1 simple step to easily reduce your recruiting costs

Recruiting the right staff to complement your existing team is difficult enough but, when you consider the expense involved and the time it can take, it can soon develop in to the stuff of nightmares.

It poses a tactical dilemma; companies want a field of candidates from which to choose but, they also need to keep potential people ‘in the wings’ because business can change in a blink of an eye.

Various studies have shown since 2001, the average costs involved in the cost of recruiting staff has increased by 6%. With some of these costs associated with recruitment agencies, more and more companies across a variety of industries and sectors are looking to recruit from the latest pool of talent from online agencies, such as Staff Bay.

A necessary expense

Talent acquisition across all sectors in the UK can cost a company anything between £2,000 and £5,000, per vacant position/new post and when you consider the fluidity of recruitment is larger corporations, you can see how the annual costs of recruitment can spiral out of control. But, research shows that the true cost could be much more…

Even though companies need to be forward thinking and gain the right pool of talent for when business starts to increase (in many cases, business can suddenly take off!), these costs are significantly increased when companies use recruitment agencies. Studies have shown that depending on the sector and the agency, costs can be reduced by 20 to 30% overall by using means other than a recruitment agency.

How the Americans have changed their way of recruiting – a lesson for the UK?

Comparing the UK and the US method of talent acquisition has also shown a difference in how much of their budgets, companies are choosing to spend with recruitment agencies; it seems that what has revolutionised the whole process, decreasing costs, in the US – and beginning to be more common place in the UK – is social media. Harnessing the power of not only the Internet, but social media has drastically reduced the cost of recruiting the best talent out there – and by a staggering 70%.

Not just about the money

Recruitment agencies of course, can and do offer many companies from the smallest, fledging business to the largest corporation, the ability to find and tap into some of the best and upcoming talent.

But of course, creating the advert, placing it, fielding the calls and emails for the information packs, uploading on to the website, creating the interview schedule followed by days of interviewing all add to one thing – someone (or a team of people in some cases) will be spending a large chunk of time doing the background organising.

In many cases, companies enjoy the freedom that using recruitment agencies can offer them in terms of outsourcing this entire background organisation.

But, competition for global talent is increasing; companies and corporations who want to branch out and stay high in global rankings need the right people and slowly, the UK is beginning to follow the example set by the US in terms of ‘staff board’ recruitments type websites.

Staff Bay is just one of a few that are beginning to offer this service and, even though you may think that once again, recruitment will be a drain on time, the concept behind such a website is to make finding and keeping the best talent easier… and cheaper too.

And it seems there can be other, additional benefits to using this type of recruitment process:

• Proactive – the recruiting ball is back in your court and the ability to load information on the website regarding your company is the first step in making your company look the thriving business it ism and attractive to new, upcoming talent. It allows you to effectively set your parameters, looking for the right people in the right places, and at the right time.
• You are in control – there may be times that you come across a pool of people that could, in the future, be the right people but, you need to keep their talent ‘on file’; the approach of these online staff boards allow you to do exactly that and, as your fast moving company needs their talent, they can be emailed with the information they need to join your attractive company.
• Versatility – and this is something that companies and global business enjoy about using these staff recruitment websites. The versatility of how they can reach people, the information they give etc. can all be uploaded and updated at a time that suits. For many companies, recruitment is not a once in a while exercise, it is a rolling, fluid process that needs flexibility and versatility.
• All your information in one place – of course, if you don’t look attractive, if you do not create a buzz around working for your company, you may it difficult to attract the calibre of candidates you want and need to choose from. Imagine if you had a forum, other than your own website, where you can create this ‘buzz’!

Not forgetting social media

The power of social media is awesome and, with everyone in the online world now using Facebook and Twitter as points of reference, in many cases before they visit, the website of the company or business, linking your social media platforms to online recruitment sites add a certain quality to your online recruiting presence.

So, who wins out of the recruitment agency and online recruitment website staff board approach?

There are no clear winners. Each will offer every company different benefits and disadvantages too; cost is a clear winner for the staff board approach but, many companies trust the recruitment agency they have built a long term relationships with and, if they have not let them down before, would they want to change?