Recruitment can undoubtedly be expensive, with many employers ending up underestimating the total cost by as much as 95%.

This is why companies but so much time, effort and resources into retaining their best employees. Even if you have a fabulous company ethos, invest in employee development and have a Google-style wonderland of an office for your team to work in, you will still need to recruit. Your company may grow or employees simply head off in search of pastures new.

Talent acquisition is absolutely worth investing in, but it doesn’t need to be a money pit. Here are some tips to help you keep your recruitment costs at a manageable level and ensure you get great value for what you spend…

1. Compare the costs of outsourcing

You may think that using a recruitment firm is an unnecessary expense when you can do it in-house, but it’s well worth crunching the numbers. How long in staff hours would you spend carrying out the process, from advertising the role to sifting applications, interviewing, pre-screening and issuing contracts? It’s a lengthy and complicated process, especially if conducted by someone inexperienced in talent acquisition – a situation which many smaller firms lacking a dedicated recruitment team find themselves in.

An agency, especially one that specialises in your industry and with a wide network of suitable candidates, may also be more accurate. This means the perfect candidate at the first time of asking, whereas you may run the risk of getting it wrong and having to carry out the whole process again from the beginning.

2. Make employees your advocates

If your employees love their jobs and are engaged with the company, they can be very useful when it comes to finding new recruits. It’s likely that they will have friends or at least LinkedIn contacts in a similar industry, giving you easy access to a new pool of talent. You can even sweeten the deal with a referral scheme, offering benefits to your employees to incentivise the sourcing and recommendation of applicants for new roles.

3. Streamline the recruitment process

The quicker and more efficient you can make the recruitment process, the less it will cost. Start by detailing exactly what you’re looking for, and use this to write your job description and person specification. Look at your processes in depth, cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy and steps where possible, making sure that it also offers a good candidate experience. Put a timeline and deadlines in place so that everything can proceed according to a plan.

4. Make use of social and digital tools

Social media is one of the cheapest and most efficient ways of advertising a vacancy, but you can also use it to ‘sell’ your company to prospective employees. Give them an insight behind the scenes at your business, share engaging content and don’t be afraid to start and join in conversations.

5. Create a talent pool

An applicant may not be right for this role, but they may be for the next one that opens up. If you’ve put in the groundwork to screen and get to know a candidate, don’t let it be wasted. Shave time and money off your next recruitment drive by putting this candidate into your talent pool, ready to approach next time.

For advice on effective recruitment or to find out how SOLOS Recruitment can help you with fast, efficient and accurate specialist talent acquisition, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

image courtesy of Sira Anamwong @ freedigitalphotos.net