Orion Talent CEO Greg Summers on the Future of RPO Partnerships

Nearly seven in 10 employers report a positive ROI from their recruitment process outsourcing partnership, and 61% say their hiring metrics have improved overall, according to the 2026 RPO Buyer Trends Study from RPOA and Lighthouse Research and Advisory. Yet as AI reshapes recruiting workflows, talent leaders are asking RPO partners for more than speed and cost efficiency. They want strategic guidance on workforce planning and transferable skills, and clarity on where technology fits without displacing the human judgment hiring decisions still require.

What should talent leaders expect from an RPO partnership as it matures from transactional to transformational? On this episode of Time to Hire, host Lamees Abourahma talks with Greg Summers, CEO of Orion Talent, about redefining ROI beyond time to fill, solving business challenges beyond open requisitions, and why AI augments recruiters rather than replacing them in the life-changing career decisions talent acquisition leaders are asked to guide.

Connect with Greg Summers

Follow Orion Talent on LinkedIn

About the Podcast

Time to Hire is produced by the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association (RPOA), the leading authority on recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) foresight and innovation, and the trusted convener for the global RPO community. Through conversations with industry leaders, the podcast explores the trends, insights, and innovations shaping the future of talent acquisition.

Learn more about RPOA and join the community at: https://www.rpoassociation.org.

Follow the host, Lamees Abourahma, on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Setting the Stage: RPO’s ROI Story

Lamees Abourahma: [00:08]

Today’s talent leaders face growing pressure to improve hiring outcomes while demonstrating measurable business value. The latest RPO Buyer Trends Study found that nearly seven in 10 employers report a positive ROI from their RPO partnership, and more than six in 10 say their hiring metrics have improved overall. At the same time, buyers increasingly value strategic guidance, AI expertise, and business alignment, not simply recruiting execution. This is Lamees Abourahma, host of the Time to Hire podcast, and today we’ll explore how leading RPO providers are making that transition. It’s my pleasure to introduce Greg Summers, CEO at Orion Talent, a founding member of the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association. Welcome, Greg.

Greg Summers: [01:07]

Good morning. Thank you, Lamees. It’s really nice to be with you.

Introducing Orion Talent

Lamees Abourahma: [01:09]

Before we dive into the research, can you tell us a little about your organization and your role, please?

Greg Summers: [01:16]

Sure. As you mentioned, I’m CEO of Orion. I’ve been with Orion for two years after spending almost 30 years in the RPO and broader talent acquisition space, so I was excited to join this organization for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that Orion’s been in the talent acquisition space for 35 years. It was originally founded by transitioning veterans looking for ways to help other transitioning veterans find meaningful work in the civilian world, and for 35 years we’ve been doing that. About 15 years ago, Orion acquired Novotus, an organization that’s also been in the RPO space for quite a long time. The combination of those two brands helps us deliver talent for organizations, both veteran and non-veteran talent, specifically in the manufacturing spaces where that talent is really needed. There are opportunities across the spectrum in those industries right now, and we’re pleased to bring solutions forward to organizations that need a full complement of support in the RPO space.

How the Definition of RPO Success Has Evolved

Lamees Abourahma: [02:34]

You’ve been in the space long enough, and you’ve seen a lot of its evolution. Can you speak to how the definition of a successful RPO has changed over time, especially over the last five years?

Greg Summers: [02:50]

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a useful framing, because when I entered the RPO space, around 2002, it was just getting started under labels like employment process solutions, precursors to what’s now called RPO. For the most part, the tenets of working with an organization in our space were first about cost, then speed and quality. Those three things are still important for organizations looking for an RPO partner. But between 2015 and 2020, scalability became a big part of what organizations wanted, so add that to the other three. More recently, since the pandemic, and especially over the last couple of years, most organizations aren’t simply looking for speed, cost, quality, and scalability. They’re looking for a partner that can help them strategically manage a workforce plan. That’s become increasingly important now that AI has entered the picture and organizations are figuring out how their jobs will evolve. For organizations that won’t be hiring the same people tomorrow that they hired yesterday, they need a partner that can hit the market, understand where the talent is, identify what transferable skills apply to the roles they need to fill, and put together a strategic plan to bring that talent into the business.

What ROI Really Means in an RPO Partnership

Lamees Abourahma: [04:31]

I love that, and we’ll dive into a lot of what you just shared. I’ll be referencing data from the 2026 RPO Buyer Trends Study. We’ve conducted this for the past four years in partnership with Lighthouse Research and Advisory, looking at what RPO buyers want from their partners, and the data is favorable: 69% of employers report a positive ROI from their RPO partnership, and 61% say hiring metrics have improved overall. ROI can mean different things to different people. What does ROI in an RPO partnership look like, or actually mean, to you?

Greg Summers: [05:26]

Traditionally, people would ask: were you able to hire people faster? Time-to-fill is still a metric organizations follow, and it’s still relatively important. But I think the return on investment for more strategic organizations, companies that have been working with RPO partners for a while (which is also the difference, since many organizations have been in RPO partnerships for a decade or more), is less about that. I think they’re looking at ROI as: are you giving my hiring team time back? Are you carrying the recruiting process more effectively, in ways that show you understand their roles and their culture, so they don’t need to play as much of a role in the process to get there? That’s critical for organizations that use RPO partners to help with onboarding: are you finding talent and helping that talent ramp up to productivity faster? Those are the things that have real business impact, and that more strategic organizations are looking to measure.

Solving Business Challenges, Not Just Filling Roles

Lamees Abourahma: [06:42]

I was going to go in two different directions, but first: can you share an example where your organization helped a client solve a broader business challenge, not just fill positions?

Greg Summers: [06:58]

Sure. The reality is business problems are talent problems. A lot of the work we do in the digital and data center space, finding commissioning agents, technicians, electrical and HVAC technicians, those hyperscalers can’t keep pace with their growth if they can’t find this talent. Time becomes a critical element to get centers online, and that’s a real challenge. Another example: in the aerospace and shipbuilding industries, some of our clients can’t find talent in the markets where their facilities are located. One of the bigger challenges is helping them put together a plan to relocate talent to where the facilities are, and helping them find locations to set up satellite offices and facilities in talent-rich environments, so they don’t have to move everybody to their primary plant locations. We’ve done that successfully in aerospace and shipbuilding, and I’d imagine it will spill over into other industries as talent becomes more scarce.

Transactional, Strategic, and Transformational RPO Relationships

Lamees Abourahma: [08:47]

That aligns with what we found in the study: RPO buyers are looking not just at hiring metrics as an outcome, but at the alignment between hiring and business outcomes. It’s a business problem, not just a hiring problem. I’d also love your thoughts on how the RPO relationship has evolved from transactional to strategic to transformational. The study shows about 50% of RPO buyers classify their relationship as strategic, about 25% as transactional, and about 20 to 25% as transformational. What are your thoughts?

Greg Summers: [09:58]

In my experience, it tends to align with how long an organization’s been working with an RPO partner. The longer the relationship, the more likely they are to fall into that strategic bucket, having quarterly or annual business reviews about what’s happening in the business that will directly impact the talent they need going into the new year. That resonates with the finding that about half of organizations working with RPO partners are in that space. In my mind, the difference between strategic and transformational is this: in a strategic relationship, you’re having discussions about what needs to be done. In a transformational relationship, you’re working with stakeholders to actually get approval to move forward and do that work. It’s one thing to say, ‘this is the direction we need to go, and we think it’s good for the business,’ that’s necessary, but getting approval to move down that path makes a real difference. We’re seeing that play out now as organizations come to RPO firms for support in transforming their workforce processes using AI: how are we going to use it, where, with whom, and what will we do? Those are the strategic questions people are asking right now. Getting approval to move forward is what moves it into the transformational category.

Lamees Abourahma: [11:54]

And the maturity of the RPO relationship plays into where it sits on that spectrum.

Greg Summers: [12:17]

Sure.

AI’s Impact on the RPO and Recruiting Industry

Lamees Abourahma: [12:17]

You’ve touched on AI already. You mentioned before we started recording that AI has been disruptive not just for the RPO industry but for all businesses. I see it as transformational for the RPO industry. What’s your view on where we are in this AI moment?

Greg Summers: [12:52]

It’s hard to have a conversation and not talk about AI. Over the last eight years, I’ve talked with peers and colleagues about AI in recruiting, but it’s really only been in the last two years that it became fully centered in the conversation, and it’s grown more prominent every month since. In part, that’s because people are looking at the transactional and general activities in the recruiting workflow and choosing to leverage AI for them. For example, we have our own voice- and video-enabled agent, Juliet, supporting us with initial screens for people who apply or register on our website. That matters because before Juliet, we couldn’t get to everyone. It’s good to be able to tell anyone who comes to us, ‘we hear you, we see you, we want to learn more about what you’re looking for.’ That’s one application we’ve found very effective. But we’re also conscious that our recruiters bring expertise AI won’t bring, so we’ve set up a co-working model where recruiters benefit from the screening and information Juliet surfaces. We’ll keep looking for ways to leverage AI in other areas without taking the recruiter out of the process. With any new technology, there’s an expectation that the result will be far greater than it ends up being in the short term. We’re just past that short-term phase, and I think people are recognizing that you still need recruiters, you still need people in HR performing these functions, and I think that’s happening across every function in a business, not just TA and HR. People are moderating their short-term expectations for what AI will do and getting back to figuring out how to apply it appropriately, rather than aggressively, across everything. I think that’s the right approach, and it’s what will yield the best results: a realistic, moderated approach to layering AI in strategically, instead of overlaying it without thinking through the outcome.

The Case for RPO in an AI-Enabled World

Lamees Abourahma: [16:23]

Help us make the case for RPO in today’s AI-enabled world. Why do we need RPO when we have the technology, or RPO plus technology?

Greg Summers: [16:41]

That’s a good one. I tell my team, and again, I’ve been in the space for 30 years, we’re bullish on leveraging technology across the process to help our team benefit not just from efficiency, but from the data, intelligence, and analysis it provides. But you can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re in the recruiting space, and every day our recruiters at Orion talk with people who are changing careers, moving from one organization to the next, or, in the case of the military recruiting we do, transitioning out of the military after years away from the civilian workforce. People are making decisions that will impact them, their lives, and in some instances their families, and I don’t think people will make those decisions without a conversation with a human who understands the culture, the organization, and sometimes even the team they’ll be joining. That matters if you’re helping people make life-changing decisions. They’re better served by a human who understands the emotional impact of that decision, not just the tactical details.

Why Human Connection Still Drives Great Hiring Decisions

Lamees Abourahma: [18:12]

I love how you brought it back to the impactful work you do, changing lives. You need people to do that. Technology is an enabler, not the primary decision-maker.

Greg Summers: [18:36]

That’s right. I still remember the very first person I placed in recruiting, Tom Hanson, back when I was working in Atlanta. You remember those relationships. Good recruiters are remembered for their ability to help someone make a good decision for themselves and their family, and I don’t see that getting automated anytime soon.

Lamees Abourahma: [18:58]

We’re not downplaying the importance of technology. It does create efficiencies, especially as AI enables candidates to generate a lot of noise in the pipeline. We need it. But the recruiter is still very valuable in that relationship.

Greg Summers: [19:31]

I think that’s right. There’s real value in using AI to analyze large data sets. In a changing workforce, that helps you understand what skills individuals have that are transferable to other jobs, even when it’s not captured on their resume. Being able to do that with large data sets isn’t something a team of recruiters or reporting analysts can easily do on their own. You need the technology’s power to do that. That’s where it becomes an advantage to recruiters.

30 Years In: What Keeps Greg Summers Passionate About RPO

Lamees Abourahma: [20:20]

After 30 years in the business, why are you still excited about RPO and this industry?

Greg Summers: [20:38]

Some days I ask myself the same question. But I’ve always enjoyed that: we’re not curing disease, we’re not putting people on the moon, but every day in the RPO space, our organization and our peer organizations help people find jobs that impact their lives. And those people go on to build businesses that do cure diseases and put people on the moon. Having a small impact on the major developments that happen in industry and around the world is pretty meaningful when you break it down to the individual level. It’s been an interesting six years since the pandemic, in our industry and in work generally, and there’s still a lot to be determined about how organizations will use AI. But ultimately, the RPO industry has an opportunity to help organizations with that path forward: workforce planning, identifying the talent that will drive their businesses. I think that’s exciting work.

Lamees Abourahma: [22:12]

I love it. Hearing you talk about the importance of this work reminds me of Bill Gates talking about Microsoft not being Microsoft without its team, and Jim Collins writing about the importance of putting the right people on the bus. Talent is one of the most strategic aspects of any business, and a big reason for its success. Thank you for all that you do.

Closing Thoughts

Greg Summers: [22:45]

Thank you.

Lamees Abourahma: [22:45]

And thank you for joining me. Any last thoughts, anything we didn’t capture that you’d like to add?

Greg Summers: [22:56]

I appreciate what you’re doing, because raising visibility for the industry and helping people understand the benefit it provides helps ensure organizations in our space are seen as good thought partners and executors of the strategies we work on together. That matters. Anyone can do the transactional work, but I think our organization and our peer organizations strive to help organizations do thoughtful, strategic work in talent acquisition, and I hope they continue to lean on us for that. I appreciate what you’re doing to raise visibility for it.

Lamees Abourahma: [23:39]

Thank you so much. I believe in the higher purpose. That’s what keeps me excited and driven to support the members, the association, and the whole industry. Thank you.

Greg Summers: [23:53]

Of course. Really nice to be with you. Thank you.

Lamees Abourahma: [23:58]

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 stay connected, stay engaged, and stay informed about what’s happening in the talent and recruiting world by tuning into RPOA, the place to go for RPO.