Building Recruiting Agility Through Business Transformation
Learn how Advanced RPO helped a global manufacturer create a flexible talent acquisition function that reduced time to fill by 27%, improved offer acceptance, and maintained hiring continuity through organizational change.
Situation: A partner chosen on past performance
A CHRO who had worked with Advanced RPO at a previous company joined a global manufacturer of specialty coated and laminated materials and found a recruiting operation that could not cover the company’s hiring demand. Rather than build the function internally, they partnered with Advanced RPO again to add scalability and expertise to the team already in place.
The company ran four U.S. production sites and operations in Europe with a limited internal recruiting team. That team carried two very different workloads at once: continuous production hiring in roles that turn over frequently, including machine operators, material handlers, and electromechanical technicians, and a steady stream of exempt openings across engineering, quality, finance, and commercial functions.
With the internal team stretched thin, the costs were showing up in the business:
- Roles took an average of 55 days to fill, leaving production lines short and pushing overtime onto the shifts covering the gap
- Screening burden landed on hiring managers, who at the plants are supervisors accountable for output
- Nearly one in three offers was declined, further delaying roles the business needed filled
Working alongside the client’s internal team, Advanced RPO’s initial scope covered exempt recruiting, along with some non-exempt hiring as needed.
Solution: A fully operational talent acquisition function
Advanced RPO built a fully operational talent acquisition function for the client, one that goes beyond recruiters working requisitions.
Account management and oversight.
Advanced RPO owns program performance, reporting, and the direction of the recruiting team, taking the management burden off the client.
A pay-for-performance model.
The engagement runs on a cost per hire, which ties recruiting cost directly to outcomes and ties the success of both organizations to the client’s business results. When hiring slowed, the client carried no fixed overhead.
A scalable delivery team. Requisition volume swung widely across the engagement, from heavy hiring across every site to stretches with almost nothing open, and the role mix moved between high-volume production hiring and specialized professional searches. Whatever the mix, the program carried the right number of people with the appropriate skill sets needed to do the job.
Thought leadership and continuous improvement.
Advanced RPO works as a consultative partner, bringing labor market insight, process recommendations, and new technology that keep the program moving forward rather than holding it steady. Candidate and hiring manager feedback is reviewed at every business review, and changes come out of it.
That structure is what made the next change manageable. The partnership began as a hybrid model, with Advanced RPO and the client’s internal team sharing delivery. When a leadership transition and organizational restructuring eliminated the internal recruiting function, Advanced RPO scaled up to cover the full workload without the need to re-implement and without a pause in hiring.
The client did not have to solve this internally. In the middle of a restructuring, there was no recruiting function to rebuild, no vendor search to run, and no learning curve to absorb. Advanced RPO already knew the roles, the sites, and the hiring managers, and had the capacity to take on everything else.
Results: Faster hiring, sharper slates, and uninterrupted coverage.
27% faster
Reduction in time to fill, helping the business meet production demands.
38% fewer
Candidates reviewed per hire (7.4 to 4.6) through improved sourcing and screening.
91%
Offer acceptance rate, up from 70% through better screening and candidate communication.
92% satisfaction
Candidate and hiring manager satisfaction, with recruiter responsiveness and communication scoring 100%.
“The Advanced RPO team is very flexible and a pleasure to work with. They align with your business strategy. Most importantly, they get the job done by filling roles with qualified employees.”
— CHRO, Global Manufacturer