HRX/RecruitASP to crack the RPO market

Monday 29th May 2006 5:26 pm EST

Recruitment process outsourcing company HRX has assembled a heavyweight group of HR and recruitment specialists and is rapidly gaining traction in the Australian RPO market. HRX has already secured the full recruitment process outsourcing contract for Sydney University and expects to announce another major client within weeks. The Sydney University deal involves a full implementation of HRX's RecruitASP system, as well as the establishment of a large on-site recruitment team. HRX is also running an RPO deal for major Tenix subsidiary TenixLand.

HRX managing director, Paul Lilley, told Shortlist that the company's recent acquisition of leading recruitment systems company, RecruitASP, was going "exactly as expected". He said HRX saw the RecruitASP acquisition as a chance to acquire "some very good technology" which would be upgraded slightly to make it "a world class" applicant tracking and recruitment management system. A number of changes will be made to the system, Lilley said, including making it more usable for recruiters and upgrading the range of reports the system could provide on recruitment activities. Lilley said RecruitASP also had a blue-chip client base which would give HRX the opportunity of cross-selling its wider range of RPO services.

He said the acquisition had lifted HRX's visibility in the market and put it in a position where it was now being invited to most of the big RPO tenders around Australia. HRX now has 71 staff, said Lilley, including the 30-odd gained through the RecruitASP acquisition, and was increasing at the rate of about eight people per month. He said one of HRX’s key differentiators in the market was that unlike most of its competitors, it didn't have a traditional recruitment business and didn't rely on transactional recruitment for the bulk of its income.

Lilley said HRX was majority owned by online assessment systems pioneer Katrina Leslie (who founded online assessment company e-Predix and took it public in the US some years ago) with minor shareholdings held by other senior staff. HRX's management team also includes former senior Morgan & Banks staffer Brent Pearson, who has been working in the US with Monster as its head of government business solutions. HRX also has former Korn/Ferry RPO boss Meg Feenan on its management team along with former senior banking industry HR executive Jane Hussey.