The Truth About High-Volume RPO Delivery
By Ted Pierni
High-volume recruitment has been a consistent theme throughout my career. I've had the opportunity to work with several large organizations, each with their own unique hiring challenges, but all requiring the ability to recruit at scale—often under tight timelines and with rapidly shifting requirements. In these environments, we weren’t just filling jobs; we were building and optimizing systems capable of moving talent at scale while still maintaining a strong focus on candidate experience and long-term retention.
Within a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) setting, the stakes are even higher. RPO delivery isn’t just about getting people in the door—it’s about doing it in a way that’s scalable, efficient, and aligned with the strategic goals of the business. This requires more than just volume; it demands process discipline, the smart use of technology, and a deep understanding of the people we’re trying to attract. Delivery in this space is where operations meet storytelling, where candidate data drives decisions, and where every touchpoint can influence not just the hire—but their success.
One of the most important elements in high-volume recruitment is getting clarity around the ideal candidate profile. It sounds simple, but in practice, this means investing the time upfront to understand what makes someone successful in a particular role—especially for roles that tend to have high turnover, such as in call centres or entry-level operations. For instance, when I led delivery on a national call centre engagement, we began by reviewing the performance of current employees. We looked at who stayed, who thrived, and what attributes they had in common. What was their educational background? What kind of previous work experience did they have? What motivated them to join, and what made them stay?
We didn’t just rely on metrics—we conducted focus groups with employees to get qualitative feedback as well. These conversations were incredibly insightful. We learned what really mattered to people: things like predictable schedules, the opportunity to grow into new roles, or simply being treated with respect and fairness from day one. These insights helped us develop a more accurate, human-centered candidate profile that went far beyond the job description. This profile became our North Star—not only for sourcing but also for assessments, interviews, and onboarding.
Once we had that profile in place, the next step was to take a hard look at our processes and technologies. High-volume delivery depends on efficiency, and when you’re reviewing hundreds or even thousands of applications each week, inefficiencies add up quickly. We asked ourselves: Is our current process working for us or against us? Where are the bottlenecks? Are we leveraging our tools—including recruiting automation software—in the best way possible?
We re-evaluated our applicant tracking systems (ATS), our screening tools, and our recruiter workflows. We introduced knockout questions to help screen out candidates who didn’t meet the basic role requirements early in the funnel. We also used online assessments to evaluate job fit and introduced realistic job previews to give candidates a better sense of what the role would involve. This helped reduce early-stage attrition by setting expectations right from the start.
Digital interviewing platforms also became a key part of our strategy. With video interviews, we were able to assess communication skills and cultural fit more quickly, while giving candidates the flexibility to complete interviews on their own time. This not only saved recruiters time, but it gave us a consistent way to evaluate candidates across large cohorts. Combined with recruiting automation software, these tools helped streamline pre-screening and coordination across teams.
By aligning our tech stack with the candidate profile, we created a recruitment engine that could handle volume without compromising on quality or candidate care. More importantly, recruiters were freed up to focus on the human side of recruitment—building relationships, understanding the business needs more deeply, and making smarter matches based on what we knew worked.
Over time, we started seeing tangible improvements—not just in time-to-fill, but in areas that truly mattered. We saw increases in training retention rates, reductions in early-stage attrition, and improvements in six-month retention. We also saw stronger engagement from hiring managers, who trusted the process more because they saw better results. But this didn’t happen overnight. High-volume delivery is iterative. It requires constant feedback, refinement, and partnership with the business.
That’s where performance scorecards came in. We didn’t just track basic metrics like number of hires or time-to-fill. We aligned our scorecards with the business’s definition of success. Our metrics included fill rates, start rates, drop-offs during training, six-month retention, and quality-of-hire indicators. In some cases, time-to-fill was deprioritized in favor of metrics that were more predictive of long-term success. These scorecards were reviewed monthly and quarterly with stakeholders, giving us a chance to analyze trends and take corrective action when needed.
For example, in one engagement we noticed that a particular sourcing channel was delivering high application volume but had a significantly lower training retention rate. By digging deeper, we realized the messaging in our job ads wasn’t aligning with the candidate experience, leading to mismatched expectations. With that insight, we updated the messaging, realigned the screening questions, and saw retention improve within two hiring cycles.
Another critical piece was ensuring we had two-way feedback loops throughout the process. We regularly gathered input from hiring managers, trainers, and even new hires themselves. Feedback from team leads helped us fine-tune the interview process, while insights from trainers highlighted gaps between candidate expectations and actual job responsibilities. This feedback loop wasn’t a one-time initiative—it was baked into our operating model, and it helped us stay agile and relevant in a rapidly changing market.
Flexibility was also key when it came to designing inclusive hiring strategies. In one call centre program, we had a goal of increasing diversity—across culture, language, and gender. To do that, we had to think beyond traditional recruiting methods. We tailored our recruitment campaigns to highlight flexible work arrangements, offered different shift structures, and provided targeted outreach in communities that were underrepresented in our workforce. We made sure our job descriptions and assessments were inclusive and accessible, and we trained our recruiters on unconscious bias. Inclusion wasn’t just a goal—it became a lens we used at every stage of the process.
These adjustments paid off. Not only did we reach our diversity goals, but we also built a more engaged, committed workforce. Employees who felt seen, heard, and supported from the start were more likely to stay—and more likely to refer others.
Reflecting on these experiences, what stands out is how critical delivery really is in high-volume environments. It’s not just about speed. It’s about how well you understand your candidates, how well you use your tools, and how well your processes align with the business outcomes that matter. Delivery leaders have the ability to influence more than just hiring—they can shape culture, drive retention, and ultimately improve business performance.
What worked best was never the flashy new tech or a clever sourcing trick. It was the relentless focus on understanding people—the candidates, the recruiters, the hiring managers—and continuously designing the process around them. It was the willingness to test, learn, and adapt quickly. And it was the commitment to building real partnerships across every function involved in the hiring process. When supported by the right recruiting automation software, these human-centered strategies become even more scalable and effective.
High-volume recruitment will always come with pressure. The numbers can be daunting, the timelines short, and the expectations high. But when delivery is grounded in strategy, built on insight, and designed for scale, it becomes a powerful driver of organizational success.
Ready to streamline your high-volume hiring with precision and impact? Let’s talk about how the right recruiting automation software and strategy can transform your recruitment outcomes—reach out to start the conversation.