Beyond agencies and RPO: Why embedded talent is reshaping recruitment
Imagine this…
Your CFO has asked why recruitment costs look like a rollercoaster
Your hiring managers are juggling vacancies with their “day jobs”
Your TA team is fielding last-minute headcount changes, agency calls and yet another “can we hire this role yesterday?”
Everyone is working hard. But the system? …it's creaking.
This is the gap embedded talent is designed to fill and where solutions like the embedded model from Vermelo quietly change the game.
The problem we don’t talk about enough
Most organisations are operating in one of these modes:
Agency-dependent
Multiple suppliers
Different processes
Fluctuating fees
Brand diluted in a sea of job ads
Stretched in-house TA
Great people, not enough of them
Time lost to firefighting instead of strategy
Stakeholders frustrated because “recruitment is too slow”
Classic RPO
Fixed, long contracts
Processes that don’t flex with reality
Hard to adjust when hiring needs change partcularly when they slow
What all three of these models have in common is this: they treat recruitment as a series of transactions, not as a living talent ecosystem inside your business. And that’s where so many hiring strategies fall short.
What “embedded talent” actually means (beyond the buzzword)
Strip away the jargon and embedded talent is simple:
A team of recruiters and talent specialists who sit inside your business — in your brand, with your tools, on your Slack/Teams — but are employed and supported by an external specialist partner.
They’re not an agency just firing over CVs and hoping one sticks.
They’re not a traditional RPO operating quietly in the background.
An embedded team is an on-the-ground talent partner working inside your business. They:
join your stand-ups and leadership calls
get to know your hiring managers as humans
understand your culture, your constraints, your non-negotiables
and still bring the reach, tech and benchmarks of a specialist talent provider
Think “in-house feel, external firepower”. That’s the essence of the embedded talent (RaaS – Recruitment-as-a-Service) model that Vermelo offers.
Why this model has taken off
1. From guesswork to clear hiring costs
Traditional recruitment agency models are designed around success fees.
That means:
You pay per hire
Cost is unpredictable
There’s an incentive to prioritise speed over fit
Embedded talent flips that:
Predictable, subscription-style pricing instead of big one-off invoices
Reduced reliance on agencies (and their margins)
Clear cost-per-hire and time-to-hire data over time
For a CFO, this is gold.
For a TA leader, it’s the breathing space to shift from “defend the spend” to “prove the value”.
2. Hiring managers stop feeling like recruitment is “done to them”
Ask any Hiring Manager what they want and you’ll hear the same themes:
“Someone who understands my team.”
“A short, strong shortlist, not 20 CVs.”
“Honest market feedback, not just ‘it’s a tough market’.”
Embedded recruiters work with them every day. They know:
which types of profiles land well
which assessments actually predict performance
who on the panel tends to stall decisions
Over time, that shared history builds something you can’t buy off-the-shelf: trust.
And trusted internal partners make it far easier to:
push back on unrealistic expectations
coach on interview skills
influence hiring decisions towards long-term fit, not short-term convenience
3. Candidate experience stops being an afterthought
In a tight talent market, your hiring process is part of your brand.
Candidates remember:
being ghosted
messy interviews with no structure
long silences and vague feedback
But when an embedded team runs the show, they’re accountable not just for “filling roles” but for the entire journey:
consistent comms under your brand
structured interviews and clear expectations
honest feedback, even when it’s a no
They live inside your world, so they care deeply about how that world shows up externally.
4. You build capability, not just fill vacancies
Agencies rarely get asked to help redesign your interview process. It’s not what they’re paid for.
An embedded talent partner is different, because they’re in your systems, processes and workflows day-to-day, they can:
introduce better assessment methods
clean up messy job specs
advise on employer branding and where to show up
bring benchmarks on salaries, pipelines and process performance
The right partner doesn’t just “supply recruiters”; they upgrade your talent engine while they’re in it.
That’s very much the philosophy behind Vermelo’s embedded talent solution — combining on-the-ground delivery with advisory support so you’re not just hiring faster, you’re hiring smarter.
“But can’t we just hire more internal recruiters?”
Sometimes, yes. Internal TA teams are brilliant. But there are a few hard realities:
Demand isn’t always predictable: Product launch? Funding round? New site? Hiring skyrockets… then drops… then spikes again. Permanent recruiter headcount rarely flexes at the same pace, so you end up in a cycle of being stretched too thin and then sitting on excess capacity – a constant swing between stretch and slack.
Skills move on fast: Sourcing techniques, platforms and talent markets evolve fast. A specialist partner invests in that learning across clients, then brings new tools and processes into your world as part of their service.
There’s always a ceiling: Internal teams are tied to the headcount and budget cycles of your organisation. An embedded model lets you dial capacity up or down without adding permanent fixed cost.
So it’s not either/or. The most forward-thinking organisations are blending a core internal TA team who own the strategy, with an embedded partner who scales capability, capacity and specialist skills when needed.
What this looks like in practice
Here’s a typical scenario of an embedded model like Vermelo’s in action:
Discovery & design
Map out current hiring challenges and volumes
Agree scope: which business units, which roles, which geographies
Design a flexible model (e.g. X embedded recruiters for 6–12 months, with the option to scale)
Onboarding & integration
Embedded recruiters join your systems, get company emails, attend meetings
Align processes, SLAs and reporting
Set baseline metrics: time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, agency usage, candidate experience scores
Delivery & optimisation
Day-to-day recruitment owned by the embedded team
Regular reviews with HR/TA, Finance and business leaders
Data-led tweaks: where are we leaking candidates, where are bottlenecks, where are we over-reliant on agencies?
Scale, shift or switch off
As hiring slows, you can reduce or redeploy the embedded team
You keep the improved processes, data and insights
If hiring peaks again, you already have a partner who understands your world
This is why embedded talent is often described as “recruitment on your terms”. You’re not locked into a one-size-fits-all structure.
The mindset shift: from “filling roles” to building a talent system
The real power of embedded talent isn’t just in speed or savings (though you’ll usually see both). It’s the shift in mindset:
From reactive (“We have a vacancy, who can we call?”)
To systemic (“We know our demand, our pipeline and how to respond intelligently.”)
With the right embedded partner, you start to answer bigger questions:
Where are we consistently struggling to hire, and why?
What skills will we need in 12–24 months, not just now?
How do we design a hiring experience that reflects who we are as a business?
And that’s where an organisation stops treating recruitment as an internal service function… and starts seeing it as a strategic advantage.
Where Vermelo fits in
Vermelo positions itself not just as “people who fill roles”, but as talent solutions specialists.
Alongside a range of other talent solutions our embedded talent (RaaS) model is built around:
Recruiters as an extension of your teams, embedded in your systems and culture
Flexible, scalable engagement — up and down with your hiring needs
A focus on data, compliance and long-term capability, not just quick wins
For businesses tired of high agency spend, unpredictable results and burnt-out internal teams, it’s a way to:
gain instant access to experienced recruiters
improve consistency and candidate experience
and build a more sustainable, insight-driven approach to hiring
All without having to rip out what you already have.
A question to leave you with
If you looked at your current hiring setup with fresh eyes today, would you design it the same way?
If the answer is “probably not”, then it might be time to explore models that give you more control, more flexibility and more intelligence built in.
Embedded talent is one of the most practical ways to do that. If you want to see what this would look like in your world, Vermelo is a good place to start the conversation.
Book a 15‑minute discovery call or contact Santa Benga - santa.benga@VermeloRPO.com | 07304 094171