Niche Recruitment: The Fascinating World of Specialized RPO Providers
We’ve been exploring the world of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) little by little in our articles. This time, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper and discuss specialized RPO providers that offer niche recruitment services.
If you don’t know what RPO is, you can read about the basics in one of our articles here: Is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Right For You?
Now, let’s get into it!
Specialized RPO providers offer some unique benefits. These benefits are based on the idea that a particular RPO provider has one or more than one specific industry of specialization. An example would be an RPO provider who specializes in IT roles. The IT industry is a niche for this RPO provider. This means their recruiters and recruitment processes are optimized for IT professionals and hiring standards for the industry.
If you've already read our article on the benefits of outsourcing recruitment processes to expert providers, niche RPO providers basically offer the same list of benefits but at an amplified quality:
1. Special Candidate Experience
Candidates who recognize that their interviewer understands the inner workings and even inside jokes within the industry become more comfortable, resulting in more confidence and openness to talk about their personal work, something most recruiters would miss during CV screenings. This openness builds an environment of trust, encouraging candidates to show their attitudes, career aspirations, and honesty about the workplace culture they are comfortable with.
An additional benefit is this recruiter behavior showing interest in one’s work also reflects positively on the employer branding of the client that recruiters are emulating.
2. Highly Qualified Candidates
Because niche recruiters understand their clients' preferences and custom job descriptions on a technical level, they can evaluate candidates objectively, ask better follow-up questions, and discern which candidates are more suitable for the role. So when recruiters produce highly qualified new hires, what other benefits do companies get? Less turnover.
3. Less Turnover
This is a domino effect of the ability to hire highly suitable candidates for the roles through niche recruitment. Recruiters have a better understanding of the work and industry culture, which helps in asking the right questions to produce a set of criteria used to evaluate which candidates have higher chances of settling in better and staying longer if hired.
4. Access to the Niche Network
Niche RPO providers hold the key to doors leading to an industry's vast network of professionals at all levels, even that of pre-professionals such as university students and interns. They know where to find such people, approach them, or get their attention to apply for a position.
5. Filling Vacancies Faster (and Successfully)
Niche recruiters have above-average knowledge of their industry's roles, skill sets, tools, and work cultures. This makes it possible to fill positions faster without compromises that lead to turnover and higher stress levels for the new hire and the team due to incompatibility.
