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