In today’s shaky economy, Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders and Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) feel the pressure. They need to boost recruitment without stretching resources too thin or lowering quality. Hiring forecasts change with the market, making it harder to keep the right recruitment setup. Project-based recruitment process outsourcing (Project RPO) has become a strategic talent solution. Project RPO grew 7 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to the 2025 RPO Trends Report, making it the fastest-growing engagement model of recruitment process outsourcing. Project RPO offers CHROs and TA leaders more flexibility in talent acquisition. It’s a smart alternative to traditional hiring methods.
In this edited version of Chip Holmes' interview with the RPOA, he shares his extensive experience in the RPO industry. As an Internal Consultant at Randall Reilly and a global leader in RPO, Holmes offers practical insights on implementing effective project-based recruitment strategies. This post is part of the latest from the RPOA's Talent Leader Council.
Holmes: Project is a perfect name because it's a special vendor-customer engagement with a defined scope and duration. The most common RPO engagement type in the market is Enterprise RPO, which spans all recruiting functions for all roles, business entities, and locations companywide. In 2024, Enterprise RPO comprised 37 percent of engagement types in the RPO market, according to the 2025 RPO Trends Report.
A great example of project RPO would be during a new drug launch by pharmaceutical companies. They often use project RPO to hire the salespeople for that launch. The RPO firm ramps up quickly, bringing recruiters in, and they make the hires. The RPO then steps away until the next time it's needed. The relationship may lay dormant for a few months, but when the pharmaceutical company launches a new drug, it may use the same RPO.
The primary driver behind the increasing demand for project RPO is the economic uncertainty we've experienced in recent years. With events like COVID and its aftermath, predicting business demand has become impossible. This uncertainty has made project RPO valuable as a relief valve for organizations dealing with unpredictable hiring.
In an uncertain economy, project RPO protects you against two potential overreactions. It helps you avoid over-hiring recruitment personnel for temporary needs and prevents you from overwhelming your existing team.
Project RPO becomes the relief valve because you bring in people who are good at hiring and ramping up and down quickly. RPOs typically bring technology to support the process. They understand surges, they understand how to ramp, and they understand how to integrate themselves into the culture of the company. Once you engage them, they can walk you through the project, and then when it's done, you disengage until you need them. You haven't disrupted your team or put too much on their plate.
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I can think of a very large engineering company that moved from the Northwest to the Southwest. Nobody who lives up in that area moves; they love it there. So the company didn't have a lot of employees who opted for relocation. Rather than changing their recruiting and leadership structure, they brought in an RPO specifically to address the relocation needs, and they were effective in ramping up staffing at the new location.
A large healthcare company in the Northeast that purchased a hospital chain and needed to hire 180 nurses but did not have the recruitment personnel to hire 18 nurses, let alone 180 nurses. They brought in an RPO to do that.
Retail companies frequently need to scale up hiring during peak seasons in November and December, but may not need a full-time recruiting team year-round. Instead of maintaining a permanent hiring team for just a few months of intense recruitment, retailers use Project RPO to handle these temporary hiring surges.
Massively. And I mean, honestly, it enhances everything [in recruiting]. Typically, organizations use project RPO to quickly fill positions, unless they're using it as a trial or "try it before you buy it" approach.
RPO companies have the ability to bring in AI and automation to help with the sourcing screening and understanding the diversity concerns. It assists with the selection process. You need to speak to individuals and converse with them, but you can't have recruiters talking to people at two o'clock in the morning. A chatbot can handle that. We have come a long way with chatbots over the last three years. It used to be embarrassing when someone spoke to a chatbot. Now, sometimes you don't even know the difference unless it's explicitly identified.
Analytics are another crucial component of Project RPO, allowing teams to process information and make rapid decisions. Technology and AI provide valuable predictive capabilities that accelerate the entire process—and while these tools are now considered table stakes across the RPO industry, they become particularly essential in project-based work due to the compressed timelines and need for quick execution.
For a comprehensive analysis of current industry shifts and future projections, review the 2025 RPO Trends Report today. Access data-driven insights and expert guidance to refine your talent acquisition strategy.
It's going to evolve significantly. I see continued growth and project RPO becoming more and more strategic and analytical. When Project RPO first started, it was about quickly hiring 50 people, but now companies want technology, data analysis, and strategic decision-making. They're now asking, how can you come in and help us to get our workforce planning better? What’s your point of view on our tech stack? RPO providers offer technology solutions for short-term engagements and a long-term service model. Some RPO providers have technology that employers can use on the back end, allowing them to use those tools to manage recruitment internally rather than relying entirely on the RPO provider for ongoing services.
Project RPO will shift from a highly transactional service to a more strategic component of the overall hiring function, aligning with enterprise and modular hiring strategies.
For more insights from other Talent Leader Council contributors, check out our TA Leader Council on the RPO Voice blog, which features interviews with top talent acquisition experts.