Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

Which hiring tasks can an external partner handle?

The outsourcing of business processes has long been common practice among large enterprises. In HR, however, it has only recently gained significant popularity—initially with tasks like payroll being outsourced.
But what exactly does the term "Recruitment Process Outsourcing" (RPO)mean? And why has this particular field only now become popular? In this article, we’d like to familiarize you with the concept and present the services we can offer from our Bulgarian location.

Why Outsource in the First Place?

The last dinosaurs went extinct around 66 million years ago. Similarly, large corporations often struggle to adapt quickly to technological and societal change—and risk becoming bureaucratic, resembling government institutions.
This has led some leaders to restructure their companies into smaller, entrepreneurial profit centers that need to be self-sustaining.

Another solution is to outsource business processes. As consultants suggest: focus on your core business, and outsource tasks that others can do faster, cheaper, and better. This also improves cost transparency in your overall budget.

While document processing—physical or digital—has successfully been outsourced for some time, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increasingly rely on specialized providers because building internal structures may not be worthwhile. For larger organizations, creating tailored units (often called Delivery Centers, Service Hubs, Shared Service Centers, or Competence Centers) in low-cost locations is another viable strategy.

How Can Recruitment Be Optimized?

Recruitment is a special field because it relies on personal contact between employer and applicant. Can such a process even be outsourced (or consolidated internally), and is it possible to gain efficiency this way? Many employers say: absolutely. Social media recruiting was unheard of a few years ago, but today it is an integral part of recruiting. More and more is happening digitally: Employers who ask for traditional application folders will, at best, elicit a shrug of the shoulders, at least from younger candidates. And thanks to the increasingly powerful internet, which will gain further momentum thanks to broadband expansion and the new G5 mobile standard, video interviews, even in high resolution, are no longer technically a problem. The trend is increasingly toward only the final interviews being conducted in person – a development that has been accelerated even further by the coronavirus pandemic.

So you see: Technological advances have made it possible to conduct interviews from virtually anywhere in the world. However, for data protection reasons, an EU location for the interviewer (the employer's side) is preferable. Of course, this doesn't mean that hiring should take place without a face-to-face meeting (offline); in our experience, at least the final interview must be conducted with the future line manager(s) present. Typically, this takes place on-site at the employer's premises, including a tour of the company and an introduction to the prospective colleagues—this, of course, cannot be replicated digitally.

But there are many steps to take before we get there, and these can be easily outsourced. The advice outlined above applies here as well: Focus on your core business and engage a service provider that can handle the many upstream steps better, more cost-effectively, and more quickly.

And always remember Parkinson’s laws:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

“Work expands exactly to the extent of time available for its completion.”

As a side effect, RPO also leads to greater (cost) transparency. Or can you currently say exactly how much recruiting a new employee costs you?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing in Bulgaria?

Bulgaria’s cultural closeness to the German-speaking region (German is widely taught as an educational language, and there are many qualified academics with degrees from German universities) is the key argument for setting up your own structures in the country or cooperating with a local partner.
Bulgaria’s EU membership is not only a quality mark in terms of contract and tax law; the country scores especially well in matters of data protection (since 2019, the EU General Data Protection Regulation has also applied in Bulgaria). Handling sensitive applicant data is a matter of trust – which is why classic outsourcing locations such as India cannot be the first choice here.
When it comes to implementation, we offer you tailor-made concepts, even down to working directly in your systems. In this way, you retain full control over all applicant data.

For a recruiter or sourcer employed in Germany, who will usually be based at the company’s headquarters, not only the pure labor costs but also considerable additional costs (such as office use, training measures) arise. All this can be handled more cost-effectively in Bulgaria – and from this we have developed a business model that we have been practicing successfully for many years with our partners in the DACH region.

What does Balkaninvest offer?

With the exception of the final interview and the contract negotiation and signing, we support our clients in all essential steps of the recruitment process. We build dedicated small and medium-sized teams that work exclusively for one client, internalize that client’s corporate culture, and quickly become familiar with the respective processes. The use of a single recruiter is also possible, making outsourcing attractive even for small businesses.
The HR consultancy Balkaninvest sees itself as a competent RPO partner for SMEs in the German-speaking region (Germany, Switzerland, Austria).

Here is a brief overview of possible services:

• Planning and operational execution of job advertisements in selected print and online media, social networks, and employment agencies
• Alternatively, management of job postings via the client’s HR software (including career website, intranet) or reporting according to client specifications
• Profile mining
• Evaluation of candidate databases
• Head hunting / direct search
• Conducting interviews (video, phone)
• Organizing interview days – across Europe
• Employer branding – offline and online, including representation at career fairs if required

Have we sparked your interest? Then get in touch with us and briefly describe your idea. We will be happy to clarify in a non-binding discussion whether and which of your processes can be outsourced to our competence center in Bulgaria within the framework of a Recruitment Process Outsourcing cooperation!

Typical Scenarios: Where Outsourcing Makes Sense

RPO and the era of remote work (Home office)

The COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022 was a true game-changer for recruiting. Within a very short time, remote work became the norm, even in companies that had been opposed to it for various reasons. It is now clear that many of these innovations will persist in the post-coronavirus era or can only be partially reversed.

For recruiters, this means: Digital application packages are now standard, and remote interviews (video, or phone if not possible) are finally accepted. Applicants must also adapt to this and ideally create the technical prerequisites for a video interview from home. The coronavirus pandemic has made in-person interviews the norm, thus indirectly supporting the trend toward recruiting process outsourcing, which can now cover almost all steps in the recruiting process.

Under certain circumstances, comprehensive RPO consulting may be eligible for subsidies (only applies to German companies). Ask us!