We are often asked by potential customers, “So tell me … what is different about your company?” They want to understand, what differentiates us from our competitors?  Perhaps the customer currently has or previously had another RPO firm providing services or they may be exploring making the initial move to an outsourced provider. Either way, there are a few key differentiators that add value to customers, their candidates, hiring managers, and other stakeholders.

1. Recruiting resources that are “right-sized” to the customers’ hiring requirements.  At both pre and post-launch of services, providers should work side-by-side with their customers to fully analyze client historical and current data. Projected business plans must be determined so that both parties can collectively develop and agree on the scope of hiring and size, skills, competencies and location (on and off-site) of talent acquisition resources. 
2. Greater emphasis on sourcing and attracting candidates.  First, all companies should place an enormous premium on attracting, hiring and retaining the best recruiting talent in the marketplace. Recruiters must be “hunters” of talent who understand the value in identifying passive talent and then have the experience, skills and depth of knowledge to attract and present the most qualified candidates to hiring managers.  Second, recruiters  should be aware of the best social sourcing tools. Just using LinkedIn is no longer good enough. In the new social economy, recruiters must actively develop innovative sourcing strategies – and continue to evolve with the marketplace focusing on social networking, talent communities, search engines, referrals, and job boards.
3. Greater focus on alignment with business strategy.  Account leaders and their teams must be trained and experienced in developing deep and broad, relationships with senior business leaders, hiring managers and key process stakeholders to ensure that recruitment efforts are completely aligned with the goals of the business. A firm that is a seamlessly integrated partner will be the greatest value to your company.

 Focusing on these key differentiators will provide recruitment platforms that can deliver improvements in:

• Time-to-Fill
• Candidate experience through increased contact and relationship management 
• Quality of candidates through more highly focused sourcing and screening 
• Responsiveness, communications and issue resolution

We often speak about “How do we take our client relationships from being viewed as one of many vendors to be valued as a trusted strategic partner?”

Here are six points that I have found to be successful in building strong strategic partner relationships with our clients:

1.       Be strategic in how you think and act.  Understand your client’s business and what their strategic goals are.   Discuss and plan with them how your organization can develop a talent acquisition strategy that will align with and accelerate their own strategic business objectives.

2.       Be a trusted advisor.  Use your organization’s resources and talents and your position as a subject matter expert in talent acquisition, to advice and counsel your client.  Bring the value of your knowledge to your client so that they can better focus their talents and resources on building their core business.  Become a conduit of business and competitive intelligence for your client.

3.       “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.”  Conduct as much in-person communication with your client as you can – through frequent and/or recurring formal meetings as well as informal meetings and conversations.  We encourage our on-site teams to visit with their hiring managers – in the hallways, for coffee in the cafeteria, or to just stop by their desks.  When not in-person, be sure to call, again either formally at pre-arranged times or informally, to ask “How are we performing?”  and “What can we do better?”  And of course, texting and e-mail can supplement (but should never replace) in-person and voice communications.

4.       Set expectations.  Be certain that you and your client openly and clearly communicate what your expectations are for and from each other.

5.       Deliver on your promises.  You’re on your way now – you have set the strategy, provided advice and counsel, established a strong communications channel, and set expectations … now you must deliver!  To ensure that you do deliver on your promises, you must plan your actions, set clear milestones with delivery dates, and then manage your plan, resources and deliverables with laser-like focus.

6.       Be transparent with your client.  Make your business processes and results readily visible to your client.  Publish reports and analysis that are relevant to your client’s organization.  Share data, metrics, trends, business intelligence openly and frequently.  And be sure to share both successes as well as challenges.

In my experience, only after you have followed these points and implemented them into your practice, can you complete the journey from being one of many vendors in a crowded marketplace and elevate your organization to that very exclusive position of trusted strategic partner.