What Is Recruitment Process Outsourcing?

Your company is on the precipice of change, always poised for the next breakthrough. Your next hire should match your mission and goals. They should bring something unique to the table.

Finding the right talent fit in any industry is tough work, but for the biotech, pharmaceutical, and life sciences industries, it can be next-level difficult. While your HR is busy tending to existing employee needs, it can make sense to leave high-stakes recruiting to experts. You don’t hire new talent every day, which explains why recruitment process outsourcing may be the most effective and efficient way to locate your next new addition.

In this article, we’ll discuss recruitment process outsourcing for the biotech, pharmaceutical, and life sciences industries. We’ll define the benefits of outsourcing your hiring, what you can expect when working with a recruitment process outsourcing partner, and where to turn when you’re ready to get started.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing: What Does It Mean for Employers?

Recruitment process outsourcing is where an employer looking to make their next impactful hire trusts an external partner to handle all or part of its recruitment processes. Often, just how much of the recruitment process the external partner handles is up to the needs and preferences of the employer, and the details of the recruiting relationship can be fully customizable.

For example, while some employers prefer insight even at the interview review stage, others will leave the pre-vetting up to the recruiting partner, saving them time and energy as they focus on the tasks involved with running their core business. Most employers prefer to make final decisions about hiring; these decisions should always be respected and supported by even the most hands-on recruitment process partner.

Depending on the employer’s size, corporate makeup, needs, and preferences, the recruitment process partner may act as an extension of the company’s human resources department, side by side with the C-suite, or somewhere in between.

Recruitment process partners are different from traditional staffing agencies. They take the time to fully understand the culture, goals, and needs of the employer in order to find the right holistic fit. And unlike headhunters, they are able to help with the entirety of the new employee’s introduction to the company. In other words, while a head hunter may simply locate a candidate and potentially introduce the candidate to the opportunity, a recruitment process partner can help an employer:

Design or revamp their talent sourcing strategy from the inside out, offering an expert’s eye to which processes might work best for their unique goals.

Partner with the employer to help define their culture, hiring goals, and long-term staffing vision, with an eye for how hiring choices align with broader business objectives.

Identify key requirements from new talent to advance the organization’s mission.

Leverage their extensive networks within the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and life sciences industries in order to access and reach candidates who aren’t actively looking for new roles but may be open to migrating to a new employer for the perfect opportunity.

Conduct pre-vetting, skills assessments, and candidate screening in order to make sure every candidate introduced to the key members of your team has the prerequisites needed to succeed in the role and that no one’s time is wasted getting to know a candidate who isn’t serious or may not have what it takes. Besides ensuring candidates have the skills they need to meet the role’s duties, recruitment process partners can conduct behavioral interviews, culture fit assessments, and more.

Interview candidates for you up to and until the time when you’re ready to get involved yourself. If your team chooses to sit out on early round interviews (which is a common employer practice), your recruitment process partner can pass you comprehensive notes on each candidate’s strong points and create easily digestible candidate profiles to help you identify candidates of particular interest. Your recruitment process partner can also take care of scheduling, updating candidates on your timeline, time coordination with your team, and more.

Handle pre-employment checks and background education, including educational history verification, work history verification, drug screening, and more.

Assist with offer stage discussions and compensation negotiation, allowing you to take a backseat to the heavy conversations that can sometimes become heated without an expert negotiator at one end of the table.

Help get new talent “over the finish line” with assistance with offer letter drafting, new employee contract execution, onboarding, and more.

The Benefits of Working with a Recruitment Process Outsourcing Partner:

When you work with a recruitment process outsourcing partner, you avail yourself of the benefits of having a full team of dedicated recruitment experts there when you need them—and not on your payroll when you don’t. Plus, a recruitment process outsourcing partner can bring these unique benefits to the table:

Help with employer branding in a competitive talent market
Access to hard-to-find talent in niche areas of the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and life sciences industries
The ability to flexibly scale your business quickly without the need to hire experienced and permanent recruiting team members
Significant cost savings garnered from a reduced time to hire, fewer administrative costs, and better talent fits
Access to top of the line technology used by cutting-edge recruiting firms to locate, track, and manage the talent search end-to-end

Cornerstone Search Group: Your Dedicated Recruitment Process Outsourcing Partner

The life sciences talent landscape is competitive, and the search for an executive only turns up the heat. When you partner with Cornerstone Search Group, you gain an edge over your competitors. Cornerstone can help you tap into a deep network of specialized and hard-to-find talent. We can introduce you to individuals who may not be on the “open market” looking for a job but who trust our recruiters when high-profile leadership roles become available.

Our experts are excited to get to work finding the talent that will take your biotech firm into the future. Start a conversation with us today to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is recruitment process outsourcing?

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is when a company transfers all or part of its recruitment functions to an external provider who manages the entire hiring process from sourcing to onboarding.

What are the benefits of recruitment process outsourcing?

Benefits include reduced hiring costs, faster time-to-fill, access to specialized recruitment expertise, scalability during growth periods, improved candidate quality, and allowing internal teams to focus on strategic priorities.

How much does recruitment process outsourcing cost?

RPO costs vary based on hiring volume and services but typically range from $3,000-$8,000 per hire or a percentage of salaries, often proving more cost-effective than maintaining large internal recruitment teams.

What's the difference between RPO and traditional staffing agencies?

RPO providers fully integrate with your company, manage the entire recruitment process, use your employer brand, and focus on long-term strategy, while staffing agencies typically fill individual positions transactionally.

What types of companies benefit most from recruitment process outsourcing?

Companies experiencing rapid growth, those with seasonal hiring needs, organizations lacking internal recruitment expertise, and businesses seeking to reduce hiring costs benefit most from RPO solutions.

How do you choose the right RPO provider?

Choose an RPO provider based on industry expertise, technology capabilities, cultural alignment, scalability, transparent pricing, proven track record, and their ability to understand your specific talent needs.