Building a Talent Acquisition Function from the Ground Up Following a Corporate Spin-Off
When a leading paints and coatings manufacturer launched as an independent company, Advanced RPO built and scaled a complete talent acquisition function capable of supporting 2,400 annual hires across the United States and Canada.
Situation: Building a hiring function from scratch.
Following its separation into an independent organization in December 2024, a leading paints and coatings manufacturer faced a significant challenge: building an entirely new talent acquisition function while simultaneously hiring the workforce needed to support business operations across North America.
With no established recruiting team, hiring processes, systems, or infrastructure in place, the organization partnered with Advanced RPO to design, build, and manage its talent acquisition function across the United States and Canada.
Today, Advanced RPO supports hiring across corporate, manufacturing, supply chain, retail, sales, and leadership functions, helping the organization scale hiring across 9 manufacturing plants, 12 distribution centers, and more than 600 retail locations.
As a newly independent company, the organization needed to quickly establish the teams required to operate successfully while building a sustainable talent acquisition model for future growth.
Initial hiring needs included filling 100 exempt positions across critical business functions, including:
- Procurement
- Information Technology
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Environmental Health & Safety
- Corporate Shared Services
Beyond immediate hiring demands, leadership needed:
- A fully operational talent acquisition function
- Standardized hiring processes
- Configured recruiting technology
- Consistent candidate communications
- Reporting and analytics capabilities
- A scalable model capable of supporting future growth across North America
As the organization expanded, hiring demand quickly extended beyond corporate roles to include manufacturing, maintenance, supply chain, retail, sales, and leadership positions.
Solution: Creating the foundation for scalable growth.
Rather than providing recruiting support alone, Advanced RPO partnered with leadership to design and operationalize the organization’s entire talent acquisition function.
Working closely with stakeholders, Advanced RPO:
- Designed and implemented salaried and hourly hiring processes
- Configured the organization’s applicant tracking system (ATS)
- Established recruiting workflows, approvals, and governance standards
- Developed candidate communications aligned to the employer brand
- Created offer letters, rejection templates, and hiring documentation
- Built recruitment reporting and analytics capabilities
- Implemented onboarding and pre-employment support processes
- Embedded recruiters who served as strategic advisors to hiring leaders
To improve the hiring experience, Advanced RPO also developed a centralized talent acquisition intranet resource that guides hiring managers through every stage of the hiring process—from requisition creation through onboarding. The resource provides process guidance, interview tools, evaluation best practices, approval workflows, and access to all hiring forms and templates.
The result was a fully functioning talent acquisition capability built from the ground up, capable of supporting both immediate hiring needs and long-term growth objectives.
Results: From startup mode to enterprise-scale hiring.
Advanced RPO transformed talent acquisition from a function that did not exist into a scalable business capability supporting enterprise-wide growth.
Key outcomes included:
- Successfully filled the initial 100 exempt positions required to launch the newly independent organization
- Built and operationalized a complete talent acquisition infrastructure from the ground up
- Expanded support from salaried recruiting to all hourly and salaried hiring across the United States and Canada
- Standardized hiring processes and improved consistency across business units
- Simplified the hiring experience for leaders through centralized tools and resources
- Reduced time-to-fill while maintaining candidate quality expectations
- Achieved high levels of hiring manager and candidate satisfaction
- Established recruiters as trusted advisors embedded within the business
Today, Advanced RPO supports hiring across manufacturing, retail, sales, supply chain, corporate, and leadership functions, enabling the organization to execute approximately 2,400 hires annually across North America.