In Australia's uniquely challenging talent market, characterised by geographic isolation, skills shortages in key sectors, and increasingly complex compliance requirements, forward-thinking Chief People Officers (CPOs) are abandoning the traditional "build vs. buy" talent acquisition model. Instead, they're creating fluid, integrated ecosystems where internal TA functions and RPO providers form seamless partnerships with complimentary strengths. This article examines how leading Australian organisations are designing these augmented talent functions to address local market challenges while building sustainable competitive advantages.

The Australian Context: Moving Beyond Traditional Models

Australia's talent acquisition landscape faces distinctive challenges that make traditional recruitment models increasingly ineffective. The Australian's recent analysis of national labour trends highlighted that 71% of organisations report extending time-to-fill metrics over the past three years, with particularly acute challenges in technology, healthcare, and professional services.

"The post-COVID employment market, combined with ongoing immigration restrictions and the recent policy shifts following the election, has created a perfect storm for Australian talent acquisition teams," explains Dr. James Wilson, AHRI's Director of Research. "Organisations that cling to rigid internal-only or fully outsourced models are struggling to adapt to these rapidly changing conditions."

This view is reinforced by JobSkills Australia's 2025 Labour Market Review, which found that organisations with flexible, hybrid talent acquisition models demonstrated 37% greater recruitment effectiveness across key metrics compared to those with traditional structures.

The Rise of the Augmented Talent Function

The most innovative Australian CPOs are now embracing the augmented talent function, a fluid ecosystem where internal recruitment capabilities are strategically enhanced by RPO partnerships.  Rather than debating whether to build internal capability or outsource to an RPO, we've created an integrated talent function where responsibilities shift dynamically based on changing business needs, market conditions, and strategic priorities.

This approach is gaining traction across Australian industries. According to AHRI's Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Study, 42% of Australian organisations now describe their recruitment model as "hybrid" or "augmented," up from just 17% in 2021.

Key Components of the Australian Augmented Model

Based on interviews with leading Australian CPOs, several common elements characterise this emerging model:

1. Strategic Core, Extended Capabilities

Successful Australian organisations maintain a strategic internal talent acquisition core focused on:

• Employer brand development (particularly important given Australia's competitive regional talent markets)
• Candidate experience design (critical in small talent pools where reputation travels quickly)
• Hiring manager partnerships (essential for navigating Australia's unique workplace culture)
• Strategic workforce planning (addressing Australia's geographic talent distribution challenges)

These internal capabilities are then augmented by RPO-provided extensions that deliver:

• Scalable sourcing capacity (particularly valuable for projects requiring rapid scaling)
• Specialised expertise in hard-to-fill roles (addressing critical skills shortages)
• Geographic reach across Australia's dispersed population centres
• Technological capabilities that would be prohibitively expensive to maintain internally

2. Skills-Based Allocation Rather Than Role-Based Division

Unlike traditional models where certain roles or functions are designated as internal or outsourced, the augmented approach allocates responsibilities based on skills and capabilities.

CPOs are moving away from saying 'the RPO handles these job families and we handle these others.' Instead, they assess each requirement against a combined capability matrix and deploy the right resources, internal or RPO based on who can deliver the best outcomes for that specific need.

This flexibility is particularly valuable in navigating Australia's diverse regional talent markets, where recruitment approaches that work in Sydney or Melbourne may be ineffective in Perth or Adelaide.

3. Unified Technology Ecosystem

Successful augmented talent functions operate on integrated technology platforms that enable seamless collaboration between internal and RPO teams.

The Australian Financial Review's 2025 HR Technology Special Report noted that 63% of organisations with high-performing hybrid recruitment models cite "unified technology infrastructure" as a critical success factor.

Investing in a single technology ecosystem that both your internal team and the RPO partner operate within gives you complete visibility across all talent acquisition activities while allowing the RPO partner to flexibly deploy resources where they're most needed.

This technological integration is particularly important given the geographic dispersion of Australian recruitment teams, who often need to collaborate across multiple time zones and locations.

4. Knowledge Integration and Transfer

Leading Australian organisations design their augmented talent functions with deliberate knowledge transfer mechanisms.

"We view our RPO partnership as a two-way learning relationship," notes David Williams, Chief People Officer at a growing healthcare provider. "Our internal team gains exposure to leading recruitment practices and technologies, while our RPO partner develops deep understanding of our unique culture and operational requirements."

This approach addresses a concern highlighted in AHRI's Talent Capability Report, which found that 68% of Australian organisations worry about "expertise degradation" when outsourcing recruitment functions.

Measuring Success in the Augmented Model

Australian organisations with successful augmented talent functions have developed sophisticated metrics to evaluate their effectiveness. According to AHRI's Recruitment Effectiveness Benchmarking, leading indicators include:

• Talent Function Agility: Ability to scale recruitment capacity up or down within specified timeframes
• Capability Enhancement: Measurable improvement in internal recruitment team capabilities
• Knowledge Retention: Documentation and integration of RPO-generated insights and practices
• Innovation Adoption: Implementation rate of new recruitment technologies and methodologies
• Business Alignment: Correlation between talent acquisition activities and business outcomes

Considerations for CPOs

For Australian Chief People Officers looking to develop augmented talent functions, several considerations emerge from market leaders:

1. Start with Strategy: Define the strategic capabilities your talent function must deliver, then design your augmented model to address these priorities
2. Focus on Integration: Invest in the technological, process, and cultural integration needed to create a truly seamless experience
3. Develop Clear Decision Rights: Establish frameworks for determining how recruitment responsibilities will be allocated between internal and RPO resources
4. Build Measurement Mechanisms: Create metrics that evaluate the effectiveness of your augmented model against business outcomes rather than traditional recruitment KPIs
5. Embrace Continuous Evolution: Design your model to adapt as business needs, market conditions, and strategic priorities change

As one Chief People Officer summarised in a recent AHRI leadership forum: "In Australia's uniquely challenging talent landscape, the question is no longer whether to build or buy recruitment capability. It's how to create an integrated ecosystem that combines the best of both worlds, delivering the strategic alignment of internal teams with the specialisation, scale, and flexibility of RPO partnerships."

Reference Data: Jobs and Skills Australia, AHRI.

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