What is recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)?

RPO means handing your recruitment - some of it or all of it - to a specialist provider who runs it as an extension of your business. At Vermelo that covers sourcing, screening, assessment, offer management and onboarding, delivered under your brand. You keep strategic control; we run the engine. It's built for businesses hiring at volume who want quality and speed without an ever-growing agency bill.

What's the difference between RPO and MSP?

RPO manages your permanent hiring; MSP (managed service provider) manages your contractor and contingent workforce - the suppliers, the rates, the onboarding and the IR35 compliance. Plenty of businesses need both, which is where a total talent programme comes in: one partner, one data set, both sides of your hiring covered.

What is embedded recruitment (RaaS)?

Embedded recruitment - sometimes called Recruiter-as-a-Service - places experienced recruiters directly inside your team. They use your systems, carry your brand and represent you to candidates, but you switch the capacity on and off as hiring demand changes. It's the answer to hiring spikes that don't justify permanent headcount but do outgrow your current team.

How much does RPO cost compared to using recruitment agencies?

There's no single number, and anyone who gives you one without asking questions is guessing. What we can say: RPO replaces unpredictable per-placement agency fees with a model you can budget - typically a management fee, a cost-per-hire arrangement or a blend, shaped around your volumes. For most businesses hiring at scale, that means a meaningfully lower cost-per-hire and a number the CFO can actually forecast. Book a discovery call and we'll model it against what you're spending now.

Do you handle IR35 and FCA compliance?

Yes - it's designed into the model rather than added afterwards. Our MSP solution manages IR35 status determinations, right-to-work checks and supplier standards across your contractor workforce, and our screening services cover FCA pre-employment and annual maintenance checks for regulated businesses. We're not lawyers and don't replace your own legal advice, but compliance is the reason many regulated firms come to us in the first place.

How quickly can you get started?

Faster than you'd think. Embedded recruiters can usually be turned round in a matter of days; a full RPO or MSP programme takes longer to stand up properly, because doing it properly matters. Tell us what's urgent and we'll tell you honestly what's achievable - that conversation costs nothing.

OPERATIONAL & CUSTOMER TEAMS RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS

VOLUME HIRING IS WHERE RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS EARN THEIR KEEP

Nothing tests a hiring process like operational recruitment. Contact centre intakes, claims operations, customer service teams particularly in regulated industries: high volumes, tight timescales, real attrition pressure, and in regulated businesses, screening obligations on every single hire. It is also where the economics turn hardest against agency fees, because a percentage of salary per hire multiplied across an operational intake is a number nobody enjoys defending.

This is the hiring our models were built for.

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Who we recruit

Contact centre teams and their leaders.
Claims handlers and operations staff.
Customer service professionals across regulated and non-regulated environments.
Team leaders, operations managers and the customer-centric specialists driving efficiency and satisfaction.
At intake scale or one team at a time.

How we deliver it

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is the natural home for sustained operational hiring: one engine running sourcing, screening, assessment and onboarding at volume, measured on time-to-fill, quality and retention rather than CVs sent
- Project RPO for the defined surge: a new contact centre, a seasonal intake, an operational expansion with a start and an end
Embedded Recruitment (RaaS) when your internal team needs volume-hiring firepower for a period, without permanent headcount
Managed Service Provider (MSP) where operational flexibility runs on contractors and temporary workers, engaged compliantly
Total Talent where permanent and contractor hiring comes together into one seamless process, perfect if you rely on both for delivering your operational goals
Talent Advisory for assessment design, candidate journey optimisation and the onboarding programmes that decide whether month-three retention holds

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Answers to some common questions

Got questions? We’ve answered a few common questions here, but if you want to chat anything through get in touch:

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Structure, not heroics: consistent screening criteria, assessment designed for the role rather than borrowed from another one, and a candidate journey that does not leak good people through slow responses. Volume hiring fails through friction more than through candidate shortage, and process design is where we spend our effort.
Yes, and it is a core strength. Pre-employment screening, right to work and FCA obligations at volume need a repeatable framework, not a scramble per candidate. We have designed exactly those frameworks for UK insurers, and they run through every operational programme we deliver.
At operational volumes, per-placement agency fees are usually the most expensive possible route. RPO replaces them with a management fee model where cost per hire falls as volume rises. The crossover depends on your numbers; the Agency Fee Calculator will show you in thirty seconds what your current approach costs.

OPERATIONAL & CUSTOMER TEAMS RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS

VOLUME HIRING IS WHERE RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS EARN THEIR KEEP

Who we recruit

How we deliver it

Answers to some common questions

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