With great change comes great opportunity

Shifts in technology and attitudes to remote working are opening new doors

I work with a recruitment leader who hates it when agencies offer a ‘mini-RPO’ service.

And when I say she hates it, I mean we’ve agreed on a strategy to help her down from her soap box whenever the topic comes up.

She runs her own agency now, but previously worked in a big-name recruiter who did proper Recruitment. Process. Outsourcing. So a ‘faux-RPO’ service, as she calls it, from a smaller agency just can’t compare.

And yet…

Whenever we looked at the best way to deliver a high-value service to her clients, we kept stumbling across aspects of the RPO service that would add value.

Of course I didn’t use the term ‘mini-RPO’ (I’d learned my lesson by then) but it was interesting to see how recent changes in technology and working styles have allowed recruiters from smaller agencies to offer more embedded services.

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Before the rise of cloud computing, being an embedded recruiter meant being onsite with your client. You needed a name badge to get in the door, you had to ask for a PC connected to their network, not to mention a welcome tour to show you where the loos are and how to use the coffee machine.

These days you can be embedded in a client from anywhere in the world. And with the change in expectations around work-from-home and work-from-anywhere, you have the potential to be as much of a team member as any in-house recruiter.

This shift away from presenteeism - or literally having to be present to access the right systems and people - opens the door for recruiters to embed with more than one client at a time. 

You wouldn’t want to sit onsite with a client and be working on another company’s roles. But these days you can easily spend the morning engaging with a client in London and the afternoon with a client in Berlin. 

This fragmentation also opens up opportunities with a new type of client. One who didn't want (or couldn’t afford) a fully onsite recruiter but can see the value of getting an experienced recruiter who really knows their systems and culture for a couple of days a week. 

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It can be so valuable to revisit the way you deliver your services and check whether technology, working practices and client expectations have changed in a way that creates new opportunities for you - and more value for your clients. 

If you want to review your current services and see what new opportunities could be out there, simply reply to this email and I will explain the best approach.

Jon

PS. I don’t think we’ve ever seen as many changes to working practices as we have in the past two years.

Which means there are likely to be more opportunities than ever to adapt your services and add more value to your clients.  

So if you want to see what new opportunities could be out there, simply reply to this email and I will explain the best approach.