Tips on Maximising Your Recruitment Budget

According to Glassdoor, the average US company spends $4000 and 52 days hiring a new employee. It’s time to get strategic on how to successfully fill your positions with a lower cost-to-hire.  

There are many ways to go about your recruitment process, but every hiring strategy should not be treated equally for every business and every position. If you are wondering where you should invest time, money and energy, and how to attract top talent without breaking the bank, read our guide below on “Tips to Maximise Your Recruitment Budget.”

To learn more about how our recruitment software can help you save time and money during the hiring process, check out our How It Works page.

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Spend more time at the beginning of the recruitment process

It may seem most efficient to quickly type up and post a broad job description so you can get started on interviews and screening sooner rather than later. However, rushing at the beginning of the recruitment process will actually cost you more time and more money in the long run.

A survey conducted by Work Institute found that in 2018, 40% of employees left their jobs within 12 months of being hired. This is often because they are not correctly briefed on what the job will entail, or are not screened for the qualities necessary for a specific company culture. These small mistakes at the beginning of the hiring process can greatly effective a companies yearly recruitment budget, given the cost of hiring for the same position more than once.

In order to avoid quick turnover, make sure your job description is accurate and detailed enough to attract the best quality talent. A generic job posting will leave you with hundreds of identical or irrelevant applications, meaning that you will spend more time and labour sifting through all of these candidates--and potentially pick the wrong one. While 72% of hiring managers say that they provide clear job descriptions, only 36% of candidates say that same, according to a study by the Allegis Group. This means that you should spend more time working with your team at the beginning of the process to create the best job description possible, rather than rushing straight into screening candidates.

Here are some strategies to ensure that you and your team are prepared to start hiring the right employees in the most cost-effective way possible:

• Survey recent hires and top-performing employees about what made your job description stand out. Ask them about what drew them to your company and how they found you, as well. Analysing these factors beforehand will give you insight about what to include in a job description and, ultimately, where to post it in order to find the right candidates.
• Add tougher screening questions to your application to narrow down the most suitable candidates. Ask deal breakers questions such as salary preference or required qualifications earlier in the process so that you can minimise the time spent on candidates that aren’t a good fit.

Get creative with recruitment technology

According to Chris Forman, CEO of StartDate Labs, “It’s time for recruiters to follow the lead of professional marketers and allow software and data to drive the best placement of their ads.” If hiring managers can leverage this technology, he says, they will achieve a higher return on investment and create a better approach to placing job ads.

Recruitment software has been proven to save time and money during the hiring process, in addition to combating common concerns by hiring teams. A 2017 survey by SAP found that over 90% of HR professionals in small businesses believe that identifying promising candidates is the greatest challenge in the recruitment process. Additionally, 82% reported that managing job postings on multiple boards and platforms is also an obstacle. Luckily, there’s a solution. Recruitment software can do everything from posting your job across multiple recruiting sites to screening CVs for the perfect candidate. This software can also analyse collected data to give you insights about what platforms bring you the best quality and quantity of candidates, so you can make more cost-effective hiring decisions in the future.

Software isn’t the only way to use technology to save you money during the hiring process, though. You should also spend some time updating the careers page of your company website, as 64% of candidates listed these sites as a top resource channel when searching for new job opportunities, according to the Talent Board’s 2015 Candidate Experience Research.

Dive into the tech world with your hiring team and let software do the work; technology should be your best, cost-effective, friend during the hiring process.

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Don’t underestimate social media

An increasingly popular way to maximise your budget and save on recruitment costs is utilising social media. As millennial's take over the majority of the workforce, employers are investing more time into finding out what makes them tick--through the digital world of social media.

A SHRM survey found that 84% of hiring teams use social media to source and recruit high-quality candidates. This is for a good reason; 73% of millennial's found their last position through a social media site, according to a study from the Aberdeen Group. As an added bonus, creating a social media page is completely free. 

Social media pages make it easy to both post content and track data. Your page analytics can show you what audience you are reaching and give you insights on how to attract your target candidates. If you find that social media has been your most successful platform for bringing in top talent, you can also allocate part of your budget to creating specialised ads for each site. These ads and posts can be targeted towards specific demographics, locations, keywords and personal interests, allowing you to find the right people fast and reduce your cost-to-hire. In fact, Instagram usage by Fortune 500 companies surpassed that of Pinterest and Google+ according to a 2015 survey by the University of Dartmouth. It pays to meet your potential workforce in their space.

Not only can you reach active job seekers through social media, you can also use your profiles to attract passive candidates, i.e. those you believe would make a valuable addition to your company but who are not currently seeking a new job. Social media is a great way to create a memorable employer brand and connect with top talent. In fact, SHRM found that 82% of their survey respondents say that recruiting passive job candidates is the top reason they use social media during the hiring process. Attractive social pages that produces content of interest for your target audience, can help you source potential candidates and establish a positive association with your brand and logo, which will attract candidates to future job postings.

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Involve your current employees

Despite all of the modern advances in technology, one of your best resources during the recruitment process is still your current employees. After all, they did go through--and succeed at--the hiring process, and they now have unmatched knowledge about your company and their roles.

One way to involve current employees is an employee referral program. Employee referral programs can be hugely beneficial for your workplace in two ways: lower cost-to-hire and higher employee engagement. Glassdoor found that referred candidates skills generally match better, and the odds of finding successful employees increase when you use referrals. This means that you can hire your next employee faster and save money on advertisements and marketing campaigns when you use a referral program. 

Additionally, current employees will likely only refer candidates that they believe will fit in with the company culture. This is probably why 65% of referred employees are satisfied with their jobs and are confident with their ability to fulfil the requirements of the position, according to Forbes.

Current employees are also essential for boosting your employer brand. Job seekers are more likely to trust employees rather than the hiring team, so try to get their opinions and voices on review sites such as Glassdoor and Indeed, as well as your social media and career pages. You can also ask, and give incentives, if they will post new job openings to their individual feeds as brand ambassadors for your organisation. (However, if you want your employees to rave about your company, you’ll have to make sure they have a company culture to rave about.)

An incentivised program is the perfect way to show appreciation for your employees and encourage them to engage. Since hiring a referred candidate decreases your cost-to-hire significantly, you can spend some of those savings on a reward for successful referrers. Offer extra annual leave days, a monthly bonus or a weekend experience--anything that aligns with your employee culture and will motivate your employees to get involved. Much like recruitment software, there are now referral platforms, like HireUp, that will assist you increase and incentivise referral programs easily for your business. 

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Finding the best employees fast and cost-effectively requires teamwork and strategic planning--as well as a bit of tech savviness. To make sure that you continue to attract and recruit the best talent in the years to come, check out Occupop’s recruitment software!

Our user-friendly platform helps you reduce costs during recruitment, posting your job description to 16+ job boards, social media profiles and your careers page instantly. Additionally, our real-time analytics provides insights on CV source and time-to-hire, allowing you to make informed and cost effective hiring decisions, saving you up to 78% of recruitment costs. By saving as much as €2,000 per new hire, you can spend more time and money on the things that really matter: your current and future employees.

Learn more about our money-saving techniques and get started for free now at Occupop, and subscribe below to get more recruitment tips and updates straight to your inbox!