What is embedded recruitment and how does it work?
Embedded talent is an arrangement to partner with an external recruitment team, embedding them into your in-house function to manage elements of, or the entire, recruitment process.
In most cases, embedded talent is another way of describing outsourced recruitment. However, some embedded recruitment partners physically place a member, or members of their team, within the client’s location.
Picture an internal team in all its glory, but on an outsourced arrangement.
Who is embedded recruitment for?
Embedded recruitment is a popular solution for businesses who:
- Are not quite at the stage to employ their own in-house recruitment team.
- Need short-term support to scale up their in-house function to meet the needs of a new contract or project.
- Need to relieve existing staff of recruitment duties, allowing them to return to their own function – such as HR.
This style of outsourced recruitment is supported by a range of businesses from start-ups, to small and medium businesses. We’ve worked with teams as small as 20, up to teams of 1,500+.
The benefits of embedded recruitment
You decide how long you need us for
Embedded/outsourced recruitment, sometimes known as recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a subscription arranged by your business. You decide exactly how long you need the support for, whether that be a short-term 6 month arrangement to cover volume recruitment for contract or project, or years to work with your business plan.
Ability to scale up or down
Managing recruitment in-house means that you’re responsible for scaling up your team to suit the needs of the business. However, with recruitment there are often fluctuations in your hiring. With an in-house team you would need to manage the scaling down of your resource, resulting in possible redundancies. On an outsourced arrangement, we can scale up or down your embedded recruitment to suit the needs of your business easily.
Access all areas
Using an embedded recruitment partner means that you not only get access to a fully-fledged team, but also everything that comes with that, such as:
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to manage all vacancies and candidate communication.
Job board subscriptions.
An employer branding specialist.*
Your very own careers site designed and hosted by your team.*
* services are part of The Outsourced Recruitment Company’s offering, but may not be applicable for other embedded recruitment solutions.
Fixed monthly cost
Forget hefty percentage placement fees! Embedded talent partners don’t operate in the same way as traditional recruitment agencies. Instead, we calculate your overall subscription cost and agree on a monthly payment.
Our recruiters are paid to recruit
Sounds silly doesn’t it, but it’s true. We don’t expect our recruiters to spend their time winning new business, which is often the case for agencies. This means that you get access to a recruitment team who are focused entirely on the recruitment process and candidate journey.
Cost savings
Partnering with an embedded recruitment provider is often cheaper than recruiting your own in-house team when you consider the following:
- Salary of recruitment staff (including benefits package, onboarding and equipment).
- Ongoing training and development costs.
- Cost of an ATS to manage the recruitment process.
- Job board subscription fees and sourcing software.
- Employer branding specialist (including benefits package, onboarding and equipment).
- Cost to design and host a careers site.
The cons of embedded recruitment solutions
You need to be onboard
A recruitment partner will come on board and bring their experience and skills. However, this may mean that you need to make changes to your current process for this to work efficiently and deliver great candidate experience. If you’re not willing to take advice and work in true partnership, then it’s likely the relationship won’t work.
All good things come to an end
Outsourced/embedded recruitment is often on a short-term basis, even if your contract runs for a few years. Eventually your business will grow to a size where you are in a position to recruit your own team. Whilst we support this process and give a thorough handover and support you to build your in-house team, it does mean that you’ll have a spike in outgoing costs at this period when you factor in new employee salaries, equipment, software and associated costs.
It’s not for everyone
Whilst an embedded recruitment partner works for many businesses, it won’t be everyone’s preference or suit everyone’s budget. We understand that there’s a market out there for everyone, whether you need outsourced recruitment, to employ your own team, use an agency or can’t afford those options and will continue to juggle amongst your existing team.
To understand more about how our team could partner with your business and support with embedded recruitment. Get in touch