10 Ways to Optimise Your Recruitment Strategy

According to UndercoverRecruiter, "For your £27,600 paid new staff member, you'll actually need to budget for something closer to £50,000 in their first year of employment." 

All of those costs — including a hefty budget allocation for recruiting, training, and administrative tasks — mean that it's crucial for you to find the right fit as quickly as possible; speed and precision can significantly cut down those costs. 

To keep your company staffed and growing with the highest ROI, optimise your recruiting strategy with these ten ideas:

Do you need a central pace to keep track of your recruitment strategy and goals? Download this free recruitment strategy template to align your team and management on what's most important.

1. Use the right job boards for the role

Don't promote your position everywhere, especially if each channel incurs a cost. On LinkedIn, you might face stiff competition from large corporations. And many job boards won't be a good fit for the type of position you have open. 

Search around the niche and industry - or job-specific boards where you can reach enthusiastic professionals without much noise.

2. Create a referral program

One of the best ways to find employees that will fit well with your existing team is to have them help with the search. They may know working professionals with the proper credentials, attitude, and experience for the role. 

You can create referral programs where existing employees can make recommendations and incentivise them with cash bonuses and other benefits.

3. Revise your job descriptions

Old job descriptions can fail to engage candidates that might be a perfect fit. So if you're using standard job descriptions from your company's playbook, it may be time to update the content and format. 

This can include updating the benefits with any new developments in your company, increasing the job seniority level, or keeping up with trends like remote working arrangements. 

4. Give your HR team and hiring managers the resources they need

Two significant costs that your company incurs when hiring new employees are (i) the cost of not being adequately staffed during the search and (ii) the administrative hours and tasks your HR team has to take on. 

So give your HR team the software, database, background check subscriptions, and other tools they need to process applications and fill positions quickly.

5. Constantly evaluate your hiring processes and needs

Don't wait until a problem disrupts your hiring or business-critical functions. Instead, stay ahead of your company's future hiring needs with predictive schedules. You should also dedicate time once a year (or ideally, once a quarter) to assessing your hiring process and looking for bottlenecks, unnecessary steps, and opportunities for improvement.

6. Reach out to passive candidates

Sure, there are millions actively searching for a job at any given time in the UK - but the best candidates are rarely searching. 

You can widen your recruiting efforts to appeal to currently employed professionals. Creating a positive brand reputation, more actively posting on LinkedIn, and building referral programs all help you reach out to people currently employed but open to moving to an employer with friendlier culture, a more convenient location, or other benefits.

7. Update your interview process

Any multistage interview and hiring process is going to delay a new hire's start date. It's also guaranteed to have inefficiencies. So trim down your approach to include only the elements that help your company make informed hiring decisions. 

While you might need multiple rounds of interviews for executive positions, see where skills tests, better questions during an initial interview, and more stringent screening processes can trim down the time demands.

Your company can also update your interviews to allow for more virtual options. Even as businesses begin to open up for more in-person interactions, setting virtual meetings can help with scheduling and interviewing faster. You can also assess how well candidates will work in virtual positions (which are becoming increasingly popular).

8. Create unique benefits packages

"Unique" doesn't always mean "bigger," so businesses of all sizes can craft benefits packages that appeal to their best candidates. For example, a small company may not be able to compete on salary but can offer greater flexibility for in-office hours and holidays. 

Maybe your business can provide better retirement benefits and employer-matching options than competing employers. Start your search with benefits options that match what your ideal employee is looking for, and stay flexible during the interview process.

9. Work with external recruiters

Handling your staffing needs with an entirely internal team is expensive. Your company is paying for those employee hours (as well as the cost of advertisements, job board placements, candidate management software, and more), which may interfere with the team's usual business-critical functions. 

Working with a third-party recruiting service only when you need to trims down the costs and makes the expenses for every new hire more predictable. Professional recruiting services can also speed up the process because they have a constant pipeline of interested, engaged professionals they can match to different jobs more efficiently through sheer scale.

10. Build up your employer brand and company reputation

Ultimately, your company has to be the sort of place where employees want to come and stay long-term. Good company culture can cut down on disruptive turnover and ensure your business is facing the costs of new hires far less often. 

The best way to do that is to create a positive workplace for your current team and be transparent about your company culture on social media. Being seen as an excellent company to work for means you'll be able to engage strong candidates quickly after posting a new opening, too, bringing down costs even more.

Learn how to build a strong employer brand in this article.

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