Reducing recruitment costs has never been more fruitful.
On the path to reducing recruitment costs
Lowering the recruitment division’s spend was previously difficult, and hinged mainly around letting staff within the department go, or cutting corners. However, with the advent of technology, recruitment costs can be slashed drastically by using resources such as e-recruitment and applicant tracking systems (ATS). Ask any business owner typical areas of high cost in their business and recruitment will most probably be one of the first raised. Staffing always accounts for a big portion of their expenses. To keep the company’s talent intact, an ongoing recruitment cost is necessary, and reducing recruitment costs is key, otherwise this figure can balloon.
On average, recruiting costs a company approximately 25% of the basic annual salary of the employee, contributed largely by the usage of recruitment agencies. Even small to medium companies often seek out skills from agencies at these prices. This is not to slate recruiters who still have a very important role to play – it is simply to advise businesses to spend properly and not simply hire recruiters on every single position, when often these vacancies can be filled using in-house resources.
But the cost of recruiting doesn’t end with recruiters. There are advertising expenses and the excessive time spent writing job descriptions, briefing agencies, advertising the job and then processing, interviewing, offering, counter-offering, and finally the accepted candidate offer being signed. Not to even mention the cost of making the incorrect hire on a business, which simply worsens the picture further.
Not all is lost – recruitment can be done properly for far less. Nowadays, every step of the recruitment process can be far cheaper by involving technology and online resources. Online recruitment software can greatly help reduce the traditional costs associated with recruiting. A business can save money on both the sourcing of candidates, as well as their processing and tracking.
Advertising the position – applicant search
Reaching out to people looking for jobs has never been cheaper. With recruitment software from graylink, a company publishing a job on their ATS will have it automatically streamed to free & proven effective channels like Indeed and numerous job boards. Moreover, the web pages that the advert is displayed on are indexed by Google, showing them to applicants searching the Internet. Lastly, candidates are constantly setting job alerts on recruitment software websites, thereby alerting them minutes after a company adds a new vacancy description.
Through the use of job templates, one can publish a full job advert on a applicant tracking system (ATS) within minutes. Adverts can then automatically be published on channels such as job aggregators, general and niche job boards, as well as social media sites – many of which are free. The man hours required to manually post to these channels would be excessive. The broad awareness the job advert receives, drives traffic of applicants to your career websites where they are able to apply accordingly.
Reducing recruitment agency spend
It cannot be argued: recruitment agencies are expensive. Relying heavily on one’s own pool of talent residing in your cloud-based ATS, instead of expensive recruitment agencies, will push costs down considerably. With Neptune, one of graylink’s recruitment software ATS systems, candidate applications are kept and can be reactivated later on. The only time one should use a recruitment consultancy is for headhunting, which is often best done by a third party provider.
Sorting through candidates
Instead of timeously going through applicant CVs, whether paper-based or online, companies can now filter out irrelevant candidates based on set criteria for the each position based on numerous factors, including skills, experience, education, demographics and more. By being able to draw out single candidates with a search function or a group of relevantly qualified applicants, is an essential tool to any sifting process. Recruitment software that holds a database and sorts it is not enough, it must also be cloud-based, meaning that the data can be accessed from anywhere.
Auto-filtering and regret notifications to irrelevant candidates allows you to quickly focus on the right applications. Interview scheduling, offer management and hiring are further activities which are carried out through the applicant tracking system, allowing further savings of time. In the end, less reliance on recruiting agencies is needed.
Online recruitment software also allows various metrics to be reported on regarding recruiting costs, allowing closer management and true reality of total costs associated with the recruiting process. This helps in reducing recruitment costs as well, since now one can manage these metrics carefully.
Regretting of applicants
Using recruitment software, one can administer auto regrets and bulk regretting of candidates, and auto communication channels are also available, maintaining employer brand and reputation throughout the process. This is naturally done in the correct professional and legal manner, all the time keeping the communication
Keeping a database for future recruitment
A key trend in reducing recruitment costs is building a talent pipeline, best administered by keeping a database. Reporting can be done from the database as well, meaning that candidates can be extracted and turn-around times calculated.
Some companies have cut more than 60% off their recruitment spend by simply allowing technology to enable their recruitment drives. In fact, many companies report that since using ATSs and online recruitment, the process has become easier and more efficient as well. It is also, most importantly, measurable – a recruiter can understand where the best advertising was placed, who the best recruitment firms are, the best job boards, and so on.
To conclude, using online recruitment methods and software, as well as a general attitude to creating and managing a recruitment pipeline inside the company, can make a huge difference to reducing recruitment costs. When utilised correctly, these factors can save businesses large amounts of money and contribute significantly to the growth and bottom line figures of a company.