The ROI of Outsourcing Talent Acquisition: A Client’s Perspective

When recruiting becomes a shared priority, the impact goes far beyond the hire. Learn how outsourcing talent acquisition (TA) helped one organization improve agility, enhance the candidate experience, and unlock business value.

Summary

In this episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, Jenna Hinrichsen sits down with Megan Taylor, Talent Director at Millrock Packaging, to explore the real impact of outsourcing talent acquisition. Megan shares how partnering with Advanced RPO helped her team move beyond “side-of-desk” recruiting to a more strategic, streamlined, and scalable hiring approach. From improving internal efficiencies and reducing time-to-fill to gaining consultative support and market insights, this conversation highlights the tangible ROI that comes with the right recruitment partner. Whether you’re considering outsourcing for the first time or looking to optimize your current TA strategy, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Episode 11

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Welcome to the Advanced RPO Podcast, Advancing Talent Acquisition. Our guest today is Megan Taylor, Talent Director at Millrock Packaging. Welcome, Megan. 

Megan Taylor 
Thank you, I’m glad to be here. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Will you tell us a little bit about your background before we get started? 

Megan Taylor  
Absolutely. Previously, I’ve kind of come from a variety of industries here, started my career with the wonderful Walt Disney Company, and got a chance to kind of get exposed to recruiting as a park operations manager.
Then, I progressed into my first recruiting role with Amazon, got my start in student programs, getting a chance to recruit the future of Amazon on the tech side. Since that point in time, I worked for a couple of tech companies and kind of got my feet wet in manufacturing for a company called Ingevity here in Charleston, South Carolina, where I reside, which is really where I got a chance to get exposed to other areas of talent and got to build early career talent programs and recruiting programs for my first manufacturing company. And that’s actually how I learned about Millrock and came over to Millrock as Talent Director.
So in this role, I get a chance to kind of do a little bit of everything under the sun with regards to talent. So I like to say that I get to be a part of bringing great talent into the organization and keeping that great talent here through different programs, like performance learning and development, some engagement, communications, things like that as well. Of course, in partnership with all of our HR leaders across our different sites here at Millrock, but mostly a career in talent acquisition, so in the talent and performance space as of recently, but I’m excited to be in this role and excited to talk to you today. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, that’s great. And looks like you’ve been able to bring all of your experience together in the role you’re in. So that’s awesome. Our topic today is outsourcing talent acquisition. And so, I just wanted to start with the very first basic question, just to get our listeners kind of on the ground level. What does it mean to outsource recruiting or talent acquisition within an organization? 

Megan Taylor 
Really it means bringing in an external resource handle your end-to-end recruiting processes. So for me, that has been bringing in dedicated resources with that focus specialty, right? So many organizations, particularly smaller organizations, lean organizations, recruiting tends to be kind of a side of desk responsibility. You may not have an in-house team who’s dedicated to do that. And so when you outsource it means bringing in a team that really takes care of everything – end to end – from sourcing the talent, bringing that talent in, extending the offer through the initial stages of onboarding, and then passing that on to the HR team to own from there. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
I’m curious when you first outsourced talent acquisition or recruiting, did you have a full understanding of it or was there something that once you did that, you learned, “Okay, wow, I didn’t realize this was part of it” or was it a surprise or was it exactly what you thought it would be? 

Megan Taylor  
There’s surprises and everything, you know, once you do something for the first time, right? But I was pretty well aware, you know, actually for a previous organization, we had single RPO recruiter that was on our team. And so that was the first time I’d really been exposed to, really they take care of everything. Because most of the times that I had worked with external partners had been mostly on the contingent side. So when someone is only working on the sourcing for a role and then hands those resumes off to you and then you still own the process, right? It was a surprise in some ways, I was pretty familiar that was going to look like, at least at a high level. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Okay, all right, great. How does outsourcing talent acquisition and recruiting impact internal efficiencies for a company? So what have you seen from outsourcing that? How has that changed efficiencies within the organization? 

Megan Taylor  
Yeah, well, I mean, really you leverage economies of scale, right? So when you bring in a partner like Advanced and you have that specialty, right? Like up until us outsourcing TA functions, recruiting, like I mentioned, was a side-of-desk responsibility for our HR team. So they didn’t have the luxury of focusing on and specializing in those recruiting activities, which really are very, very important, both on the business side, but also on the candidate side, right? To make sure that you’re bringing in the great talent and, you know, getting through the finish line with that great talent, right? So, you really bring that true function into the mix.
In terms of kind of those internal efficiencies, we explored a variety of tools, as well, cause we were, you know, we’re a smaller employer and, again, side-of-desk responsibility. We don’t have that same focus across all of these areas. And when you look at tools and different marketing techniques and things like you’ve got Indeed, you’ve got LinkedIn Recruiter, you’ve got Job Target, you’ve got all of these different services that carry a cost, right? And as a smaller volume employer, it’s hard to make the case for what you’re going to use based on the volume that you have. 
So, one of the best internal efficiencies we’ve seen is bringing in an incredible amount of tools to bring candidates in faster. An outsourced company like Advanced has access to a plethora of resources that we could only dream of having and gets our posts out there and gets candidates in. So we’ve seen certainly that some roles have really been filled a result of that, you have all of those resources right at fingertips there.
The other thing I would say is agility, right? Again, like with recruiting being a side of desk responsibility, you know, in our HR teams, I mean, in HR you deal with people, right? And people are unpredictable. And so you have a lot of different, things that pop up on the day to day that really take somebody away from recruiting often, right? And so because of that, recruiting can often take longer, So we’ve seen that reduction in the time to fill because of that, but also agility, like being able to say, now we have this position we need to fill and have enough time for that, right? And so it’s having to, you know, kind of put that off or delay recruiting for it because you didn’t have enough time. So now that we have this partner we can turn to and say, “Hey, we need help with this role.” You can turn that rec on more quickly and start to immediately begin recruiting versus delay it or, you know, unfortunately, in many cases, it was added on to the ever growing list of things that you’re already working on and probably take away from another area that’s important for your people, right? 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Everything gets a little bit of focus. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that you bring up a really good point with the tools that you have access to working through an external partner like Advanced RPO. We have access to so many tools. We have the expertise in them too, right? We’ve had clients before say, well, we could use that tool, this technology, that technology, when you’re looking at what’s out there. But there is a level of expertise that comes with those and really optimizing the tools. And then also managing those partnerships. So you talk about all the different tools that you need in recruiting. Those are all usually different external organizations. And so they’re partnerships that have to be built and managed day to day with those. And that’s a huge lift for a company – someone internally to manage all those partnerships, make sure you’re getting what you need out of the tools, making sure that you have the right support behind the scenes, and that all comes off your plate when you’re working with an external partner like an RPO. So that’s really good, helpful information to share the efficiencies, how things change.
What are the top three things you would say that a company needs to be prepared for, pros and cons for when outsourcing TA. So we talked about in the beginning, surprises come up. What should companies be prepared for? Like three key things that they need to be ready for. 

Megan Taylor  
The thing that comes to mind is process optimization. And to a certain extent, I would guess this would fill both a pro and a con for some. Our business had not had a lot of robust recruiting processes in place, right? And certainly nothing that we would have, you know, a lot of tried and true, you just kind of knew, like, someone’s recruited for this team a lot, they just kind of know, right? When you bring in an external partner, you recognize, hey, that exposes your processes, what works well, what doesn’t, you know, and what probably can be fine tuned, right? So I would say anybody that’s gonna be, exploring outsourcing, they need to be prepared for process optimization. So to create processes where they don’t exist, fine tune processes that may not make the most sense when you bring in these external partners.
And then, document, document, document. I mean, that was something like we had a a very, very thorough, I mean, one of the things about when we brought Advanced on that really I was excited for, but it was, you know, again, on the con side, was daunting at times is, you know, when you look ahead and you’re like, wow, we have a lot that we haven’t documented, right? And so you need to do that. And so it was the push to get it done. And so during our onboarding, we spent a lot of time with the team, really in a consultant type approach where they were like, if you don’t have a process for this, great, we’ll work with you on it. So you need to be prepared going in that you’re gonna change process, create process, and probably have some of those sticky moments of, we hadn’t considered that, right? And when you bring other people into the fold, that’s when it kind of exposes those things. 
The other thing I would say is stakeholder awareness. You need to be prepared to really bring your stakeholders into it. And by that, predominantly I mean the business, the hiring managers, the teams that are going to be working very closely partner. Because again, they’re used to having somebody on site. They can probably go walk into their office or whatever, and that changes. So setting the right expectations with the stakeholders on what’s going to change, how that relationship is going to look different. But then also, what’s going to change on their side when it comes process optimization, when processes change, and you bring in a partner that’s focused on this, you’re going have more robust recruiting process in general that you’re going to need to bring them into the folds of that they’re, in many cases, not used building process where it doesn’t exist. Hiring managers are a part of that. They’re there for that journey. And they’re not recruiting every day. It’s not their full-time job. Making sure that they’re aware of what that means, who they can go to for support and the level of support that they’re going to be getting. That was a learning experience for us. You know, our managers, we kind of said, “Hey, we did a great onboarding with them,” certainly like, brought them into the folds, let them know, who Advanced was and what that was going to look like. But I don’t think they were as prepared for, this is what a true recruiting partner looks like and somebody that’s really focused in on recruiting and these areas looks like, they’re no longer the predominant person in the driver’s seat calling all the shots. They’ve got a partner, they’ve got a co-pilot in that. And so adjusting to that can be, change for them. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
And you guys have done such a great job at that. And I love that you bring this up as one of the three key things because a lot of organizations to make those changes in that process optimization that you talk about. It’s more, we have our process and everything in place. We just want someone externally to come in and do it. And my thing is when I go in and work with an organization very unwilling to make changes, I say, “You’re gonna get the same results, right? You’re just having someone else come in and do something that you were doing before.” That’s not gonna change the outcome. So if you wanna change the outcome, you brought in a partner to have different results, we have to make changes to the process. So that doesn’t mean that we throw everything that you have up in the air and say, we’re gonna do it our way. But you have to be willing to come to the table and say, these are the areas that we can make changes. And while it seems a little overwhelming for us, we know that in the long run, it’s gonna be better – the organization, better for candidates, better for hires, better for the partnership, so on and so forth. So I love that you bring that up because it is such a key piece when companies are considering outsourcing recruitment. If you’re not willing make changes and be open to changes within your process, it’s probably not going to be a very strong partnership. 

Megan Taylor  
Absolutely. No, I agree completely. I agree completely. And it’s funny, that really kind of reminds me of the third thing that, I would say that you need to be prepared for is, that, you know, hey, like when you bring in an external partner, it’s a lot of it is turnkey, right? Like, hey, you go through the onboarding process, and they’re brought into the folds of that and they understand, hey, like these are the processes, right. And they’re very well versed in recruiting. So it’s not like you’re bringing someone in that’s completely new to recruiting. But the thing that you have to recognize is the part that’s not going to be turnkey is when you’re bringing in an external recruiter, they’re still going to need to learn the industry, the business, the company, right. And the inner workings and dynamics. So being prepared with resources for them, like we created some resources at the beginning, like kind of some sourcing documents and whatnot. Because we’re in packaging, it’s like, hey, who are our competitors? A lot of folks think it’s, everybody does the same thing. Well, packaging is actually very complex, and we’re in a very niche area of that. So what does that mean? What are some of those key words and things that you can be looking for to help bring them along? Because that part isn’t going to be turnkey. They’re still going to need to learn that. And so I think having the patience for that, great thing is that, at least in our case, we had recruiters that are very well experienced and were brought on very quickly. But being prepared for that and prepared to them like you would a new hire in many cases because to your point about you’re going to get better results, the more that you put into that, the more they’re going to be an extension of your team, the more they’re going to be able to speak to your business and the culture and the people and, you know, hey, what a candidate is going to be doing every day in that role. So the better experience your candidate and ultimate new hires are going to have because of it. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Right, and ultimately you want the candidate to have a great experience and you want them to be representing the organization. So if you come in and give them, you know, here’s five lines of information about the job, now go fill it. They’re not going to be very well prepared to talk about how great the organization is. So exactly what you said, you get out of it what you put in. So putting that time in upfront builds the foundation for that partnership and for your recruiters to be able to really knock it out of the park and bring in the talent that you’re looking for. those are three really, really solid takeaways. So I hope our audience is taking notes when this comes out, if they’re considering outsourcing.
Outside of candidates and hires and process, how else can companies benefit from outsourcing, talent acquisition, or recruiting to an external partner of some sort? 

Megan Taylor  
Really, for me, what bubbles up to the top is that subject, better expertise. And in every way, not only what they bring to the process itself and obviously the sourcing of candidates and being able to have that piece of things, but particularly in the case of our relationship with Advanced, we’ve gained a consultant. So from fine tuning those processes, but also looking how we can better benefit the business or the candidate experience. 
Key market data, right? Like I think that’s been a really big thing for us because ultimately you can look at all the surveys that you want, And everybody’s got kind of a different focus, you bring in an external partner, particularly an external partner like Advanced, truly, I think that’s my experience is that, you you also tap into the resources that you have available when it comes to being able to provide us with information. We make decisions based on data and metrics and, you know, hey, if we’re having trouble with a role, is that salary related? Is it benefits related? What’s unique about the market that we’re operating in that you might have intel on that would be very difficult for us to get, right? And so bringing that consultative approach to things has been, one of the biggest benefits truly that we’ve seen, right?
And to be able to better inform our decision-making as a business, again, like having a consultant in the process, you don’t realize the value until you’re in the middle of it and you’re like, wow, thank you so much. I know our program manager, Amanda, often is someone who I’ll just go, hey, have you seen this before? We’re able to toss ideas out there and be true partners – I mean, really be partners in the process. 

Jenna Hinrichsen   
And she has our whole team behind the scenes to leverage too in cases like that. I think that’s great. And it’s hard for companies sometimes to make those changes. You talk about, you can look at reports, you can look at the data. And that’s one of the things that I see a lot of times is companies looking at that information or kind of checking the box that they looked at it. But if you don’t actually make the move in some of those areas, you’re not going to see different results. But a lot of times there comes pushback, you know, “We don’t want to make those changes. We don’t want to do these things.” And for us, it’s like, we want the best for you guys. If this partnership is not successful for you, it’s not successful for us. So we’re only going to recommend things that we are very confident are gonna bring the outcomes that you’re looking for. So I think you guys have done a great job really embracing that partnership and looking at us as a partner and not as a, you know, sometimes when you bring external people into the mix, it can be viewed as not competition, but like, “Are our jobs at stake” or something? That can create sort of a barrier between the partnership. And I think you guys have done an excellent job really embracing that, which makes the partnership that much stronger. 
Okay, well, this was great. I have one last question for you. I like to end every podcast with the same question because every guest has such a different answer. And I think these are really standout takeaways for our audience. the last question is, what is your top career tip? Just, doesn’t have to be about this topic. It can be about anything. But if there was one piece of advice or recommendation you would share with people about careers, what would it be? 

Megan Taylor  
I think I’ll probably take a page out of my time with Amazon. Every organization has core values or leadership principles, things like that. And of course, Amazon had leadership principles. And one of the things that always resonates for me and that I’ve kind of used as a guide, a north star in my career since I was first exposed to their leadership principles is one in particular called Learn and Be Curious – and the key there is that we should never be done learning. We should always seek to improve ourselves. And I think like, if you carry that as a torch with you in your career, that spirit of continuous improvement is something everyone really should have with them. And both through their personal development, right? Like, what can I do better? Like, how can I critically look at the way that I handled the situation or, you know, “Hey, like I didn’t get the results from this that I was looking for… what did I do different,” right? Or “What could I do different?” And seeking people and things to say, “How can I improve myself?” But also using that as a tool to betterment of your business, right? Because I think when we look at ourselves, and it goes back to what we’ve kind of talked about throughout this, is the process, right? I think oftentimes we as people, as businesses, as organizations, we look at, well, we’ve just always done it this way, right? And it’s working, so why would we change it? But when you really think about things as, you come from that place of curiosity and you wanna learn and you wanna question and when you do that, you’re going to be better. You kind of protect yourself from being obsolete because the world is moving so quickly and we learned that at Amazon. Things are changing so rapidly fast at organizations like that, but across the world. If you don’t sit back and learn and be curious and ask why and look for ways to be grow and develop, you will fall behind, right? You’ll fall behind your peers, your business will fall behind, your department will fall behind. So yeah, mean, from my perspective, just learn and be curious, always be questioning, and always be looking for a way to grow and be better. that that’s probably the best piece of advice I could give anybody at any point in their career, just never stop learning. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
I think that’s so great. Opening yourself up, I think, to vulnerability and building a culture around that. Because in the past, it’s not necessarily embraced to be vulnerable or an organization doesn’t embrace it. Bring all your challenges to the table. It’s more about being, know, what are your strengths? And then we work behind closed doors on your weaknesses or whatever it is. But having a culture where you can be vulnerable can open so many doors for people. And like you said, personally, professionally, you grow so much. it’s a life is about evolution. If we’re not changing, we’re not going to grow. And so you have to look at the same way in business. If we’re just going to keep doing the same thing, we might stay afloat, but we’re not going to grow. That’s a that is a great tip and definitely one that hopefully people take away. 
This has been great. Thank you, Megan, for joining us today and for sharing your insights. for our listeners, please subscribe to the podcast. And if there’s a specific topic that you’d like us to cover that we haven’t covered yet, please mention it in the comments and we’ll pick that up as a topic in the future. And that’s it for today. So thank you again and you next time, everybody. 

Megan Taylor  
Thank you. 

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