Difference between Staffing Companies and RPOs

The current trend in the Recruitment Industry as it stands has embraced faster and better ways of filling vacant positions, if you’ve only thought to look. Here’s what the scenario of Recruiting professional is as of Today.

They are expected to come up with more efficient and cost effective ways to fill positions. Be it a mid – cap company where you don’t have the right talent and are seeking them or a large – cap one where you’re company is looking for growth. When targets aren’t met up to the mark expected due to scarcity of Talented Candidates. All these aspects combined together make the search for Talent cumbersome and an impossible task.

Meeting Application Programming Interface (APIs) is difficult because of a shortage of Talented Candidate pools.  And you’re in search for shortcuts to help you meet those requirements. At times like this Employers and Employees look for alternatives to fill vacancies faster.  Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Services, Staffing Companies or Contingent Agencies, all sound like a possible solution.

Although having options is great to meet APIs, knowing the difference can be difficult yet important. So don’t go confusing Staffing Companies or Contingent Agencies and Retained Search Providers with what an RPO is, know the difference. Let’s check it out…

Difference between RPO, staffing companies or contingent agencies / Retained Search Providers

A common occurrence with RPOs is that it can be easily confused with other similar services such as Staffing agencies and Contingent or Retained Search Providers.  So let’s clear this confusion.

Fee Charges

Contingency agencies are also known as staffing agencies or temporary placement agencies that are used for one-off situations or for a position that has a low volume of needs but are hard to fill within the prescribed time frame. Such agencies can only charge a fee, if their client decides to bring their candidates on board their organisation.

Unlike RPOs  or Retained Recruiters that usually have an exclusive contract i.e. based with clients and are paid the fee upfront irrespective of whether a candidate is hired or not.

Roles Played

Contingency agencies mainly perform the Recruiting role and gain popularity through prompt action to the vacancy positions in organisations. Their Recruiting team usually tends to have Industry Specific Recruiters that speeds up the process of gathering the right candidates.

RPOs or Retained Recruiters at times even takes care of the end-to-end Recruitment cycle as well as the branding of the Client such as Employer Branding, planning of Human Resource, Technology, Research and even sets new trends. Such a service provider generally has access to the latest processes, introduces these developments to clients thus improves Hiring. These types of Organisations aren’t restricted to only Recruiting as suggested earlier.

Although they both are alternatives to filling positions they share a common goal irrespective of the roles played. They both aim at delivering quality and commitment that are key roles in the Recruitment Industry.