Downturn? What downturn?

US recruitment companies beat the recession by outsourcing offshore

Despite recent economic turbulence, some American recruiters are reporting a 30 per cent increase in new business

Greg Mishon, Director of Parker Scott Search and Selection, has outsourced his companyís CV screening, online CV database searching and vacancy hunting to an Internet recruitment/resourcing company based in India. ëNow, instead of spending most of the day screening CVs and searching online databases, we get it all done for us. This gives us more time to focus on client and candidate interaction,í Greg comments. ëThe research team we work with is highly motivated and utilises the very latest state-of-the-art Internet sourcing software; we have been extremely impressed with their results. And, because they're based in India, the service is very cost effective. My only regret is that we didn't start using them sooner.í

The US recruitment industry leads the way in innovation and developing new codes of practice. Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable trend towards outsourcing of all non-essential recruitment activity to India. This has enabled recruiters to benefit from Western expertise combined with Asian diligence, computer literacy and commitment to results ñ all at a fraction of the cost offered by a US or UK-based operation. Itís no wonder that companies such as Microsoft have been operating in India since the 90s.

An offshore recruitment/ resourcing company will operate as an extension to your recruitment team. Their low-cost, highly skilled internet recruitment researchers/resourcers are able to tackle any project, no matter what size or budget: from CV screening, online CV database searching, passive candidate searching and networking, right up to vacancy hunting and corporate intelligence gathering. By working in this way, recruiters can devote more time to key activities such as client liaison and business development. The result: more efficiency, more placements, more profit.

To make the decision to outsource, recruiters need only identify those working practices that would be better managed out of house. For example, it is not cost effective for employees whose strengths lay in sales and business building to be screening CVs or searching online CV databases. Far better to have a cheaper, highly organised resource to do this for them.

There are several offshore recruitment research/resourcing companies in India. The most established is OS2i, which has been building business partnerships with recruitment firms since 2001. All OS2i researchers have had a minimum of four yearsí recruitment experience and receive ongoing training in the very latest technological advancements. But perhaps the key factor in the companyís success is that the research centre is managed by experienced UK and US recruiters, thereby guaranteeing Western recruiters a team that understands their precise market needs.

www.os2i.co.uk