Buzzword Alert - RPO

This one really strikes my funnybone: RPO. No longer does RPO stand for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Today RPO has a grander meaning Recruitment Process Outsourcing. We used to have a simple name - Recruiting - but okay, that term was getting stale and goodness knows recruiters have always had a reputation equal to that of used car salesmen. A new name could give us all a fresh, clean start.

According to Jason Berkowitz a founding member of the RPO Alliance,

"The term RPO has only gained widespread use in the last year or two and lacks a clear definition...Everyone in the industry has their own definition of what RPO means....the RPO Alliance is developing an organizing schema and understandable terminology to describe what type of RPO a company provides and what type of RPO a buyer seeks."

Why exactly?

My favorite RPO quote is from RPO Alliance member Laura Eaton, (whose title not coincidentally is VP of RPO Solutions), "I want to make sure that what we are doing...is helping the buyers not confusing them more."

I couldn't agree more.