RPO/MSP Talent Acquisition Experience Anyone?

[pauly]

Wanted to open up a thread about these types of companies….

They call themselves RPO (Resource process outsourcing) or MSP (Managed Service Providers).

The business model seems to be to sell the Clientco on that fact that they can come into the HR department, take over some of the HR function and reduce costs and burden (I assume).

You notice the big name clients and banks often have them onsite. It’s hard to tell who is working with the RPO/MSP Agency and who is actual Clientco staff, as they use the same Clientco emails and are often onsite with the team.

They seems to be used for contracting recruitment more than permanent.

I assume they are seen by the Clientco as a way of getting HR staff for reduced costs - they probably work on a commission basis as opposed to being part of the constrained HR permanent staff costs. They also then get a bunch of agencies underneath them on their PSL and manage them.

BUT...

The Clientco effectively loses all control and visibility of their Talent Acquisition process.

Some of these companies have links or are owned by Agencies on their so called independent PSL.

Clearly, it seems like a good idea for recruitment agencies to form these RPO/MSP type organisations, get on-site with Big Clientco’ s, take control of all the Job Reqs, try and recruit themselves or funnel them off to their sister agencies that they can effectively double bill commission for.

As long as they keep the Clientco sweet onsite - they can treat candidates as they wish. All other recruitment agencies are at their beck and call, and usually they will funnel the open positions to agencies that are related to them (even though they may tell the Clientco that they are operating as a vendor neutral provider).

Due to the competitive nature of the recruitment agency market – is this just big agencies trying to forward integrate to get in with Clientco’s and thus control the recruitment process in order to ensure £££'s??.

Does anyone have an insight? Or how this unaccountable middleman model affects the candidate and Clientco experience?

[stek]

This is too uninteresting even for General.......

[pauly]

Where its at..

This is too uninteresting even for General.......

You underestimating its impact. Often the boring and uninteresting mechanics are where its at. The GOV's recent attempted to impose greater taxes on the self employed should be indicating that there is (and will be) growth of self employed workers - which means more agencies and their shanggons.

Wanted to know if the forum members had seen these MSP/PSL agencies in action and had good or bad experiences?

[original PM]

snip
Does anyone have an insight? Or how this unaccountable middleman model affects the candidate and Clientco experience?

The middleman's sole interest is making as much money as possible and to do that they need to keep the client sweet so the client continues to pay them money. How that affects other things will purely depend on what keeps the client sweet.

The candidate is merely the vehicle for making money so generally you are the b!tch

[Big Blue Plymouth]

You underestimating its impact. Often the boring and uninteresting mechanics are where its at. The GOV's recent attempted to impose greater taxes on the self employed should be indicating that there is (and will be) growth of self employed workers - which means more agencies and their shanggons.

Wanted to know if the forum members had seen these MSP/PSL agencies in action and had good or bad experiences?

Yes, as I've reported elsewhere the AA did this and brought in some outfit headed up by somebody who caused most of the female middle management to quit.

Let's just say it was a slight cultural mismatch

They also stopped hiring contractors and sourced their requirements from one of the usual suspects.

[LondonManc]

You underestimating its impact. Often the boring and uninteresting mechanics are where its at. The GOV's recent attempted to impose greater taxes on the self employed should be indicating that there is (and will be) growth of self employed workers - which means more agencies and their shanggons.

Wanted to know if the forum members had seen these MSP/PSL agencies in action and had good or bad experiences?

Yep, seen them, been part of their process. Most IBs have them given their significant percentage of contingent workers.

Adecco are used by at least two that I know of and are part of S3. It seems to be the case that if you're not in their database, then they'll have to pass it to the PSL but the in house resource provider gets a head start (whether they're officially allowed to or not). They also get to run the whole sham of the screening process (very little changed since last time you were at the same client but they need to prove you still hold the same degree certification that you did last time you were onboarded!).

Margins aren't huge but the volume compensates them for that. The real issue is, as you pretty much alluded to, the quality of the contractor candidates. I've seen some shocking cvs come through (with lies on - I know because in one case, I did the work that the candidate was claiming they did!) and not seen others come through that were expected. The actual agents on the PSL are getting the biggest shafting in this though rather than the candidates.

[pauly]

The middleman's sole interest is making as much money as possible and to do that they need to keep the client sweet so the client continues to pay them money. How that affects other things will purely depend on what keeps the client sweet.
The candidate is merely the vehicle for making money so generally you are the b!tch

You understand that, I understand it as well - question is does Clientco?

What do you think Clientco's want? Do you think they give a freck about how the agencies are treating the candidates (the good candidates at least)? They probably care more than the Agencies eh? But they get no visibility to responses, processing or ultimately the shortlisting process.

Its like selling your house through a Estate Agent. Call one, and they will turn up in droves with their contracts for you to sign. But how do you know that they will respond to buyers interest, do a good viewing, follow-up and try and close the buyer, be courteous and professional (all the things you are paying the agency to do)?

I guess you don't know - you just rely on the commission chasing motivation of the agency to be the best motivation for selling houses. And the fact that an good offer came in - to be good enough. But that is often a reflection of the market place - not the competences of the agency you are paying to display.

Take a wee look at linkedin - not hard to find recruitment agents that were once in the lettings or estate agency game - I guess its the same model from their perspective - kiss up to the client and kick down to the candidate.

Question is - does the Clientco get it - or is blinded by the front man?

Do they even have any remote knowledge that the so-called independent on-site recruitment partner is funded by one of the agencies on the PSL?

[LondonManc]

You do realise that at the levels at which these sort of decisions are made it's all about who you know, right?

[pauly]

You do realise that at the levels at which these sort of decisions are made it's all about who you know, right?

Meaning that Clientco's have no interest in candidate experience?

Considering the Estate Agency middleman racket seems to be going through a digital revolution (vendors and buyers interacting directly) - you not think its about time some digital channels could be applied to ensure accountability and transparency to the recruitment companies?

[pauly]

Margins aren't huge but the volume compensates them for that. The real issue is, as you pretty much alluded to, the quality of the contractor candidates. I've seen some shocking cvs come through (with lies on - I know because in one case, I did the work that the candidate was claiming they did!) and not seen others come through that were expected. The actual agents on the PSL are getting the biggest shafting in this though rather than the candidates.

Sounds about right. I understood that he margins could be 5-10% for MSP/RPO arrangements. Never quite sure if its an "all in" rate for the PSL agents, so they are incentivized to get people in as cheap as possible?

I guess you don't get to see who they rejected and why? - and thus could not fine tune the agency - in a candidate-rich market (as probably now) they could just pick the first 3 decent ones as opposed to actually going through them all and picking the best - as a hiring manager - you would be none the wiser?

The commision based model has never made any sense. If an agent spends a couple of days sorting and sifting through CV's and spend some money on advertising - fair enuf - pay them for their service - time and materials. But on the commission's based model - you are paying him a slice for life with the Clientco - even though that has got little to do with the agents recruitment costs and effort - and more to do with the candidate's ability to execute onsite.