What is project RPO and how is it different from full RPO?
Full RPO is ongoing: a provider runs all your hiring for as long as you have hiring. Project RPO has edges. You agree a list of roles, a location, a timeline and a fee, the provider runs that project to the end, and the engagement closes. Recruitment on demand is the same model with a shorter lead time, used when a burst arrives without warning, for example a contract win that needs twenty people in eight weeks.
The difference matters for cost. A hiring burst handled by agencies means a separate fee on every hire, commonly around 20 percent of first-year salary according to a Staffing Industry Analysts survey, and twenty hires at that rate is a large number. Handling it by hiring recruiters means carrying them after the burst ends. Project RPO gives you the capacity for the burst and nothing after it.
When do companies use on-demand RPO?
The triggers are usually events rather than growth curves.
- A new office or a new country: ten to fifty hires in a market where you have no network
- A contract win or product launch: a team that must exist by a fixed date
- Seasonal peaks: retail, logistics, hospitality, tax season, support teams before a release
- A backfill wave: several people leave at once, or a reorganisation opens many roles
- A hiring freeze lifting: a backlog of approved roles that all open in the same month
- A recruiter on leave: cover for the roles one person was running
How does a Scowter project RPO engagement run?
The project is scoped first. We agree the list of roles, the must-haves for each, the locations, the target period and the flat monthly fee for the project. Then the standard Scowter process runs for every role in parallel. You tell us the roles. Our AI agents search Scowter's own talent pools and the 150+ job boards we index and screen every CV against the must-haves. Our human recruiters interview everyone who passes, confirm availability and salary, and verify the CV. You receive ready-to-hire shortlists with notes. We handle scheduling, follow-ups and offer coordination, and your managers run the final interviews and say yes.
Running roles in parallel is what makes a burst manageable. The AI agents do not get slower when the role count goes from two to twenty, and the recruiters' time is spent on interviews rather than on search. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking reports a median of 39 calendar days to fill a nonexecutive role; in a project, roles that start from existing talent pools rather than from a fresh job post use those days better.
What does fixed scope and timeline mean in practice?
A project RPO agreement should be specific enough that both sides know when it is done.
| Item | What is agreed | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Roles | A named list with must-haves and salary ranges | Stops scope growing without a conversation |
| Locations | Cities or countries, on-site or remote | Sets which talent pools and boards are searched |
| Timeline | Start date and target end date for the project | Sets the monthly fee period and the reporting cadence |
| Fee | Flat monthly amount for the project roles | No per-hire charge, so adding a hire within scope costs nothing extra |
| Reporting | Weekly numbers per role | Shows which roles are on track and which need a brief change |
| Changes | How roles are added or removed and what it costs | Avoids disputes when the plan changes, which it will |
| Close | What happens at the end: hand-over of pipeline and data | You keep the candidates you did not hire for next time |
What does project RPO cost?
Scowter quotes a flat monthly fee for the project, based on the number of roles, their difficulty and the locations. There is no percentage of salary and no fee per hire, so a project with twelve roles costs the same whether you fill eight or twelve within it. The fee runs for the project months and stops at the close. If the project ends early because the roles are filled, the fee stops early. If the scope grows, we re-quote the monthly figure for the added roles from the next month.
Compared with agency fees on each hire, a flat fee is usually far lower for any burst above two or three roles, and it is known before the project starts, which is what finance teams ask for when a launch budget is being set.
How do you prepare for a hiring burst?
The projects that go well share the same preparation. The hiring managers agree the must-haves before the project starts rather than during it. Interview slots are blocked in managers' calendars for the project period, because the fastest way to lose a burst is a shortlist that waits two weeks for an interview. One person on your side owns decisions, so feedback comes back within a day or two. And the offer process, including who signs, is agreed in advance so that an accepted candidate is not lost in approvals.
We help with all of this on the scoping call, and we flag early in the weekly report when a role is stalling on your side rather than ours.
Project RPO or full RPO: which do you need?
Choose project RPO when the hiring has a clear end: an office opened, a team built, a season over. Choose full RPO when hiring is continuous and you want the process owned permanently. Many companies start with a project, see the shortlists and the reporting, and move to full RPO afterwards for the ongoing roles. Scowter runs both, and moving from one to the other is a change of quote, not a new contract.
