RPO or secondment
Hire specialists temporarily or bring them on board yourself? Here you'll see honestly what secondment delivers, what it costs and when recruiting your own people is structurally smarter.
What is the difference between secondment and RPO?
With secondment you hire a specialist who is employed by the secondment agency: quickly available, but temporary and at a hefty hourly rate. With RPO you recruit specialists who join your own payroll. Secondment fits temporary expertise, RPO fits knowledge you need permanently.
How we recruit specialistsSecondment and RPO side by side
The comparison| Secondment | SocialFind RPO | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | High hourly rate for as long as the secondee stays | Fixed monthly fee for the recruitment, then a normal salary |
| Knowledge retention | Knowledge and experience leave with the secondee | Knowledge stays in your own team and keeps growing there |
| Availability | Quickly deployable, that's the strength of secondment | Recruitment takes time, but delivers a permanent fill |
| Loyalty to your organization | Loyalty sits with the agency and their own career | Employees consciously choose your organization |
| Employer branding | No effect on your employer brand | Every campaign builds your name with the target audience |
| Long-term cost | The rate keeps running, extension is the rule | Recruitment costs are one-off per specialist hired |
| Suitable for | Temporary expertise, projects, bridging a gap | Building lasting knowledge in your own team |
What is a secondment agency?
A secondment agency employs professionals itself and places them temporarily with clients, usually for a project or a defined period. The seconded professional is on the agency's payroll, you pay an hourly rate and manage the professional's day-to-day work. So you buy knowledge and capacity, without hiring the person yourself.
The difference from a temp agency lies in duration and profile: temping is meant for flexible, often operational capacity with short contracts, secondment for specialists who stay in one place for longer. The difference from RPO is more fundamental: with secondment the specialist remains with the agency, with RPO we recruit someone who joins your organisation and stays. How that same trade-off works out for operational capacity is explained at RPO or a temp agency.
If you are also considering freelancers alongside secondment in the Netherlands, new rules are on the way. When a self-employed person is in any case not an employee is covered in What does the Dutch Self-Employment Act change for hiring freelancers?
Renting capacity or building a team?
The core
Every month of secondment solves that month's problem. Your own specialist solves the problem for good and makes your team stronger. So the question isn't what's faster, but what you want to have in place two years from now.
See our approach for scarce talentWhen is secondment the better choice?
Honestly: sometimes it just is. A six-month implementation project, expertise you won't need afterwards, or bridging while a colleague recovers. For temporary, well-defined jobs, a secondee is exactly what you pay for: knowledge without commitment.
Where does structural secondment start to pinch?
Many organizations use secondment not because the work is temporary, but because they can't find the specialist themselves. Then secondment becomes an expensive stopgap: the hourly rate keeps running, one extension follows another, and when the contract ends the knowledge walks out the door. Meanwhile your own team doesn't get stronger and the vacancy effectively stays open.
How do you find specialists who seem impossible to find?
The fact that scarce profiles don't respond to job sites doesn't mean they're out of reach. With active sourcing and Thought Leader Recruitment we approach passive talent personally, with a substantive story instead of a standard vacancy. That's how you build a specialist team built around your employer brand, not an agency's.
What does that mean financially?
Put the annual rate of a secondee next to the salary of that same specialist on your payroll plus one-off recruitment costs. The business case for RPO helps you make that comparison cleanly, including the cost of knowledge that keeps leaving.
Ready to bring knowledge in-house?
Tell us what expertise you're currently renting. You'll get an honest picture of what it costs to bring that knowledge on board for good, and whether that's wise in your situation.
Frequently asked questions about secondment and RPO
We do not fish in the pool of active job seekers, because your target group rarely swims there. Through sourcing, targeted content and a personal approach, we reach specialists who do not apply but are open to the right story. That requires a proposition per target group, and that is exactly what we build with you.
For next week: yes. For next year: no. Secondment delivers immediate capacity, but every extension confirms that the work is structural. If you recruit in parallel, you will have your own specialist in place within a reasonable time and can stop paying the hourly rate.
That is often the practical route: the secondment provider bridges the gap while we recruit the permanent hire. That way you maintain continuity without the temporary solution quietly becoming permanent. What matters is a clear end date for the external contract.
Turnover is part of the labor market, but there is a difference: a departing employee leaves behind knowledge, documentation and a stronger team, and your funnel and talent pool are still standing. When a seconded worker leaves, everything leaves at once. And we work on retention through the right match, not just the fastest one.
We approach candidates employed by secondment providers just like any other latent candidates. For many of them, a permanent role with professional growth at one organization is an attractive alternative to changing assignments. We tell that story on your behalf, under your name.
For you as an employer the disadvantages are mainly financial and structural: the hourly rate keeps running as long as the seconded professional is there, extensions pile up and the knowledge built up leaves as soon as the contract ends. The professional's loyalty lies with the agency and their own career, not with your organisation. And because you hire under the agency's name, secondment builds nothing for your employer brand. For a temporary project that does not weigh heavily; for a structural need it does.
Both agencies employ the worker themselves and lend them to you, but the purpose differs. A temp agency provides flexible capacity, often for operational roles, with short contracts that can be scaled up and down quickly. A secondment agency places specialists for a longer, pre-agreed period, usually on a project basis and at a higher rate. In short: temping is hands for now, secondment is knowledge for a while. If you want that knowledge in-house permanently, recruiting yourself is the third option.
A secondment agency recruits and selects specialists, employs them and places them with clients who temporarily need that expertise. The agency handles salary, contract and often training too; you handle the work and the day-to-day management. When the assignment ends, the professional moves on to the next client. That makes secondment convenient for projects, and less suitable for knowledge you want to keep in-house yourself.