The need to scale the workforce in an unpredictable environment requires greater flexibility in talent acquisition models. Recruitment process outsourcing providers offer the much-needed scalability and agility at short notice and support business needs when they arise, according to SIA’s RPO Global Landscape Summary 2024 report. 

Finance and accounting roles at 18% and industrial roles at 15% now account for the largest occupational skill category in terms of the number of reported hires. Aside from industrial roles, the RPO market predominantly serves professional roles with IT, healthcare and finance/accounting representing 45% of hires. 

Experienced hires make up the largest share of the market at 56%, although many providers are delivering all hiring types from apprenticeship campaigns to executive search. Often, a provider will be engaged to deliver one hiring type in the first instance and will take on further types as the RPO relationship develops, according to the report. 

SIA’s complimentary Lexicon of Global Workforce-Related Terms defines RPO as follows: 

“A service segment of the Process Outsourcing industry, RPO is the partial or full outsourcing of the internal recruitment function to a third-party specialist provider, which serves to provide the necessary skills, activities, tools, technologies, related recruitment supply chain partners and process methodologies to assume the role of the client’s recruiting department by owning and managing its recruitment process and related recruitment supply chain partner relationships. RPO is more commonly used as a method for employers to recruit direct-hire personnel, particularly in the US. In Europe, contingent workers will also be included within that scope in some instances.”