What is Project RPO? Hiring at speed and scale

What is Project RPO?

Project RPO is a form of recruitment outsourcing built around a programme of permanent hiring, with a fixed scope, defined markets, and an end date. The provider supplies a cross-functional team, typically including a programme lead, sourcing specialists, recruiters, and coordination support, scaled up and down as requirements change. You don’t need to get them up to speed. They know your market and will be ready to support you from day one.

Project RPO teams work as an extension of your talent acquisition function, using your employer brand and tools, but are managed day to day by your provider and may operate under different processes. Both you and the provider agree the project scope and KPIs before delivery starts. The provider reports progress against these deliverables throughout, before handing over any data and lessons learned at the end of the project.

When should a business use Project RPO?

Project RPO fits a large, time-bound hiring need created by a clear business event. The internal team may have the right long-term structure but lack the immediate capacity or local expertise to respond in time.

Many organisations turn to Project RPO when undertaking large transformation initiatives. These are often in response to market conditions: geopolitical volatility, tightening regulatory frameworks, technological advances, and even a competitor’s unexpected move. In today’s market, businesses need to pivot fast to get ahead. 42% of companies began competing in new sectors over the previous five years, with 51% planning international investment in the year ahead. Such scenarios can create large hiring demand in areas where the internal team has no presence or experience.

Here are some examples where Project RPO makes sense:

• Entering a new country: Local recruiters understand the labour market and the regulations that govern it. They are familiar with candidate behaviours and compensation expectations and can advise on both.
• Opening a shared service centre: A dedicated team can coordinate hundreds of hires across functions while maintaining one process and employer brand.
• Supporting a merger or acquisition: Project RPO adds capacity across several markets and can support multiple hiring waves without the overhead of permanent recruiters.
• Responding to a hiring spike: A Project RPO team can scale up or down as project demand changes.

How does Project RPO support business transformation?

Sudden large-scale hiring, especially transformation hiring, needs a different operating model from business-as-usual recruitment. These high-volume projects are usually launched in response to shifts in market conditions and business needs. As a result, the number of positions, their locations, and the types of roles required may evolve during the project as the business reassesses its requirements and priorities. You need a partner with the flexibility to adapt to such changes. 

It puts an experienced team on the programme quickly

A Project RPO team works on your programme and nothing else. Speed is critical, with the project able to be fully up-and-running within eight weeks. Before go-live, your Project RPO team will already have started building talent pipelines, helping to reduce time-to-hire. A real-time dashboard gives everyone the same view of KPI progress and helps optimise hiring, so your business can get ahead.

It combines global consistency with local knowledge

A unified talent strategy keeps the programme consistent across regions while making sure your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) lands coherently, whether a candidate is in Mexico City, Manchester, or Manila. Local recruiters adapt sourcing to each market, and high-potential candidates can be considered for opportunities in other programme locations where appropriate.

It flexes as demand changes

Project RPO teams can expand or contract as work shifts between countries, as timelines change, and as the programme moves into a new delivery phase. This gives leaders a more flexible and efficient cost base, rather than building a permanent team for a temporary surge.

What do you need to do before launching a Project RPO programme?

Preparation is essential for a successful Project RPO programme. While your provider will do most of the heavy lifting, the three steps below ensure you can work as a true, high-performing partnership.

1. Introduce your partner before launch: Enable them to learn about your systems, processes, and company culture from the inside out.  
2. Align your stakeholders: Clarify the project scope and hiring volumes internally. Set up system access for your provider, then together, explain to hiring managers what the programme needs from them.
3. Share the same north star: Agree how progress will be measured and name a senior sponsor on each side who can clear obstacles. If your partner is measured on time to hire, your hiring managers also need KPIs around prompt interview feedback to support that goal. 

What does a Project RPO programme look like?

Every Project RPO programme begins with a deep understanding of your goals, growth plans, challenges, and hiring needs. This is critical so your provider can design and deliver a solution that fits your unique requirements.

Stage 1 (weeks 1 to 2) – Planning: Agree a clear brief: who needs to be hired, where, and when. As part of this, shared KPIs and governance frameworks are set.

Stage 2 (weeks 3 to 5) – Discovery: Provider learns your business, reviews processes, identifies risks, engages stakeholders, and gathers market intelligence to put in place the best strategy for your talent goals.

Stage 3 (weeks 6 to 8) – Design: Provider builds the full hiring solution ready for launch: workflows, technology setup, talent assessment approach, reporting dashboard, and early pipelines.

Stage 4 (week 8 onwards) – Delivery: Provider launches sourcing, screening, offer management, and onboarding at pace, with regular reporting to support continuous optimisation.

Stage 5 (final 2 weeks) – Handover: Provider completes remaining hires and shares records, data, and lessons learned with your team. 

What can Project RPO deliver in practice?

Enterprise Solutions from Michael Page has delivered hundreds of Project RPO programmes across diverse regions and sectors. Adaptive by design, we take the time to understand our clients' priorities before building a tailored solution.  

This approach can be seen in a recent Project RPO programme for a European financial services organisation:  

Supporting M&A growth with 100+ hires across eight markets in 12 months

A leading European capital markets organisation needed to scale hiring quickly to support acquisitions and product launches across Europe. Partnering closely with its internal talent acquisition team, Enterprise Solutions from Michael Page delivered a Project RPO solution that filled 133 roles across eight markets and multiple languages in 12 months.

With clear governance, real-time hiring insights, and local market expertise, the team navigated complex hiring needs across specialist talent pools. Hiring was delivered in two waves, with recruitment capacity scaled up and down as demand changed. Hires were made across operations, sales and marketing, technology, product, administration, and senior leadership, achieving a 91% offer acceptance rate across a varied and highly competitive European talent market.

How can Enterprise Solutions from Michael Page help you?

Enterprise Solutions from Michael Page builds Project RPO programmes around your hiring goals and timeframes. We bring a global view combined with local market knowledge, a team that flexes as your needs change, and data-driven insights that help you stay ahead of market shifts. By your side at every stage, we are a true extension of your business.  

If you’re planning your next hiring programme, explore our Project RPO offering or fill in a simple form to be contacted by our experts.