160 Hires in 12 Months: Embedded RPO on a Live West African Brownfield Expansion
A brownfield expansion on a live, remote base metals asset doesn't pause for hiring delays. Production continues. Contractors are on site. The project timeline is fixed. Whatever recruitment model gets deployed has to move at the same pace as everything else happening on the ground, or it becomes the constraint everyone else is waiting on.
The Brief
A base metals operator running a phased brownfield expansion needed close to 160 hires across 12 months, spanning expatriate technical specialists through to site management roles. The asset was remote, the rotation structure was shift-based, and the existing internal HR function was already stretched thin managing the live operation. There was no spare capacity to also run a 160-person hiring campaign without external support.
What We Did
We embedded a dedicated on-site recruitment team working the same shift patterns as the operation itself, present when decision-makers were present, available when interviews needed to happen, not running on a separate clock to the rest of the project. End-to-end ownership sat with us: sourcing, screening, technical assessment coordination, offer management, and onboarding logistics for an expatriate-heavy workforce moving into a remote site.
Because the team worked shifts aligned to the client's own operational rhythm, decisions didn't sit waiting for a recruiter back in a head office time zone. Hiring managers got answers and shortlists when they were actually available to act on them, which on a live operation is not always nine-to-five.
What It Delivered
160 hires across the 12-month programme, spanning expatriate technical specialists, engineers, and management-level appointments. The project stayed on schedule throughout, recruitment never became the bottleneck holding back the next phase of the expansion. The client's internal HR function retained full oversight and decision authority throughout; the embedded team handled the volume and the pace, HR handled the judgement calls that needed their context.
Why It Worked
The model only works if the embedded team genuinely understands what a brownfield expansion on a live remote asset actually demands, the rotation logistics, the expatriate mobilisation requirements, the pressure of hiring around an operation that doesn't stop. Generalist RPO providers struggle here because they're assessing candidates for a context they've never operated in. Sector fluency isn't a nice-to-have on a project like this, it's the difference between hitting the timeline and becoming the reason it slips.
If you're running a remote, complex or time-critical expansion and need a hiring partner who can move at the same pace as the project, talk to us about Project RPO.