RPO and embedded hiring within a fractional model

RPO stands for recruitment process outsourcing. It's a model where a business hands all or part of its recruitment function to an external partner who runs it as an extension of the internal team, rather than filling roles transactionally.

An agency is engaged per role and is typically paid a percentage of salary when a candidate is placed. An RPO partner is engaged to run the hiring function itself — owning process, tooling, reporting and candidate experience across all roles, usually on a fixed cost rather than per-placement fees.

Embedded recruitment is a form of RPO where the recruiter works inside your team using your systems, your email domain and your employer brand. Candidates experience it as your company hiring directly, because the recruiter is operating as part of your business rather than as an external intermediary.

No. Traditional enterprise RPO was built for very large hiring volumes, but embedded models are designed for smaller, growing teams — typically businesses with continuous hiring that isn't yet enough to justify a permanent in-house talent acquisition hire.

You shouldn't. In an embedded model you keep the hiring decisions, the employer brand and the candidate relationship. The partner owns the process and the legwork, and reports back on it. The tooling and process should remain yours at the end of the engagement.

Embedded and RPO engagements are usually priced on a fixed monthly basis tied to scope and capacity, rather than a percentage of each salary. That makes hiring costs predictable and stops cost scaling with the seniority of the roles you happen to be filling. Get in touch and we'll scope it against your hiring plan.

The partner takes ownership of the recruitment process rather than individual vacancies. In practice that means agreeing the hiring plan, working inside your ATS and communication tools, running sourcing and screening, coordinating interviews, managing offers, and reporting on the funnel. Your team keeps the hiring decisions; the partner runs everything that leads up to them.

Costs become predictable because they are tied to scope rather than to a percentage of each salary. Candidates deal with your brand rather than an intermediary. Hiring data sits in one place, so decisions can be made on funnel evidence. And because the process and tooling are built inside your business, capability stays with you after the engagement ends.

Usually when hiring becomes continuous rather than occasional, but not yet large enough to justify a permanent talent acquisition hire. Common triggers are a funding round, entering a new market, opening a new function, or realising that per-placement agency fees across several roles now cost more than a dedicated resource would.

Project RPO covers a defined burst of hiring with a start and an end — opening an office, building out a team after an investment round, or replacing a large cohort. It uses the same embedded model as ongoing RPO but is scoped to that specific programme rather than running continuously.

RPO covers permanent hiring and the recruitment process behind it. An MSP, or managed service provider, manages a contingent workforce — contractors, temporary staff and the suppliers providing them, including timesheets, compliance and rate management. They solve different problems and are sometimes run alongside each other in larger organisations.

Ask three things. Who actually does the work — the person in the pitch, or an unnamed delivery team? Does the recruiter work under your brand and inside your systems, or theirs? And what do you keep at the end — a set of invoices, or a documented process, scorecards and clean data in your own ATS? Those answers separate an embedded partner from an outsourced service desk far more reliably than a fee comparison does.

Yes. We're a remote-first UK team and work with employers nationally, including London, Manchester and Birmingham. Where being on site matters — calibration sessions, assessment days or a new site opening — we travel to you.

It should be. Hiring engineers, hospitality teams and fee-earners are genuinely different problems, so the sourcing, screening and interview design differ accordingly. We publish how the model changes for technology, hospitality and professional services rather than describing one generic process.