance about how to find candidates who fit the profile, including targeted messages that will resonate.
Since launching in late 2022, ChatGPT and other GAI chatbots, like Bing Chat, Gemini (formerly Bard) and more, quickly permeated the workplace. These tools mimic human communication and can help with everything from content creation and market analysis to simply writing emails. They can also be used to write job descriptions.
By feeding them with relevant prompts that detail the job tasks and required skills as well as employer brand elements like tone of voice, the GAI chatbot can produce a first draft job description in seconds. The hiring manager and recruiter can then massage this text to create the final posting.
For existing job descriptions, AI can be used to measure sentiment and detect biased language. There are a variety of AI-powered online tools that can highlight biased language—like “ambitious” or “expert,” which are stereotypically masculine—to ensure you’re not turning off a portion of your talent audience.
Previously a manual process, AI can sift through a huge number of online profiles to find candidates with the skills you’re looking for. For example, the AI-powered Affinix CRM tool in PeopleScout’s talent acquisition suite Affinix searches millions of online profiles to find passive candidates with the skills and competencies that match the role. The AI also assesses the likelihood of a candidate being open to a new opportunity by combining the average tenure of each job listed on their profile with the average aggregate tenure of all other candidates in that same role.
Manually identifying passive candidates who have similar titles but may not be actively searching for a job can take hours of dedicated time. AI can reduce manual efforts and massively speed up the recruitment process. Plus, it helps you concentrate on skills, rather than experience, to expand your candidate pool.
Predictive Analytics
Machine learning models can also provide predictive and prescriptive hiring recommendations based on a candidate’s profile. AI can assess genuine interest, candidate motivations, likelihood to accept an offer and even predicted tenure. This empowers recruiters to be more informed for interview prep and can help them personalize outreach messages to appeal specifically to what matters most for each candidate.
Over time as engagement data is captured, AI models continue to improve, learning what messages and channels persuade candidates with various profiles and career trajectories. This creates a positive feedback loop, compounding efficiencies over each recruiting cycle.
How to Use AI for Candidate Screening & Interview Support
Manual candidate screening based on résumés and CVs alone can be an imperfect, biased exercise. With AI lending a “second pair of eyes,” you can ensure quality candidates are not being overlooked. Here are some elements of the process that AI can enhance.
First Sift
Natural language processing tools can ingest thousands of résumés and CVs, and analyze the content, context, and trends across the talent pool within seconds. AI tools can be trained to recognize specific skills, experiences and competencies that are required for open roles and then score and rank applicants automatically against your ideal candidate profile.
Look for tools with a dashboard that highlights the “cream of the crop” candidates that demonstrate the closest alignment, enabling you to reach out or pass the most promising applicants to hiring managers quickly.
Real-Time Screening
Intelligent chatbots, like text and SMS screening tools, create a conversational experience for candidates using natural language processing. These mobile-friendly, text interview tools automatically screen candidates using predetermined questions that gauge their interest and qualifications. Based on the responses, the chatbot can instantly determine the next step for each specific candidate.
AI is also leveraged for pre-employment assessments. New tech platforms can test and measure candidates for skills mastery, personality traits, and cognitive abilities to ensure qualified candidates are advancing through the recruitment process. All results should be reviewed by a human to ensure compliance with relevant regulations around automated decision-making. Leveraging AI in skills assessment helps ensure recruiters and hiring managers can focus on priority candidates most likely to succeed in the role, increasing equity along the way.
Want to learn more about how AI can boost your recruitment processes?
AI-powered candidate engagement tools help you create seamless, personalized experiences at scale—boosting candidate satisfaction, accelerating the hiring process and freeing up recruiters to focus on relationship building—where they add the most value.
Personalized Candidate Communications
For several years now, organizations have been leveraging candidate relationship management (CRM) technology to automate communications with candidates throughout the hiring journey. Automated email drip campaigns deliver the right information at the right stage in the journey to keep candidates informed of next steps and engaged with content that is relevant to them. This helps you build personalized engagement at scale.
More recently, recruiters are using GAI platforms like ChatGPT to help them with drafting one-off emails to candidates. Leveraging the appropriate prompts, a recruiter can get a first draft from ChatGPT which they can then review and edit to fit for specific candidates. This has the potential to save hours’ worth of work each week for your talent acquisition team.
Chatbots
Chatbots leverage natural language processing to manage various high-volume, repetitive inquiries from candidates. Whether answering frequently asked questions (FAQs) about application status, the interview process, the company or the job role, chatbots provide consistent, accurate responses 24/7—especially relevant when recruiters aren’t working. This improves candidate satisfaction while enabling recruiters to focus on higher-value activities.
Intelligent messaging platforms can initiate one-way communications at scale to nurture candidates. Using data on the prospect, role, process stage and more, AI writing assistants dynamically generate personalized, thoughtful messages. This level of personalization improves candidate engagement, advances candidates quicker through the funnel and strengthens employment brand affinity.
Calendar management bots can take over the time-consuming back-and-forth of scheduling interviews, assessments, site visits and more. By integrating with hiring manager calendars, only convenient time slots are shown to candidates. Candidates automatically receive confirmations and reminders, eliminating this task for recruiters and increasing the likelihood of candidates attending interviews.
How to Get Started with AI in Recruiting
Your steps into AI should focus on exploration rather than big integrations. AI in recruitment is fast-moving and receiving more and more scrutiny from law makers, and an RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) partner can act as a strategic advisor on your AI recruiting journey. RPOs have experience implementing recruitment tech like AI software for clients and can advise on the best options for your needs, integration requirements, data needs, ethical usage, and workflow design.
By leveraging RPO expertise, companies can effectively implement AI-enhanced hiring with less disruption and a faster return on investment. Look for a partner that is moving at your speed when it comes to AI in recruiting. They’ll help you identify areas for quick wins, and help you expand this success through experimentation and testing.
Here are some ways an RPO partner can help your explore AI for recruitment:
Change Management: RPOs can ease the transition to automated processes and drive adoption through training and ongoing support. They can also develop training programs to upskill your in-house recruiters on using AI tools effectively and ethically in accordance with your internal AI policies.
Process Design: RPOs can redesign recruitment workflows to integrate AI tools. For example, PeopleScout’s Talent Diagnostic examines your talent lifecycle, evaluating your employer brand and your attraction strategy, as well as looking for ways to optimize the candidate experience through technology usage.
Ongoing Optimization: RPOs can continuously monitor and evaluate AI outputs and fine-tune processes. These insights will help you improve outcomes over time.
Compliance Monitoring: RPOs stay current on regulations affecting AI in recruiting to advise on lawful and ethical usage in conjunction with your internal legal team.
AI in Recruiting: Potential and Responsibility
AI has demonstrated tremendous potential to transform talent acquisition. As this handbook outlines, it’s no longer just hype, rather it’s delivering real impact across sourcing, screening, interviewing and candidate engagement.
The results you’ll experience from AI depend heavily on factors like data quality, transparency, integration with existing systems and processes, and governance to ensure responsible usage. AI solutions are meant to augment—not replace—the human touch in recruitment. Recruiters are invaluable when it comes to relationship building, coaching and negotiation, and AI can’t replicate what makes them uniquely human.
Looking ahead, the use of AI recruiting technology to connect people to purpose will only continue expanding. Cultivating an ethical, inclusive and values-based recruiting culture remains key when it comes to attracting employees who align with your organization’s mission. With human stewardship over AI in recruiting, the future of talent acquisition looks bright.
So, what is recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), and why should companies use it? RPO can boost your talent acquisition by optimizing processes amid fierce competition. Whether you’re exploring RPO or want to learn more about maximizing it, this guide will provide valuable insights. Understand how partnering with an RPO can boost your talent acquisition outcomes.
This overview explains RPO, answering common questions, including:
Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a type of business process outsourcing (BPO) in which an external organization (RPO provider) supports an employer’s talent acquisition function by assuming responsibility for some or all facets of the talent acquisition function to support some or all of an employer’s hiring needs.
For example, an RPO engagement may only cover sourcing and screening candidates (partial-cycle RPO) or it may cover the entire recruitment lifecycle from receiving hiring manager’s requisitions all the way to presenting and negotiating job offers to candidates (full-cycle RPO). An RPO provider works closely with an organization’s internal talent acquisition team, either remotely or on-site.
Below, we highlight a few high-level reasons why organizations seek RPO providers, and conversely, when RPO may not be a good fit:
REASONS TO ENGAGE AN RPO PROVIDER:
If your organization is looking for more speed, agility and flexibility in your recruiting processes
If you are looking to improve the quality of candidates applying to your positions or struggle to attract the right talent
If your organization is looking for a more cost-effective and standardized recruiting process
If your organization’s current use of recruitment technology isn’t up to par and you are seeking a variety of digital upgrades specific to your organization’s recruiting objectives
If your organization is looking to increase diversity hiring, RPO providers can help you uncover new diverse talent recruitment sources and strategies
REASONS NOT TO ENGAGE AN RPO PROVIDER:
If your company culture is not ready for outsourcing talent recruitment
If you just need a vendor to fill a quick requisition or two as opposed to a partner to support your talent acquisition strategy
If your organization isn’t open to optimizing your recruiting processes and tech stack
Remember, these reasons are not set in stone. Only you and your organization can assess if you are in need of an RPO partner’s services. An RPO partner should customize their solution to match your needs and offer flexible options to support for peak hiring, hard-to-fill positions, compressed time frames and more—however it works best for you.
During an RPO engagement, the RPO provider’s team works closely with their client’s talent acquisition team and hiring managers to learn the organization’s long-term talent acquisition strategy, hiring challenges and goals.
The RPO provider then designs a customized recruiting program tailored to support the client’s specific needs. RPO is not a one-size-fits-all solution. A leading RPO partner will customize its service to match your requirements, which could include any or all of the following talent acquisition activities:
What is the Difference Between an RPO Provider and a Staffing Agency?
An RPO provider is distinct from a staffing agency or headhunter. Staffing agencies identify candidates, obtain their résumés or CVs and submit them to the client.
An RPO partnership brings a higher level of engagement. Your RPO provider will do a deep dive into your talent acquisition goals and challenges and then create and execute a customized recruitment program—and report back on the results. An RPO partner is a trusted advisor who can help you gain agility and future-proof your business.
Designed for flexibility, RPO can be customized to meet your needs. Fully outsourcing recruitment may not make sense for all organizations. But that doesn’t mean RPO won’t provide value if you’re not ready to go all in. RPO teams are often used alongside existing in-house recruitment teams. The RPO can complement your current recruitment program by handling recruiting for specific job groups, locations or business units.
Here are various types of RPO that are commonly available:
Full-Cycle RPO
The RPO partner owns the entire recruitment cycle from opening requisitions all the way to presenting and negotiating the job offer—and all activities in between. This solution offers the client the full benefit of the RPO partner’s expertise which most organizations don’t have in-house, including value-added services like market insights, recruitment technology and employer brand consulting.
Partial Cycle RPO
The RPO partner covers certain parts of the recruitment process to boost internal recruitment resources. For example, the RPO partner might source and screen candidates and then hand them over to the in-house recruitment team to schedule interviews and manage offers.
Recruiter On-Demand
Recruiter On-Demand engagements are typically fixed-term contracts meant to address specific recruitment challenges such as seasonal hiring peaks, hard-to-fill positions, compressed timeframes and more. The RPO is there to augment the in-house team, often due to rapid growth. These engagements kick off quickly, and the required positions are filled within a few months.
Modular RPO, or variable RPO, is a strategic approach to managing the recruitment process in an ultra-focused manner. It involves outsourcing specific components of the recruitment process to an RPO provider, or as a supplement to an existing outsourced recruitment engagement, providing quick access to targeted and customized recruitment support. With a modular or à la carte approach, you choose from a range of services based on your requirements.
High-volume RPO involves sourcing, screening, interviewing and hiring large numbers of applicants for similar openings or job types. It requires a tricky balance of keeping substantial quantities of job applicants moving through the recruitment process at speed. Plus, throughout the year it requires talent acquisition teams to scale up quickly to meet seasonal demand, like for holiday shopping periods or during peak travel times.
Now that you can answer the question, “What is recruitment process outsourcing?”, you may be wondering why organizations engage an RPO provider. Partnering with an experienced RPO gives you access to extensive recruitment knowledge across industries, roles and regions. RPOs have managed every type of hiring campaign imaginable. Whether you need help with one function or end-to-end recruiting, RPO offers advantages including:
Minimize Costs
Every day a role goes unfilled, your organization loses productivity, which can lead to losses in revenue and profits. Plus, inefficiencies in your organization’s hiring processes can result in lost revenue and more hours spent recruiting. And, if your organization hires the wrong person, you’ll spend even more time and money recruiting and training a replacement for the bad hire. 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. In fact, Everest Group states that organizations can expect a 45% to 55% annual savings with RPO compared to in-house recruitment.
A leading RPO provider should flex to meet your requirements. Your organization can scale the amount of work your RPO provider performs to better manage your recruitment cost-per-hire goals and recruiting budget. When you have an increased demand for talent, an RPO provider can promptly scale up your team of dedicated recruiters to keep on top of your increased demands. This works the other way around as well: when there is less demand, we can scale down, saving you recruitment spend, and you avoid layoffs in your talent acquisition team during low demand periods.
Enhanced Candidate Experience
You want your recruitment process to leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get the job, with a positive experience. Your RPO partner can advise on ways to improve the candidate experience including career site audits, job application recommendations and how to leverage technology to speed up the process and reduce friction.
RPO providers can help you implement technology solutions that balance human expertise with automation. RPO partners have expertise with platforms across the HR and talent acquisition tech stack and can make recommendations to help you attract and engage talent more effectively. PeopleScout’s talent acquisition platform, Affinix™ is a mobile-first, cloud-based platform that creates a consumer-like candidate experience and streamlines the sourcing process.
Access More Expertise
Partnering with an RPO means you gain important talent acquisition expertise without having to invest in internal resources. RPO partners have developed a depth and breadth of experience from working across many clients, industries, job types and regions. While they offer recruitment sourcing best practices, they also offer value-added services that will optimize and streamline each phase of the recruiting process like employer branding, recruitment marketing, skills assessment, market insights, specialist sourcing solutions and more.
Improve Diversity
Through experience collected over many client engagements, RPO teams are knowledgeable about different talent attraction options and can help you expand to new job boards, social media groups, online forums and events to engage a more diverse workforce. Plus, RPOs 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.
Workforce Planning Strategy
Leading RPO providers can provide labor market insights, talent intelligence and benchmarking data. With access to these insights, you have the data you need to support your workforce strategy as well as tactical business decisions. You can capitalize on the latest market analysis, thought leadership and competitive intelligence to inform your talent strategy. Your RPO partner can provide analytics to help you understand what’s working so you can maximize your ROI.
Global Reach
Leading organizations are taking a much more holistic view of the talent landscape and are looking for ways to standardize across regions. Working with a single partner for multi-country RPO eliminates the need for multiple relationships and saves time and money—while raising the quality of your hires. An RPO provider can be your most valuable partner in global expansion, because they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience gained through working with clients in different industries around the world.
Seamless Compliance
A significant aspect of recruiting is dealing with the multitude of compliance requirements that vary by jurisdiction. Your partner should help you navigate the labor laws and compliance issues that accompany any sourcing program. An RPO provider’s rigorous processes ensure a legally compliant hiring process and streamlined responses to audits. Additionally, a partner can help you anticipate any communication and training issues so that you can tackle them head-on.
What Should I Look for in an RPO Company?
If you’ve decided that RPO will be a good fit for your organization, you may be wondering how you go about choosing the best provider. Here are just three things to consider in order to make RPO a truly transformational model for your business.
Partnership
The best RPO partners understand that each company has unique needs. 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. Avoid providers with a one-size-fits-all approach. The right partner balances consistency with customization.
At PeopleScout, for 30 years we’ve built our services on integrity. We won’t say one thing during the sales pitch only to reset expectations after the ink is dry. We won’t make you comply with a cookie-cutter recruitment process. If we mess up, we’ll make it right. That’s why we have some of the longest running client relationships in the RPO space.
Talent Advisory Solutions
A strong employer brand is key to recruitment success. The right RPO partner offers talent advisory solutions to develop your employer brand, EVP, recruitment marketing approaches, candidate assessments and more.
Companies often use separate agencies for recruitment marketing and RPO. This siloed approach means less accountability. The agency is less likely to be held accountable for their campaigns leading to high quality candidates entering later candidate journey stages. 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.
Look for an RPO with in-house expertise (not one who outsources to an external agency) to consult on your entire talent program, not just filling roles. A holistic approach attracts and hires quality candidates.
Technology Acquisition Technology
HR tech is rapidly evolving, and RPO partners are well positioned to advise on tools like AI and analytics to improve recruiting. Your RPO partner should offer expertise on talent tech. Others have their own proprietary talent acquisition platforms. Look for an RPO partner who will support a modular approach, so you can continue to benefit from existing investments and grow your recruitment tech stack as your needs change.
What is Recruitment Process Outsourcing? The Keys to RPO Success
The most important key to successfully engaging an RPO provider for services is to have a clear understanding of what your organization is trying to achieve. Then, you can choose an RPO provider that best meets your needs.
One thing to keep in mind on your RPO journey: RPO engagements are not only about outsourcing your recruiting, they are also about finding the best partner to help manage the people, process, technology and strategy of your talent acquisition function.
There is no single best option, only the option that best aligns with your organizational needs. To determine if RPO is right for your organization, take an audit of what your organization’s specific recruitment and sourcing challenges are and if you have the internal capabilities to overcome your challenges.
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