featured posts:

• NXTThing RPO: Balancing Human Interaction & Advanced Technology

  Sep 25, 2024, by Jeanine Crane-Thompson

    Advanced technologies such as GenAI, ML, and NLP continue gaining momentum, yielding greater efficiency and savings across all areas of talent acquisition (TA). Vendors are becoming more expert in applying these tools, improving TA outcomes and candidate experience, reducing candidate bias, identifying resources at the highest risk of flight, and predicting a candidate’s cultur[...]

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• Advanced RPO Acquires Aspirant RPO to Expand Scope of Services

  May 13, 2024, by Jeanine Crane-Thompson

    Recruitment process outsourcing provider Advanced RPO acquired Aspirant RPO, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, on May 1, 2024. Advanced RPO delivers full-cycle, project-based, custom, and high-volume RPO solutions to its clients across high-growth, mid-market, and enterprise sectors. The acquisition enriches Advanced RPO’s offering, specifically adding front-end talent acquis[...]

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• Recruitment & Learning Trends, 2022

  Jan 20, 2022, by Nikki Edwards

    Here I look at the major trends for the year ahead in two key areas of HR: recruitment and learning services. Recruitment Trends Talent Acquisition (TA) challenges were already complex in the pre-pandemic period, with an aging workforce population, shortage of digital talent, rapid evolution of technology, Brexit, legal changes, and more. The pandemic added another layer of com[...]

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• 2021: The Year of the Human Cloud

  Oct 07, 2020, by Nikki Edwards

    Quarterly financial reports for 2020 (April onwards) from recruitment organizations show that in a COVID-19 world, temporary hiring is more resilient than permanent hiring, faring on average about 10-30% better (albeit both types of hiring are seeing negative growth overall). Meanwhile, gig work has increased on average 10-15%, over the same period. These figures are not surprising a[...]

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• Digital Talent Acquisition Helps Survival in an Uncertain World of Work

  Jul 23, 2020, by Nikki Edwards

    Everyone speculates as to what the long-term world of work could look like as we head into the second half of 2020 and beyond. But the reality is that we don’t really know how things will pan out. While organizations might be preparing for an uptick in hiring activity behind the scenes, the biggest challenges are the ongoing uncertainty around the future of work, and even survi[...]

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• Cielo: Reimagining & Redefining RPO

  Oct 29, 2019, by Nikki Edwards

    The pace of change in RPO and contingent worker outsourcing has been unprecedented in recent years due to technological advancements and the range of services expected by buyside organizations. Cielo recently organized a customer and analyst day to explore what talent acquisition (TA) might look like in the next five years. Speaking with several of Cielo’s clients, they comm[...]

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• Korn Ferry’s Spotlight on Talent Advisory

  Jul 03, 2019, by Gary Bragar

    I recently attended Korn Ferry’s RPO Client Advisory Forum, which was all about talent management. The theme was ‘unplugged’ and featured frank discussions about the RPO industry, including the challenges faced by the clients and service providers who attended from every region. Beyond RPO, Korn Ferry offers many complementary talent management services, includin[...]

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• PeopleScout: Improving Employer Branding, Driving Global Growth

  Jun 20, 2019, by Gary Bragar

    Last week I attended PeopleScout’s annual client NEXT Talent Summit 2019. In the keynote address, President Taryn Owen noted that this event marked one year since its acquisition of TMP to strengthen its global RPO and talent advisory capabilities. TMP, which operated in the U.K. under the brand name TMP Worldwide, provides employer branding, recruitment marketing, and RPO serv[...]

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• ADP’s Latest Workplace Innovations

  Apr 10, 2019, by Gary Bragar

    ADP held its 26th annual Meeting of the Minds (MOTM) client conference recently, celebrating its 70 years in business. ADP is helping change the way employees work by continuously introducing new and enhanced products and services, and here I focus on three key areas: mobile, how pay is accessed, and recruiting. ADP Mobile: growth & new developments ADP has 20 million regis[...]

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• AGS Takes QUANTUM Leap in the Workforce Acquisition Framework Space

  Oct 16, 2018, by Nikki Edwards

    Earlier this month, Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) launched the QUANTUM Platform™ to the U.S. market.  QUANTUM is a workforce acquisition (WA) framework comprising a total talent strategy, a sourcing methodology, and a technology platform all in one. 18 months in the making, the idea was initiated about a decade ago, as discussions began around the roadblocks associated wi[...]

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• Cielo: Latest Developments & RPO Growth in Latin America

  Oct 04, 2018, by Gary Bragar

    Last week, I attended Cielo’s annual analyst event, held at its service center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here I round up the latest high-level developments at the RPO vendor, then take a closer look at its Latin American business. Latest developments & 2020 roadmap Cielo performs ~157k hires for ~154 clients in ~92 countries in 36 languages. Clients are served by ~2[...]

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• Advances in HR Tech: The View from The Strip

  Sep 19, 2018, by Elizabeth Rennie

    This past week, I attended two HR events at opposite ends of the Las Vegas strip: HR Technology conference and SuccessFactors’ SuccessConnect client event. Together, they attracted ~14k HR leaders, practitioners, vendors, analysts, thought leaders, and clients, and had the common theme and purpose of showcasing the latest HR technologies and innovations that are enabling employ[...]

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• The Growth of AMS’ Cleveland Global Client Service Center

  Jul 03, 2018, by Gary Bragar

    Last week, I visited the recruitment and talent management vendor Alexander Mann Solutions’ Global Client Service Center (GCSC) in Cleveland. Here I take a quick look at the growth of the operation and at recent initiatives. Cleveland as a location Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) has seven GCSCs, the fourth of which opened in Cleveland in September 2012 to support AMS&rsqu[...]

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• PeopleScout Continues Global Expansion with Acquisition of TMP Holdings

  Jun 21, 2018, by Gary Bragar

    At its recent Talent Summit, PeopleScout announced the expansion of its service centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia Pacific, plus the acquisition of TMP Holdings, a provider of employer branding and RPO services operating in the U.K. via Yocto, the RPO division of TMP Worldwide. Already the largest RPO provider in terms of number of hires (~300k annually) and the largest[...]

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• Talent Disruption: What’s Next?

  Jun 15, 2018, by Gary Bragar

    Last week, I attended and presented at Futurestep’s second annual client event, themed Talent Disruption: What’s Next? with clients attending from Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Below is a round-up of the event’s main talking points. Key talent acquisition & retention challenges The following summarizes some of the key challenges presented by Futu[...]

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• Meet Ari & Mya, the Talent Acquisition Virtual Assistants

  May 31, 2018, by Nikki Edwards

  With increasing pressure on organizations to find the best hires, talent acquisition (TA) teams are continuing to grow. And as more Gen Zs are joining the workforce for the first time, so too are the latest generation of virtual assistants or chatbots. Here I look at the early careers and future prospects of Ari and Mya, two virtual assistants currently being used by TA vendors and corporate T[...]

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• Why Digital Onboarding is Essential

  Apr 27, 2018, by Nikki Edwards

    Is your organization already struggling to find the best talent? If so, put yourself in the shoes of a candidate for a moment. Take a look at your organization’s employer branding on your website and social media pages. Do you think candidates would be impressed? Hopefully yes, but many organizations’ employer branding leaves a lot to be desired. Appealing to all possi[...]

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• The Impact of VR & Gamification on Candidate Assessment

  Mar 28, 2018, by Nikki Edwards

    One of the things that was very clear from my visit to the UNLEASH HR industry event in London last week was that virtual reality and other interactive tech has arrived in the talent acquisition space in a big way. Here I look specifically at examples of how VR and gamification are having an impact on the candidate assessment process. Candidate assessment is one of the hot talent [...]

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• ADP’s Spotlight on Engagement & Retention

  Mar 23, 2018, by Gary Bragar

    At ADP’s annual Meeting of the Minds client event this past week, what caught my attention most were the initiatives geared towards improving employee engagement/satisfaction and retention. Clearly, ADP has identified these areas as key, with its own research institute finding that ~2/3 of all turnover is voluntary – i.e. employees are leaving because they have not been g[...]

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• Candidate Focus: RPO Vendors Can Up Their Game

  Mar 12, 2018, by Gary Bragar

  NelsonHall recently published its Next Generation RPO market analysis and NEAT vendor assessment, as part of which we interviewed the clients of 20 RPO vendors across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific to ascertain their expectations and satisfaction levels across a range of >40 recruitment service criteria. Here I look at how working with candidates has emerged as the top area for impr[...]

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• Next Generation RPO: Good Things Really Do Come in Small Packages

  Feb 02, 2018, by Nikki Edwards

    The RPO market has traditionally been dominated by vendors who were established in the U.S., the U.K., or Australia, the first countries to embrace the concept of RPO. The majority of their clients were large organizations headquartered in those regions, who typically had high-volume permanent hiring requirements, and as those organizations expanded internationally, the RPO vend[...]

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• PeopleScout Improving the Candidate Experience with Affinix

  Dec 20, 2017, by Gary Bragar

    Recent NelsonHall interviews with the clients of the top ~20 global RPO vendors revealed that candidate communication was rated the most important vendor characteristic, with an importance score of 96%. However, the satisfaction score for candidate communication across all vendor clients was 82%, falling some way short of client expectations. Recognizing the importance of can[...]

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• The Journey for HR Services in 2018: Part 1

  Nov 29, 2017, by NelsonHall Analyst

    As 2017 comes to a close, it’s an ideal time to reflect on key developments and innovations within HR services, and what to expect in 2018 by HR service line. This week, I’ll discuss specifics around two aspects of talent management (recruiting and learning), and next week I’ll explore payroll and benefits administration in more detail. Overall, the level of 2017[...]

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• Sevenstep RPO’s Employee Care Focus

  Nov 03, 2017, by Gary Bragar

    Sevenstep RPO held its second annual analyst event last week. In addition to analysts, advisors, vendor leadership, and key service providers, practitioners/buy-side clients also attended for the day, including Commonwealth of MA, Amazon, and CVS. Here I discuss a few key take-aways. Sevenstep RPO overview With ~300 employees, Sevenstep RPO has global delivery centers in three [...]

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