A Guide to Reducing your Recruitment Costs

There are various methods of attracting quality candidates to your vacancies. To find staff you can advertise internally and on your own company website, in national / regional / local or trade press, use a recruitment agency, advertise on one of the many online job sites or use an online managed recruitment service.

The aim of any of recruiter, whether recruiting for one or ten positions, is to reduce the cost per hire, reduce the risk involved and to finish by hiring the best possible candidate for the job.

What are the benefits of the different types of recruitment methods and what will it cost? We hope that you will find the summary below useful and that it will help you to assess your recruitment options and whether you are able to reduce your cost per hire.

Internal Recruitment

For obvious reasons internal recruitment is the most cost-effective form of recruitment. Referrals from staff can often provide good quality candidates with relevant knowledge and experience at no cost. Some companies even provide incentives to their staff to refer candidates. As a way of generating a greater number of applicants, companies are also able to post jobs on their own websites, again at no additional expense.

On the negative side internal recruitment does not allow for the job(s) to be viewed by a large audience, sometimes reducing the variety, choice and standard of candidates screened. This can occasionally result in poor recruitment decisions being made.

Print Advertising

Print advertising includes advertising in mediums such as newspapers and magazines. Each have national or local audiences depending upon the newspaper or magazine chosen. Some magazines are more focused than others allowing highly targeted audiences to be reached.

Newspaper advantages

  • The ability to communicate with a mass audience in a given area
  • Flexibility regarding ad size and placement on a page

Disadvantages

  • Advertising can be very expensive
  • Adverts generally have a short shelf life as newspapers are often read once and then discarded
  • Your advert may potentially not be read by suitable candidates
  • Slow turnaround time
  • Increased amount of paper work and administration in setting up the advert

Magazine advantages

  • Reproduction for brand recognition and exposure
  • Allows for better targeting of audience
  • Higher reader involvement
  • Better quality paper permits better colour
  • Smaller page sizes allows for even small recruitment adverts to stand out

Disadvantages

  • Long lead times – unsuitable for quick recruitment campaigns
  • Limited flexibility in terms of ad placement and format
  • Space and ad layout costs are high
  • Increased amount of paper work and administration in setting up the advert

Recruitment agencies

Recruitment agencies are designed to manage the recruitment process from start to finish. Recruitment agencies hold large databases of candidates and can advertise on your behalf. Their advertising methods include both print and online mediums although the latter has become more common in recent years.

Advantages

  • Reduces the impact on company resources and time spent on recruitment
  • Agencies can manage & pay contract workers and take care of tax issues
  • You can often get a rebate for unsuitable placements within a specific period of time or be provided with another candidate
  • Expertise and knowledge in their specialist field

Disadvantages

  • Lost time if they are not able to find a suitable candidate
  • Expensive – you may have to pay as much as 20% of the employees first years annual salary. This means that if an employee is paid £40,000 in the first year you could be paying as much as £8,000 in recruitment fees per vacancy. Even at a conservative 12% you would be paying £4,800

Online recruitment

Over recent years online recruitment has revolutionised the recruitment process and is much more cost-effective than traditional print advertising and recruitment agencies. Recruitment websites such as Technojobs have the capability to directly email relevant individuals who have registered, so that the job vacancy is brought to the attention of a large number of individuals within a short period of time. Online recruitment can therefore be very effective in attracting an immediate and targeted response.

Advantages

  • Very quick – a job vacancy can be added to a job site by almost anyone who has Internet access. Applications can arrive within minutes of the advert being placed online
  • Job seekers can search and apply for jobs 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Access is global and adverts can stay online for longer
  • Option for proactive candidate searching via CV databases.
  • CV’s from applicants are delivered electronically to your inbox reducing the amount of paper work
  • Hot skill alerts allow you to be notified when a candidate registers who matches your criteria
  • Cost effective - Advertising a position on a reputable job site usually costs just a couple of hundred pounds. When comparing this cost of advertising to that of print or recruitment agencies that could cost you thousands of pounds, the real financial advantages of online recruitment become clear.

Disadvantages

  • Like with all types of recruitment advertising there are no guarantees regarding placements
  • As with print advertising and recruitment agencies, the ability to attract candidates is dependent upon the job and its job advert
  • The process is generally not managed from start to finish so you will need to screen and filter the applications. Most job sites will however offer assistance with job advert optimisation and uploading of jobs onto the site to increase campaign success.

Managed Online Recruitment

Managed online recruitment is a relatively new concept and is intended for those employers who do not want to pay high recruitment fees but at the same time do not want to handle the recruitment process themselves. Online managed recruitment uses a combination of web advertising, email marketing, CV searching and candidate screening to deliver to their clients a pool of relevant and targeted CV’s from which to interview and hire from.

Up to 70% less expensive then a recruitment agency, managed online recruitment is a highly cost effective option reducing the cost per hire. It is almost resource free leaving your staff time to concentrate on their core daily tasks and results in receiving a number of highly relevant candidate CV’s from which to interview and hire from. Additionally in many cases the companies are able to hire from the remaining CV’s at their discretion.

For example TechnoRecruit is a service that offers to companies a guaranteed number of relevant quality CV’s over a 6 week period. TechnoRecruit handles the recruitment process from writing and optimising the job advert to sending out rejection emails to screening and short listing of relevant candidates.

Find out more about the benefits of using TechnoRecruit.

5 top tips to reducing your recruitment costs:

  1. Retain current staff!
  2. Encourage staff recommendations for vacancies
  3. Utilise your website to advertise current vacancies
  4. Consider online recruitment opportunities for advertising your vacancies
  5. Save time and resources on the recruitment process by using a managed online recruitment service

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