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Ep 28 Chip Holmes on Hiring Efficiency: How Project-Based RPO Eases Recruitment Surges

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In this episode, RPO expert Chip Holmes joins Lamees Abourahma to share insights on the growing trend of Project-Based RPO. As organizations navigate economic uncertainty, this flexible recruiting approach functions as a critical "relief valve" for hiring challenges. Chip explains how Project-Based RPO helps companies maintain stability during seasonal demands, facility relocations, and post-merger integrations without disrupting internal teams.

The conversation explores how AI and automation enhance project efficiency through improved screening, selection processes, and predictive analytics. Chip emphasizes that effective implementation requires cultural alignment, thorough communication, and strategic forecasting. Looking ahead, Project-Based RPO evolves from purely transactional to a more strategic function, with greater emphasis on workforce planning and technological integration.

This episode provides essential guidance for organizations considering this increasingly popular talent acquisition approach.

About the Guest

Chip Holmes: Global RPO leader and special consultant with Randall Reilly

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Lamees Abourahma 0.008

Welcome to the Time to Hire podcast from the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association. I'm your host, Lamees Abourahma, and today I'm joined by Chip Holmes, global RPO leader and special consultant with Randall Reilly. In our conversation, Chip provides valuable insights into the growing trend of Project Base RPO also knowm as surge recruiting, and how it can help organizations navigate economic uncertainty. We'll explore the key drivers, effective use cases, and the role of technology in enhancing Project Based RPO.

Tune in as Chip shares his expertise on this strategic approach to talent acquisition.

All right, so welcome Chip. Thrilled to have you and we are gonna talk about project -based RPO.

Before we get started. Let me just set the stage and share some data that we found based on the recent research that the RPO Association does in collaboration with Lighthouse Research annually. So what we found is that when we ran the survey in 2024, the most adopted RPO model is full talent lifecycle at 36 % followed by full talent lifecycle for a specific skill or role, then a hybrid model followed by full talent lifecycle for a specific business unit. And then the last or the least adopted is the project based or on demand RPO. However, also, we're looking at how that is shifting, right? So, for example, in 2024, the full talent lifecycle adoption declined slightly, that I think that the What declines at 7 % is the full talent lifecycle for a specific skill or role.

The trend I think we want to focus on today is that increased adoption of project based RPO. We saw a 7 percent increase in employing Project RPO or surge recruiting between 2023 and 2024 right?

But, before we dive into what all these trends mean, and why is this happening, and so forth. Let's first start by clarifying what we mean by full talent life cycle. So do you want to explain what that mean for us? Please,

Chip Holmes 2:40

Sure, I think in full talent life cycle, that's been what RPO initially started defining themselves for, as they would basically a company would outsource all of their hiring function, right? So, and they would say, you just take it from soup to nuts from typically, they would create the requisition, and then it would be handed over to the RPO. The RPO would walk through that process, certainly differently than it was before. We add a lot of what we have from a technology perspective now, but in essence, reach out and somehow find candidates, walk them through the process, walk them through the interview. Often be engaged in the background process, and then normally hand them over. And from day one onboarding, it went over to the client. So that was full enterprise.

If I can talk just for a second about evolution, I think that what we've seen is that's moved more to a modular basis for a lot of companies, second, third, fourth generation buyers say we really like doing this ourselves, but we think you do this better than us. And they may even give something like interviewing, or they may just give the background check. They may bring an RPO in to run their technology, so they'll give a certain portion of it. That's still not project, but that's modular, where they're giving a portion of the RPO over.

Then, I think what we also have seen is project which is more based on, I hate to use the definition within it, but actually project is perfect. It's a special project. It's something outside of the norm. It's not your typical recruiting process, and it usually has a duration of time. So great example of it would be, and someone who's used it effectively for a long time are pharmaceutical companies, who, when they have a drug launch, will often use project RPO to hire the sales people for that launch, they find out last second, do a quick ramp up, so they'll bring people in, they'll hire the individuals, and then they'll step away. And it may be a consistent project. Every time they do a drug launch, they may use that same RPO, but they may be dormant for nine months in between. So function specific time, I'm at Randall Riley right now, and we do a lot of project work. So for example, we're in transportation. Some women say we hire all our drivers, but we don't like to do our diesel tech, so over a short period of time, we may come in and help them ramp up on diesel tech.

Lamees Abourahma 5:14

Excellent. And I love your definition, and thank you for providing context and clarifying. The other thing I'm going to add Chip is the full talent life cycle the enterprise, the way we define at RPOA. It's not by the size of the company. It's really outsourcing the entirety of the of recruiting across organization, across the organization, locations, job roles and so forth. Just to clarify that position.

Chip Holmes 5:41

And I'm sorry if I, honestly, I'm a certain some companies, including ours, have a flex model where we do, in essence, a mini RPO for 10 hours a month. So it has nothing to do with size. And I apologize if it sounded...

Lamees Abourahma 6:00

I don't think you misspoke, but I wanted to provide that additional clarification because there is that misconception as well.

All right, fantastic. So we started with some definitions. And what would you say the primary business drivers behind this increased demand for project-based RPO?

Chip Holmes 6:24

So, I think the primary driver is a certain level of uncertainty, right? I think if we've learned anything over the last few years, who could, certainly no one could have predicted COVID, and I think that who who really predicted the depth of the recovery from COVID? And then I know. And Lamees, you may remember that when we had the correction, I said, 'Oh, I think there's going to be a short-term effect.’ And you actually challenged me on that. And boy, I was overly optimistic, right? We had a long the effects of that, so I think the uncertainty has driven it, because what I would say is, with Project RPO, it gives you a relief valve, right? So in an uncertain economy, it protects you against two potential overreactions, right? You can look and a project may have you driving your business up. So if you're going to do that yourself, without outsourcing it, now you hire additional, additional recruitment personnel, and with all due respect, technology has done this like they'll have a project, and they'll go up, and they'll think, we're going to keep going up at that level forever, and then it corrects itself. Well, what do you do with that personnel? On the other side, you may have a project come in and think, I'm just going to handle it with my existing personnel, because I want to, I want to mitigate against the risk of over hiring recruitment personnel, and then you may find out that you're not able to service and you're leaving money on the table because you don't get the people you need. Project RPO becomes the relief valve because you bring in people who are good at that. They typically bring technology in. They understand surges, they understand how to ramp they understand how to integrate themselves into the culture of the company. And you can bring them in, they can walk you through that project, and then when it's done, you disengage with the opportunity to come back to that later. You haven't disrupted your team. You haven't put too much on their plate. And I think in this uncertain economy, that's really beneficial, because now you've got a relief valve when you need to kind of assist what you're currently doing.

Lamees Abourahma 8:46

So this sounds great, and I love this, just abstract, if you will, explanation on how I provide that release. Let's bring it down to the ground. And I would love to hear some common use cases where project RPO has been particularly effective.

Chip Holmes 9:05

Yeah. And I can give you several my challenges, obviously, I think from a respect perspective, I'll give you some definition of what they are. I can't give exact company names,

Lamees Abourahma 9:20

Absolutely yes, yeah. I'm not expecting... Yeah.

Chip Holmes 9:20

So I would say one example that really resonates, and this is a good one. So if a company, for example, is starting a new location, right, need to hire personnel, and I can think of a very large engineering company. It moved from the northwest to the southwest. And nobody, nobody who lives up in that Northwest Area moves. They love it there, right? They so. So they did not have a lot of relocation, even those offered that. And what they did was, rather than change their recruiting structure and their leadership structure, they brought in an RPO specifically to address those needs, and they were effective in ramping that up.

If it's okay, I can give you some other 'cause actually this is, I love Project RPO, really working on helping start it here. But another example is during COVID. Some manufacturing companies used analytics and determined that a large portion of their their employees were not going to receive the COVID vaccine and some of those companies had a mandate that everyone who worked for them had to receive the COVID vaccine. I know of cases where individual companies were brought in specifically to hire for that, to hire individuals to ramp that up. So again, it's all about a lack of disruption to your own team, so there would be a lack of disruption to the team.

I know a large healthcare company in the Northeast that purchased a hospital chain and needed to hire 180 nurses and did not have the recruitment personnel to hire 18 nurses, let alone 180 nurses. They brought in an RPO to do that. So, these are the type of situations where it's effective.

It's effective for retail. They utilize project RPO a lot, right? It's seasonal hiring. You know you're going to ramp up, for example, in the holiday season, in December, in November in that area. You're going to have a three or four month scale. Do you really want to carry a team for 12 months where you need to hire for four? They do project hiring. Early careers in campus has always done that, right? Because they have to have certain times of the year where it's their season. So I don't want to go on and on and give a, but I think anybody who does projects, anybody who has seasonal hiring, anybody who is looking, it goes to a merger and acquisition, they are a great candidate to utilize Project RPO. - Can I add another one?

Lamees Abourahma 12:17

You are probably also aware of this. It's for first-generation RPO users as well, right? Some of them use it more as a pilot. Or do you consider that Project RPO? Or do you not see it that way?

Chip Holmes 12:38

You can as long as you're doing it as a project. And I would say, for anyone who hears this and who's considering project RPO, Be realistic when doing that. Companies sometimes say, "We've got three locations we can never hire for. And we're looking for a role with five of them in the United States. So we're going to bring in an RPO provider, and if they can be effective in these three locations where we haven't been effective in 12 years, then we'll use them. That's not fair because RPO is great there. I love it. I've been in it for 20 years, but it can't do magic, right? So it's, it's, you should give. Don't hear me wrong; I'm not trying to back out, give a tough location, give a standard location, or provide an easy location. So, yes, you can use project RPO as a test case, be clear on the parameters. So, from a technology perspective, most of us in RPO really like to bring our technology to the table because we feel it can help our process and make sure it's something where that full technology can be integrated. Because if you hire someone, saying, hire us people, and you take them outside of their process, you're not going to get a clear view of what they do as an RPO.

Lamees Abourahma 14:03

No, I love that. That was fantastic. Thank you. And you just took us into a topic that I know you love. I love AI and automation. So can we talk about AI and or automation and how that enhances the effectiveness of project based RPO?

Chip Holmes 14:22

So massively. And I mean, honestly, you and I both know it. It enhances everything. But let's take it to project RPO. Everything is about speed to process right if you're doing project RPO, other than if you're doing it as a try it before you buy it, you're usually doing it because you need to get people in there quickly. Hence, you now can bring in AI and automation and to help with...

Help with the screening, certainly understanding that there are diversity concerns and making sure that you're aligned. To help with, to assist with the selection process. As you need to speak to individuals and can converse with them. You can't have recruiters talking to people at two o'clock in the morning, but a chatbot can handle that. And how far we have come in that is amazing over the last three years. It used to be embarrassing when someone spoke to a chatbot, but sometimes you don't even know the difference, right? Unless it's identified. So, how much does that help? Another thing with Project RPO is analytics. So you can work through the process. You need to make decisions so quickly. So, you can decide, for example, going back to the COVID situation not long after the determination was made, this is how many people are probably not going to get the vaccine. There was a shift in that, because people did get the vaccine to go to work. And therefore, those recruitment resources were shifted because it was analyzed. So, I think the utilization of technology and AI helps with predictive analytics, helps to make quick decisions, and speeds up the process. I'm not going to say that. I don't think that AI and automation are essential across all RPOs because I think today, they are table stakes. If an RPO can't bring that to the table, they can effectively service you. Companies need to invest in that more. But it becomes even more essential with the speed of RPO, and usually the duration and the time. I would say.

Lamees Abourahma 16:40

Yeah. And I would add Chip as well. That's what we saw also from the research is RPO buyers are expecting that innovation, expecting the technology from their RPO partners. Let's talk about risk management and some economic considerations. In what ways does project RPO help mitigate hiring risks during economic uncertainty?

Chip Holmes 17:12

Yeah, and I don't want to repeat what I'd said earlier, but a lot of it has to do with that relief valve that I talked about earlier. It's the same thing. So when we're not sure of what's going to happen, I mean, we don't know what to do. Do I hire more people? Do I delay this project? I think there are probably projects I know that have been delayed because of fear. So we'll ramp this up for three months and then have to ramp down in three months.

So the mitigation of risk comes from not impacting your overall team. Now, what I will say is another way that you're mitigating risk. Goes back to that thing we talked about with technology because if you bring in the right provider, they're going to help you with predictive analytics and data analytics, right? So, for example, you have probably done this before. It's amazing in workforce planning because I'm going to be nice and say very few companies get workforce planning right. I'm looking for the first one, and most companies will admit that, right? It's difficult, but now we can make that better. So, if I am coming in as an RPO, I can help you with the overall analytics. If we can look back and when we talk about predictive if we can look back and see when we have done this before and what did it look like in the past, as well as feed-in where we are, what we know from a current perspective, and analyze what we're looking at in the future, we can mitigate risk because we have more information to go on. It will never be perfect, because, again, we can't predict things right now, and this is not a political statement. What's going to happen with tariffs? You talk to five people, and you'll get two and a half answers on both sides of the issue, right? So we have some things that will be uncertain, but we can look back to what's happened in the past, bring it into the future, and mitigate against risk because we can say, hey, history tends to repeat itself. Maybe we'll see the same thing happen this time that happened in the past.

Lamees Abourahma 19:37

I love it, and I'm looking for data because I remember the figure being 65% of companies reporting challenges of predicting their hiring just like us. It's a moving target, and most organizations struggle to figure that out.

Chip Holmes 20:08

One thing about that, let me say, is that I think the problem is they're looking for perfection. You're never going to find perfection. I believe we can get some ideas that will help point us in the right direction.

Lamees Abourahma 20:15

but I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Chip Holmes 20:19

No, no, it's a moving target.

Lamees Aboutahma

Yes, I agree, so the better question, and I want to know, how do you measure ROI for project-based RPO, and how does that compare to full-scale RPO?

Chip Holmes

So if you were looking to measure, measure effectiveness of full scale, RPO, obviously, some of the, some of the common things you're looking at are, you're going to you're going to have SLAs and KPIs, and you're going to look at what the time to hire is quality of hire. I pick the pick the SLAs that matter to you. I would say again to any companies that are looking, don't pick the ones that everybody else picks. Pick the ones that matter to you and are going to drive your business. But you're going to look at SLAs and KPIs. You'll do that with Project hiring as well. I think anyone who's smart is going to kind of look at the overall cost of the service and and compare that to what's being delivered. Because I think the misnomer on RPO is it's always going to be a big expense, when in reality, it actually can save you money many times, because you're hiring in a one string guitar who has leverage across, to utilize channels and things of that nature at a less expensive cost, so you may save money. I think, with Project RPO, what really needs to be determined is the cost of not doing it, and what I mean by that is if I leave my current staff alone and try to effectively manage this project, it's going to have an impact on them, because we're putting more on top of what they're doing. What is the cost of vacancy for for them having to slow down their process, or if I choose to expand my staff. What is the cost of that? What is the cost of hiring new people in order to stay within my process, therefore anticipating that I'll have the same or maybe even less effectiveness because I'm bringing new people on to do it, and then I'd also have to factor in at the end of the project, unless I'm going to continue. What is the cost now of having to impact my team and move people on and anything I have to do to pay off that? So I think that cost of the service is probably what you're looking at when it comes to RPO, effectiveness, what you're doing, how you're doing, how I would really if I'm doing a project and I'm in those those shoes, I'm going to look at the cost of not doing it, which I think can be in some cases, pretty significant.

Lamees Abourahma 24:53

I heard from a former RPOA member, Erin Peterson. She used to describe RPO: it's not your mess. For less, you describe it nicely, as well as more. It should be a more strategic decision to work on an RPO engagement. Let's move into the future trends and adoption of project-based RPO where? Where do you see that evolving in the next three to four? I think...

Chip Holmes 25:25

It's going to evolve significantly. I'm not surprised at all. I you do an amazing job, by the way, with with numbers and getting us trends. And I know a lot of us so appreciate that and and so often. And that's what's great about trends, is it's not a surprise, right? The growth is not a surprise. What I see is continued growth, and I see it becoming more and more strategic. I see the idea being around, looking at at at analysis. How can companies come in and help us to get our workforce planning better around that? I see an integration of technology, maybe utilizing projects from an RPO perspective as a short term engagement, but maybe, looking at a lot of those RPO providers, can provide some technology on the back end, as providing the technology then for your for you to service that yourself, right? So I think it's just going to become more strategic. Whereas when project started out was just like, oh my gosh, we need to hire 50 people who can do that. You do it right now, it's going to be, what technology are you bringing? What's your analysis? How can you help us to make decisions through this, and how can you continue to help us out of it? So I think it's going to move from where project RPO is probably the most transactional to where it's going to join enterprise and modular as a very strategic part of the hiring function.

Lamees Abourahma 26:59

Very informative. Do we have time for two more questions?

Chio Holmes

Yeah, go for it.

Lamees Abourahma

Okay, so what would you say the challenges that organizations face when implementing RPO project based RPO specifically based on what you've experienced?

Chip Holmes 27:30

Yeah, and I can definitely, give you some examples of that, and I'm also going to take it to because I think every challenge is an opportunity, right? So I would say one of the challenges is culture. You're you're talking often of taking individuals who are not a part of your company, and bringing them in, and will they be able to represent the culture? I think two things that you can do to mitigate against that is a lot of intelligent buyers are looking for an RPO that matches their culture, and you can often do that. I think a second thing is training that there's it has always been when I've been involved in implementing new engagements I have always asked the partner to do regarding their company, and do extensive training regarding their company. So I think that can be handled. Another challenge is always communication, the fall down of any RPO engagement, and particularly project RPO, is a lack of communication, a lack of change management. If people don't know what's going on and how to handle what's going on, they are going to run into massive problems, and everyone's going to be confused. So I think that the communication is one of those things that needs to be overcome. There's some things that are going to be a challenge. Forecasting for a project, forecasting for a surge, is an issue, but I think that the RPO needs to work alongside their partner in order to make sure that there's an understanding of what's going on and again, predictions so there aren't surprises with there's if maybe you're going to need more recruitment personnel to get to where you you are going now, as opposed to you thought you were going, there needs to be consistent communication on that. So from a financial perspective, I have seen this where, unfortunately, that's not happened in some cases, and then there's been challenges for the company because they've gone over budget. So I think it's really it all comes down to communication through that entire process, communication of what your culture is, communication of what the change management is, and communication of where the project is going.

Lamees Abourahma 29:22

And just to clarify, and I'll close with this. The training you mentioned is this Is that related to the change management?

Chip Holmes 29:28

So I think an effective RPO is going to do some training when they when they move in, and in a project, you should do it as well. They're going to train their team, training their team, training the team of individuals coming in. So I'm sorry that's great. Great. Point is, if a recruiter is coming in, they're a good recruiter. An RPO is not going to bring a bad recruiter to the table, right? But with the two things, they understand the process and they don't understand the culture, typically, an RPO will spend a lot of time in the process. My suggestion is, and it's equally or more important with Project, is they spend as much time in the culture as the process, because they have to represent that company the way they want to be represented.

Lamees Abourahma

Yeah, makes sense. And again, I want to be respectful of your time, but that has been very informative. - Thank you so much, that's been wonderful. Terrific topic, I would love to speak with you on all other topics, so maybe future interviews, but thank you so much,

Chip Holmes

I appreciate it. - I was happy, you will notfind a bigger surprise. I talk about you all the time. I recommend you all the time. I think RPOA is such a benefit for all of us.

Lamees Abourahma

Thank you so much, I appreciate it more than you know. Thank you. Thank you, Chip. Have a great rest of your day.

Chip Holmes

You too. Bye.

Lamees Abourahma

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Time to Hire podcast from the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association. Give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and always stay connected, stay engaged, and stay informed of what's happening in the talent and recruiting world by tuning into the RPOA, the place to go for RPO.