Outsourcing recruitment

Your vacancies stay open longer than you'd like. Sourcing, screening and scheduling interviews takes time your team doesn't have, and meanwhile the work carries on. Which raises the question: should we outsource this?

Outsourcing recruitment doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can hand over the whole process to an external party, or only the part that costs you the most time. Outsourcing recruitment and selection is the best-known version of that. Which variant fits depends on how many vacancies you have and how much control you want to keep.

Talent Sourcing Partner takes over the front end. We sharpen the profile together, source actively within our Community of 'not-so-ordinary' students and young professionals, speak to candidates at least twice and only introduce people we know fit your team. You run the interviews that really matter, and you decide.

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What forms of outsourcing recruitment are there?

Outsourcing is a scale, not a switch. At one end you hand over everything, at the other only a single vacancy. These are the forms you'll come across in practice:

Full RPO

An external recruiter or team becomes part of your organisation and works under your name on all your vacancies. You pay a fixed monthly fee, usually within a long-term contract. Suits organisations with a steady stream of vacancies. If you only have a few a year, you are paying for capacity you don't use.

Partial or project RPO

You outsource part of the process, for example only the sourcing and screening, or one specific project or peak period. You keep your employer brand, your ATS and the final decision in house.

Recruitment and selection

An agency searches and selects per vacancy and the candidate joins you directly. You pay a retainer upfront and a fee on successful placement, often a percentage of the annual salary. No fixed monthly costs, but no continuous capacity either.

Staffing

The candidate works with you, but the contract runs through the agency. That also means the agency is the employer: if someone falls ill, you don't keep paying. You pay per hour worked and scale up or down without hiring permanent staff. Suits peaks, projects and supporting work.

Secondment

The candidate is permanently employed by the secondment agency and is placed with you for a longer period, often on specialist assignments. Here too the agency is the employer, with the difference that the candidate stays on their payroll between assignments.

Freelance recruiter

An independent recruiter works for you temporarily on an hourly basis. Flexible, but the knowledge of your target group leaves again when the assignment ends.

What are the options of recruitment outsourcing via Talent Sourcing Partner?

Talent Sourcing Partner does recruitment and selection, and staffing. We don't do secondment or full RPO. Looking for a permanent hire? Then we search and select, and that person joins you directly. Want to scale flexibly? Then the candidate works with you while the contract runs through us.

Learn more about our way of working

You know your own organisation best

Your team searches and approaches candidates

You assess every application yourself

You arrange tooling and channels yourself

You build up knowledge of the target group yourself

The final decision is yours

We get to know it through a culture scan on site

We source actively, including people who aren't looking

You only speak to people we have already met two to three times

We work from our own Community and systems

You draw on our knowledge of early career talent

The final decision stays yours

Do you have a strong network in the target group and enough time for the process? Then doing it yourself is fine. Has your vacancy been open for months, or does your team never get to it? Then outsourcing usually delivers more.

Learn more about our way of working

"Talent Sourcing Partner is warm and approachable, but above all delivers excellent candidates. Of the more than ten agencies we’ve worked with, TSP ranks among the very best."
Joeri Everaers
Founder, Selection Lab

How does outsourcing recruitment work at Talent Sourcing Partner?

Most of the work in recruitment sits at the front end: working out who you are looking for, finding those people, assessing CVs and figuring out whether they really fit. That is also the part you rarely get to yourself. So that is what we take over.

What we do:

A culture scan on site, so we really understand your team and how you work
Sharpen the profile together and write the job description
Source actively within our Community, including people who are not looking
Speak to candidates at least two to three times in person
Prepare candidates for your interviews and evaluate afterwards
Guidance that continues after the start, with periodic check-ins
Development during the placement through our Career Impact Lab

We approach candidates under our own name and work in our own system. We always tell them exactly which company it is, what the role involves and who they will be working with.

What you get out of it:

One or two interviews a week, with people we have already spoken to two to three times
Detailed information per introduction: strengths, and what to probe further in the interview
Candidates who are qualified on culture, skills and mindset
The final decision, which always stays with you

Why our approach leads to better matches

We select on 'character over skills'. Experience can be taught, character can't. That is why we look for grit, curiosity and accountability, and map seven competencies per candidate with the Talent Compass, including curiosity, analytical thinking and stakeholder communication. So you get reasoning behind every introduction, not just a gut feeling.

Learn more about our way of working

We do that at scale too. At Flexport we fill around twenty roles a year across twelve teams, and at Houthoff 70% of our candidates move on to a permanent contract.

Check out our use cases

You scale flexibly through StudentFlex and fill permanent roles through TalentSpark. Which route fits, we discuss in the introductory conversation.

Which roles do organisations outsource to us?

We focus on early career talent: working students, starters and young professionals with zero to eight years of experience. That is deliberate, because that is where our Community sits and where we know the market.

Roles we regularly recruit for:

Finance and control: Finance Associate, Business Analyst, Data Analyst
Commercial: Sales Development Representative, Account Executive, Partner Manager
Marketing: Digital Marketeer, Performance Marketeer, CRM specialist
Operations and support: Operations Support, Customer Success, Tech Support
Data and AI: Data Analyst, junior roles within data and AI projects
Legal and compliance: Legal Support Specialist, KYC and compliance support

Not sure whether your vacancy falls within our scope? We are happy to think along.

In which sectors do organisations outsource their recruitment to us?

We work across seven sectors, and always on the teams around the core operation: commercial, finance, data, operations and support.

Fintech and financial services

Energy and sustainability

Professional services

Tech and software

E-commerce and retail

Construction, real estate and project development

Healthcare and healthtech

Veelgestelde vragen

How quickly can you present candidates?

For StudentFlex, often within a few days. For TalentSpark, slightly longer due to more targeted selection.

Does Talent Sourcing Partner take over our entire recruitment process?

No, and that is a deliberate choice. With full RPO you pay a fixed monthly fee within a long-term contract, including in months when you barely have vacancies. We take over the search and selection work up to and including the introduction, and you run the interviews and make the final call. You pay per placement or per hour worked, not per month.

Do you take over our entire recruitment process?

What does outsourcing recruitment cost?

That depends on the model. With full RPO you pay a fixed monthly fee, regardless of how many vacancies you have that month. With recruitment and selection you pay on successful placement. With us you work with an hourly rate including employer costs for flexible deployment through StudentFlex, or with a retainer upfront and a fee on placement through TalentSpark. What fits best differs per assignment, so we are happy to think along and make a tailored proposal.

When is recruitment outsourcing the right call?

Recruitment outsourcing usually is right at one of these moments:

Your vacancy has been open for a long time
Your own team never gets to hiring
You are looking for a profile you don't have enough reach for
You have a peak or a project and need capacity quickly, without hiring permanent staff
Previous hires didn't work out

With that last one, the issue is usually not who you hired but what you didn't uncover beforehand. If you never really got to know someone, you only find out months later that the match isn't there. That calls for sharper conversations and a clearer picture of what your team and your culture need.

When are you better off doing the recruitment process yourself?

When you have a strong network in the target group you are looking for, and enough time to give the process the attention it deserves. For roles you fill easily with your own reach, outsourcing is rarely necessary. We would rather say that honestly than start a partnership that delivers little. Want to see what you can improve yourself first? Read our page on finding staff.

What is the difference between a staffing agency and outsourcing recruitment?

A staffing agency provides people who stay employed by the agency; outsourcing recruitment is about the process of searching and selecting. We do both: flexible deployment through StudentFlex and permanent placements through TalentSpark.