Prime RPO turns to US Newton for ATS software
Charlotte Murdoch
Prime RPO, a new business launched within the Prime People Group, has become the first recruiter in the UK to implement Newton recruitment process outsourcing software from US-based software developer Newton.
Charlotte Murdoch, head of product delivery at Prime RPO, told Recruiter that from an RPO perspective the company found it difficult to source an applicant tracking system (ATS) supplier that could provide the scalability and flexibility that it wanted to offer clients.
Murdoch said the company met with eight suppliers but Newton came in to the frame much later after she had read about the developer and tracked it down via co-founder Joel Passen’s blog. Passen previously ran an RPO firm handling some 30 Silicon Valley clients for several years.
“Initially I was sceptical that a US provider would fully understand - and be able to deliver on - what we needed in the UK and globally thereafter,” she said. “But it was refreshing to get guidance from an ex-RPO recruiter who was able to translate the software jargon and what it meant in real terms for our customers and/or users.”
Newton RPO, which is sold as software-as-a-service (SaaS), is similar to the product it has developed for employers but is tailored to external recruiting practices. Murdoch explained that Prime RPO offers project-based and/or month-by-month contracts for its clients, so it needed an ATS that it could use in a similar manner and scale up or down to suit each individual contract. “We want to build strong partnerships with our clients so it is important for us to work with partners that understand our objectives, are available on call, are prepared to work as hard as we do and that reflect our ongoing commitment for continuous improvement,” she said. “We are already enjoying the benefits of a much quicker launch time and reduced training requirement than we’d anticipated for internal and external users. The Newton team are also on standby to format jobs into career pages for our clients and launch them online without additional marketing costs.”
Passen told Recruiter that Newton had always felt the UK RPO market was under-served by ATS providers and said it is currently receiving four to five inquiries a month from UK-based recruitment companies. “Every feature on our product roadmap is geared towards solving the fundamental problems that some of our peers in the ATS space have ignored, like applicant experience, hiring manager experience and user adoption,” he said. “We’re interested in making things like email integration and calendaring work better. With over 100 customers on the platform, we have the momentum and resources to really gain some global marketshare this year.”
