Recruitment Team: Size, Structure, And Outsourcing
Recruitment teams play an incredibly important role within organizations. They’re responsible for helping ensure the right talent is in the right place to help the organization achieve its objectives.
Use this guide to understand the key roles and responsibilities and what the options are for outsourcing.
7 Key Recruitment Team Roles
Recruitment is a team sport requiring input from multiple people with varying skills to make it happen. Depending on the organization, here’s who’ll be involved:
1. The recruiter
The recruiter manages the entire hiring process, from posting job descriptions to screening resumes, conducting interviews, and extending offers.
They act as the liaison between candidates and the company, ensuring a great candidate experience and collaborating closely with hiring managers to make improvements.
Some organizations will have a dedicated recruiter whereas in others recruitment will be handled by the HR manager.
Building a strong recruiter position starts with ensuring your team has completed basic recruitment training courses.
2. The hiring manager
The hiring manager defines the role requirements and works with the recruiter to design the interview process. They conduct interviews to assess technical and team fit and make the final hiring decision. They also assist in the onboarding process for new hires.
In startup recruiting, the hiring manager will take on recruitment responsibilities.
3. The recruitment coordinator
The recruitment coordinator handles logistics, such as scheduling interviews and coordinating communications between candidates and the interview team. They ensure the interview process runs smoothly, manage the ongoing upkeep required to keep your recruiting system functioning smoothly, and support recruiters with other administrative tasks.
4. The employer brand marketer
Employer brand marketers create and promote content that showcases the company’s unique brand and culture to attract talent. They manage recruitment marketing channels such as the company’s career site, social media channels, and job ads, ensuring the employer brand aligns with recruitment efforts.
5. Candidate sourcer
A sourcer is responsible for identifying, engaging, and building a pipeline of potential candidates i.e. candidate sourcing.
They proactively search for candidates through various channels, such as sourcing software, LinkedIn, job boards, social media, and networking events.
Sourcers focus on passive candidates who may not be actively applying for jobs, conduct initial outreach, and pre-screen candidates before passing qualified leads to recruiters.
6. Individual contributors
As part of a collaborative hiring process, sometimes team members participate in interviews to assess candidates for culture fit and technical skills as well as give the candidate an insight into the team to ask questions.
Additionally, individual contributors can help source candidates through referrals and take part in recruitment marketing activities.
7. Founder or CEO
In smaller companies, the founder or CEO is often involved in setting hiring strategies, conducting interviews for senior roles, and ensuring alignment with the company’s mission and values. They may give final approval for key hires and influence the overall recruitment approach.
Determining The Right Size For Your Recruitment Team
The size of your recruitment team will be largely determined by the following factors:
1. Hiring volume
- Consider your annual hiring goals. The more people you need to hire, the larger the recruitment team should be. A common benchmark is 1 recruiter for every 25-40 hires annually, but this can vary depending on the role complexity.
- Estimate workload per recruiter. Recruiters can handle different volumes of hires depending on whether the roles are entry-level, mid-level, or highly specialized.
2. Role complexity
- Technical or specialized roles. Hard-to-fill or niche roles typically take longer to recruit for, meaning more recruiters or sourcers might be necessary.
- High turnover roles. For positions with higher turnover, you may need additional recruitment capacity to keep up with constant demand.
3. Company growth stage
- Startup vs. established company. Startups may have a small, flexible recruitment team that can scale as needed, while larger or rapidly growing companies require a more structured team with dedicated roles (recruiters, sourcers, coordinators).
- Planned expansion. If you’re preparing for aggressive growth or entering new markets, you’ll need a larger team to handle the surge in hiring.
4. Recruitment process efficiency
- Technology and tools. If your company uses an applicant tracking system (ATS) or AI-driven tools, it can automate parts of the process, allowing a smaller team to handle more candidates.
- Outsourcing and agencies. If you outsource certain roles to agencies or use external recruitment services, you may be able to maintain a leaner internal recruitment team.
5. Industry benchmarks
- Look at industry norms. Research typical recruiter-to-employee ratios in your industry. For example, tech companies often have lower ratios (1:15-1:25), while companies in retail or hospitality may have higher ratios (1:50 or more).
6. Employer branding and candidate experience
- Focus on employer branding. If your company places a strong emphasis on employer branding, you may need a larger team to create content, manage social media, and engage candidates, especially for competitive industries.
- Candidate experience priorities. A recruitment team that prioritizes a high-touch candidate experience may need more resources, including coordinators to handle scheduling and communication.
Recruitment Team Configuration
While no two organizations will work exactly the same, this is how recruitment teams will likely be configured across small, medium and large organizations.
1. Startups
- Configuration: Small, highly flexible teams where roles are often combined.
- Team structure: Usually consists of 1-2 recruiters or even just one person managing HR and recruitment. In very early-stage startups, hiring may be handled by founders or department heads. Sourcers and recruitment coordinators are uncommon, with recruiters handling the entire process. The focus is often on hiring key talent quickly, with all team members pitching in where necessary.
- Characteristics: Agile and adaptable, focusing on filling critical roles to drive growth. Recruitment processes are less formalized, relying on personal networks, referrals, and direct outreach.
2. Mid-sized organizations
- Configuration: More structured with specialized roles starting to emerge.
- Team structure: Includes dedicated recruiters, with some companies adding sourcers or recruitment coordinators to manage high-volume hiring. Recruitment teams collaborate more with HR on onboarding and retention, and there may be a recruitment lead or manager overseeing the process.
- Characteristics: Balanced between efficiency and specialization, able to scale when necessary without significant complexity.
3. Fast-growing organizations
- Configuration: Scalable, highly structured teams with defined roles.
- Team Structure: A combination of recruiters, sourcers, coordinators, and employer brand marketers. Recruitment leads or managers may be responsible for overseeing specific teams or divisions, ensuring recruitment can keep pace with rapid hiring needs. Sometimes, external recruiters or agencies are also used to fill urgent roles.
- Characteristics: Rapid, high-volume hiring requires well-coordinated teams that are prepared to scale quickly with streamlined processes.
4. Large organizations
- Configuration: Highly structured, with distinct roles and departments.
- Team Structure: Includes specialized recruiters for different business areas (e.g., tech, sales, operations), dedicated sourcers, recruitment coordinators, employer brand teams, and data analysts. There may be regional or departmental recruitment heads, with a recruitment operations team overseeing processes, compliance, and reporting. Employer branding and talent acquisition strategy may be separate departments.
- Characteristics: High complexity, focused on efficiency and scale, with well-defined processes and tools like ATS and CRM systems to manage the volume of candidates and job openings.
Defining Metrics And KPIs
What gets measured gets managed. Here are some common recruitment metrics and KPIs used by recruitment teams to identify issues and hone the process.
1. Time-to-hire/time-to-fill
- Definition:
- Time-to-hire refers to the number of days between when a candidate enters the pipeline (e.g., submits an application) and when they accept the job offer.
- Time-to-fill is the total number of days between when a job opening is posted and when a candidate is hired.
- Importance: These metrics measure the efficiency of the recruitment process. Shorter time-to-hire/fill indicates faster placements, which can prevent productivity gaps and reduce recruitment costs.
2. Quality of hire
- Definition: A metric that evaluates the value a new hire brings to the organization, often based on performance reviews, retention rates, and the speed at which they meet key milestones.
- Importance: This is a key indicator of recruitment effectiveness, measuring how well new hires contribute to the company’s success.
3. Number of applicants
- Definition: The total number of candidates who apply for a specific role or across all open positions.
- Importance: This metric helps assess the reach and attractiveness of job postings, as well as the effectiveness of sourcing channels. High applicant numbers can indicate good employer branding and marketing, but it’s also important to balance quantity with quality.
4. Number of interviews
- Definition: The number of interviews conducted per open role, from initial screening to final interviews.
- Importance: Tracking this metric provides insight into the efficiency of the interview process. If too many interviews are needed, it may indicate an overly complex process or difficulty in identifying the right candidate. It can also reveal potential bottlenecks.
5. Conversion ratio
- Definition: The percentage of candidates who advance from one stage of the recruitment process to the next, e.g., from screening to interviews or from interviews to offers.
- Importance: This helps recruiters identify where candidates drop off in the hiring funnel. High drop-off rates at a particular stage might indicate issues with candidate fit, job description clarity, or interview processes.
6. Source quality
- Definition: This measures the effectiveness of different recruitment channels (e.g., job boards, referrals, LinkedIn) in producing high-quality candidates. It evaluates where successful hires are coming from and tracks their performance or longevity within the company.
- Importance: Understanding which sources produce the best candidates helps optimize sourcing efforts, allowing recruiters to focus on the most effective channels, reducing costs and time-to-fill.
7. Cost-per-hire
- Definition: The total cost associated with hiring a new employee, including advertising, recruitment agency fees, recruiter salaries, background checks, and any other hiring-related expenses, divided by the number of hires made.
- Importance: This metric helps companies manage and optimize their recruitment budget. Lowering the cost-per-hire while maintaining or improving the quality of hires is a common recruitment goal.
8. Candidate satisfaction
- Definition: A measure of how satisfied candidates are with the recruitment process, often gathered through surveys post-interview or after the hiring decision is made.
- Importance: Candidate satisfaction reflects the overall candidate experience and impacts employer branding. High satisfaction rates can attract more top talent, even if the candidate doesn’t get the job, as they may recommend your company or reapply in the future.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing
Sometimes organizations choose to outsource select parts of the recruitment process, predominantly candidate sourcing. When it comes to outsourcing recruitment, there are a number of options to suit most needs:
On-Request RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing)
- Definition: On-request RPO provides flexible, short-term recruitment support that can be engaged on an as-needed basis. It’s ideal for handling specific hiring spikes, such as a temporary need for more recruiters during seasonal hiring or a special project.
- How it works: A company partners with an RPO provider to augment its internal recruitment efforts when extra help is needed. The provider can supply recruiters, sourcers, or even use its technology and tools to support the company’s recruitment for a limited time.
- Benefits:
- Scalability and flexibility to handle sudden hiring demands without long-term commitments.
- Cost-effective, as services are only engaged when required.
- Faster hiring without the need to increase the permanent in-house recruitment team.
- Best for: Companies with occasional hiring surges, project-based needs, or limited internal recruitment resources.
Function group-based RPO
- Definition: Function group-based RPO involves outsourcing recruitment for a specific department, job function, or business unit within the company (e.g., IT, sales, marketing, etc.). It is a targeted approach to outsourcing for particular roles or groups.
- How It Works: The RPO provider takes over recruitment for a specific function or team within the organization. They manage everything from sourcing, interviewing, and onboarding to employer branding for that function. The internal HR team handles other areas, while the RPO provider becomes an extension of the company’s talent acquisition team for that specific group.
- Benefits:
- Specialized expertise in recruiting for certain functions, leading to higher-quality candidates.
- Allows internal recruiters to focus on other areas of the business.
- Scalable and adaptable to the needs of a specific department or division.
- Best for: Organizations that need specialized recruitment support in areas that require niche expertise or experience higher demand, like technical or sales roles.
3. Full RPO
- Definition: Full RPO is when an external HR service provider takes over the entire recruitment process for an organization. This includes everything from talent sourcing, screening, interviewing, offer management, and onboarding, as well as talent strategy and employer branding.
- How it works: The RPO provider integrates fully with the organization, often using the company’s brand and tools to manage all recruitment operations. They become a long-term strategic partner, handling all talent acquisition activities across the business. This often includes using advanced technology, recruiting analytics, and employer branding strategies.
- Benefits:
- Comprehensive recruitment support, freeing internal HR teams to focus on other areas.
- Expertise in managing large-scale recruitment and talent acquisition strategy.
- Access to advanced tools, technology, and market insights.
- Can lead to better quality hires, reduced time-to-hire, and overall improved recruitment processes.
- Best for: Larger organizations with high hiring demands, companies undergoing rapid growth, or those that want to fully optimize and outsource their recruitment process.
Options for RPO include dedicated RPO companies, professional employer organizations or, for international hiring especially, an employer of record.
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