What is full RPO and how is it different from hiring a recruiter?
Full recruitment process outsourcing means you hand the whole hiring process to a partner. The partner writes the search plan, finds candidates, screens them, interviews them, checks their availability and salary expectations, and books interviews with your team. You keep the final decision. An in-house recruiter does the same work, but one person can only run a few searches at a time and still has to use job boards, tools and sourcing lists that cost money on top of salary.
With Scowter the process is run by two kinds of agents. AI agents do the heavy, repeated work: searching our talent pools and more than 150 job boards, matching profiles to your must-haves, screening CVs and keeping candidates warm with follow-ups. Human recruiters do the work that needs judgement: interviews, availability and salary checks, CV verification and the notes you read before you meet anyone. The result is a service that is faster than a single recruiter and more careful than software alone.
Who is recruitment process outsourcing for?
Two groups get the most out of full RPO. The first is employers who have open roles but no time. A founder, a head of engineering or an operations lead who is interviewing at night and sourcing at the weekend is losing time that should go to the business. SHRM benchmarking puts the median time to fill a nonexecutive role at 39 calendar days, and that is for teams that have recruiters. Without one, it is usually longer.
The second group is recruitment and staffing agencies with more requirements than hands. When a client sends six roles in a week, the agency can either turn some down or outsource the sourcing and screening to Scowter while keeping the client relationship. The agency's own recruiters relax, present candidates and close.
- Companies hiring 2 to 50 people a year with no in-house recruiter
- Teams whose hiring managers are doing all the sourcing themselves
- Agencies with overflow requirements or thin sourcing capacity
- Companies entering a new country or city where they have no network
How does the Scowter RPO process work?
The process has five steps and you are only active at the first and last one.
First, you tell us the roles: title, must-haves, nice-to-haves, location or time zone, and the salary range. Second, our AI agents search Scowter's own talent pools and the 150+ job boards we index, then screen every CV against your must-haves so only real matches move on. Third, our human recruiters interview the candidates who pass, confirm they are available, confirm the salary works, and verify the CV claims that matter. Fourth, you receive a ready-to-hire shortlist with interview notes for each person. Fifth, we handle the scheduling, the follow-ups and the offer coordination. You run the final interviews and say yes.
What is included in Scowter's full RPO?
Everything between the job brief and the signed offer is covered by the monthly fee. There are no separate charges for job board access, sourcing tools or candidate outreach, because those are already part of our agents' work.
- Role intake and a written search plan for each open position
- Sourcing from Scowter talent pools and 150+ job boards
- CV screening against your must-haves, with reasons for each decision
- Recruiter interviews, availability and salary checks, CV verification
- A shortlist with notes, delivered on a regular rhythm you agree with us
- Interview scheduling, candidate follow-ups and offer coordination
- A weekly summary of pipeline numbers for each role
How is full RPO priced?
Scowter charges a flat monthly fee, quoted on the number of open roles you want us to run. There is no percentage commission on salary and no placement fee when someone accepts. This matters because the usual agency model charges a share of first-year salary; a Staffing Industry Analysts survey found the most common direct-hire fee in North America is 20 percent of first-year salary, with ranges of 15 to 25 percent depending on the type of firm. On a flat fee, hiring a more senior person does not cost you more, and filling two roles in a month does not cost double.
You get a quote after a short call where we confirm the number of roles, the locations and how hard each search is. The monthly fee stays the same while the roles are open, so your hiring budget is known in advance.
What are Scowter's talent pools?
Most recruiting starts from zero every time: post a job, wait, sort. Scowter starts from a live database of candidates who are actively looking and have already been through a first screen. The pools cover technology, sales, healthcare, finance and operations, with candidates in the United States, India, the United Kingdom, the Gulf and other markets. The pools are refreshed by our job-search product, where candidates upload CVs and tell us what they want next.
On top of the pools, our agents index more than 150 job boards, so we can see who is applying where and reach people who have not come to us yet. The combination means a search often has first matches on day one instead of week two.
Why do AI and human agents together beat either one alone?
AI alone is fast but shallow. It can match keywords and rank profiles, but it cannot tell you that a candidate is leaving because of a bad manager, or that the salary on their profile is two years old. Human recruiters alone are careful but slow, and they spend most of their day on search and admin instead of talking to people. SHRM reported the average cost per hire at nearly 4,700 dollars, and a large part of that cost is recruiter hours spent on repetitive steps.
Scowter splits the work by what each does best. AI handles volume: search, matching, first screening, scheduling and reminders. Humans handle judgement: interviews, verification, salary conversations and the notes that tell you who to meet first. You get the speed of software and the trust of a recruiter who has actually spoken to the person.
| Task | AI agent | Human recruiter |
|---|---|---|
| Search talent pools and 150+ boards | Yes | Reviews results |
| Screen CVs against must-haves | Yes | Spot checks |
| Interview and assess fit | No | Yes |
| Check availability and salary | Prompts | Confirms in conversation |
| Verify CV claims | Flags gaps | Verifies |
| Schedule and follow up | Yes | Steps in when needed |
| Offer coordination | Tracks | Handles the conversation |
