What is outsourcing and how does it work?  

by | Nov 14, 2023 | Employers Only

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What is outsourcing and how does it work?  

Outsourcing is a term regularly used in business strategy and operations, but what is it, how does it work and how can it work for your business?  

What is outsourcing?

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Outsourcing is when a company hires an individual or business to handle operations, perform tasks or provide services on their behalf.  

The term outsourcing originally came from ‘outside resourcing’ and started to gain popularity in the 1980s.

You can outsource a variety of business functions, ranging from tasks and projects to entire departments. Accounting, IT, marketing and recruitment are some of the most popular functions to let a third party manage on your behalf.  

Here at The Outsourced Recruitment Company, we support small to medium-sized businesses by taking care of their recruitment operations.   

How does outsourcing work?  

Outsourcing is common practice when businesses experience rapid growth and don’t have the required skills or resource in their team to manage the function in-house.  

Sometimes outsourcing is arranged on a short-term basis. This could be either to work on a specific project or while you grow your in-house resources.  

However, for many businesses it makes sense to use outsourcing as part of a long-term commitment. This is because companies won’t incur the additional costs associated with hiring a new team. Such as onboarding, subscriptions to specific programmes, IT resources and ongoing training.  

When outsourcing, you should be sure to carry out the appropriate checks to ensure the third-party you employ are skilled, experienced and the right fit for your company.  

How does recruitment outsourcing work?  

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Recruitment outsourcing is very much the same as when you choose to outsource another function of your business.

We have everything set up, meaning that we use our own technology, resource and expertise to carry out the entire recruitment process on your behalf.  

We work closely with our clients to understand what they do, what the culture is like and the types of people they want to hire. We’ll then set to work advertising the position, sourcing candidates and arranging all elements of the hiring process.  

Once the applications start arriving, we’ll go through the CVs, carry out initial telephone screenings and make our recommendations on who you should take to the next stage of interview. Throughout this we communicate with everyone in the application process.  

After the interviews have taken place, we’ll ask you for feedback and start the offer process as instructed by your team. If you feel like you haven’t found someone suitable for the position, we’ll continue until you do.

During the process, we will continue to make our professional recommendations. This may be around the salary benchmarking, job titles or making changes to the job advert.  

Additions to recruitment outsourcing

When you choose to outsource your recruitment to us, you’ll also get to work with our Employer Branding and Content Specialist. They will help you to understand how to manage your employer brand and create a tailored strategy to aid hiring activity.  

Looking to outsource your recruitment function? Get in touch!