Hiring quality candidates has grown into an expensive prospect. Having a shot at the best professional talent requires companies to invest in new tools and resources that amplify their candidate searches, streamline hiring, and prevent fall offs. And as the number of days from the initial advertisement to an accepted offer continues to rise to an average of 29 business days for healthcare and 50 business days for IT, those costs will compound.
How do organizations go about lowering hiring costs? They evaluate their current hiring processes and pursue strategic actions to rein in expenses. In particular, there are five cost-cutting opportunities available to most organizations.
1.) Creating a Standard yet Concise Hiring Process
One of the most immediate changes to make is to the processes themselves. Across industries, lengthy hiring processes get mistaken for being effective when it’s quite the opposite. Requiring candidates to complete multiple forms, interviews, and onboarding steps loses them to more nimble competitors. At most, top candidates are on the market for 10 days. Streamlining hiring ensures they don’t slip from your fingers and stretch your hiring budget.
How does this impact costs? Consider this: for every candidate fall off, organizations duplicate one or more of their hiring procedures. Whether that’s sourcing a new batch of candidates or interviewing second-string prospects, those recruitment costs add up.
What needs to be trimmed from the process? From an inside perspective, everything appears to be essential to screen, evaluate, and prepare candidates. However, there are a few rules of thumb to keep in mind that help to lower hiring costs.
- Eliminate duplicate applications – Candidates’ information is increasingly easy to import. Most applicant tracking systems are able to upload resumes or LinkedIn profiles into easy-to-use files. Having candidates fill out internal applications is redundant and may discourage some from applying. At least 74% of candidates fall off this way, so it’s worth diminishing the barrier.
- Narrow down interviewers – Some organizations pride themselves in making the interview process a group decision. Everyone is affected, right? Yet too many cooks in the kitchen drags out the process for candidates and gives the impression that their time is not respected. Limit interviews to direct superiors and/or decision makers (if the role involves interaction with VPs or the C-suite).
- Postpone onboarding tasks – It’s understandable when organizations try to front load tasks (setting up meetings with the team, new hire paperwork masquerading as applications, etc.) that will speed up the onboarding process. When candidates are going through too much red tape early in the process, they are more inclined to take their job search elsewhere, increasing recruitment costs in the long run.
2.) Automating Routine Processes
Automation has revolutionized every business process and hiring is no different. Routine and time-consuming tasks once completed by internal teams are now accomplished by sophisticated algorithms. The benefits span the entirety of the recruitment process and can decrease hiring costs.
Take applicant tracking systems. Cutting-edge recruiting software improves the entire candidate evaluation process. Job advertisements can be posted to numerous job board simultaneously and save time (and money). That beats manual posting in efficiency and even allows greater accuracy across posts.
Some organizations are embracing automation even further and are conducting their interviews through video software. Candidates are sent a list of interview questions in advance and record video responses. Hiring managers evaluate the responses on their own time. Hiring processes accelerate as organization no longer need to coordinate preliminary interviews with a candidate’s schedule. If they pass the screening, the company can arrange further interviews with only those professionals with the best credentials and compatibility.
3.) Looking at Fewer Candidates
Less is more in decision making. Studies show that having more choices actually paralyzes action. When reviewing a large applicant pool, it can be a difficult decision to leave otherwise appealing candidates unevaluated. Yet limiting the scope of candidates considered empowers the decision making process and prevents fall offs.
Effective staffing firms use this exact strategy in their placements. They review a job description for the most relevant details, combine that with their knowledge of the company, and present a select group fitting that criteria. That way, hiring managers are not overwhelmed and employee recruitment proceeds without a hitch.
4.) Building Strong Communication with Candidates
Candidates want assurances that they aren’t wasting their time. Plenty of other organizations are looking for high quality professionals and will compensate them well for their skills. Transparency conveys their value during the process.
It all starts in the interview. Traditional interviewing strategies have treated the whole procedure like a poker game, keeping decisions hidden until the perfect moment. Candidates are only made to feel uncertain by this practice, encouraging them to seek out a more assured job opportunity.
Hiring managers who are transparent about a candidate’s chances – in the interview and the quick decision-making process – give top talent reasons to stick around. In the end, that leads to fewer instances of fall off and wasted interview processes.
5.) Working with a Staff Firm
One of the most cost-effective ways to lower hiring costs is to trust your next hire to staffing and recruiting professionals. Huge segments of their budgets are dedicated to acquiring the best hiring tools from cutting-edge ATSs to social media advertising. They are capable of maintaining a large pipeline to present high quality candidates when they are needed.
Additionally, they have the time to foster strong communication that prevents candidates from looking elsewhere. The efficient way they help to manage the hiring process lowers recruitment costs and quickly brings a return on investment to the time they spend on the search.
Want to lower hiring costs for your next search? Contact us and we’ll help you pursue a more efficient, cost-effective search strategy.