5 Things Recruiters Can Do To Achieve More For Less

By Qandidate.com

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We’re all looking for ways we can make more hires in a shorter timeframe and for a lower cost. With that stated goal in mind, here are 5 things you could look at doing in your business to attract recruits more effectively. How many are you doing already?
 

  1. Source candidates from free sources using people aggregators or search tools
     
  2. Leverage your existing candidate and client relationships with retargeting
     
  3. Get your team using an effective recruitment tool that streamlines your workflows and maximises your effectiveness
     
  4. Leverage your existing staff networks
     
  5. Track and act on key metrics to transform your results


Source candidates from free sources using people aggregators or search tools

Whilst all the headlines are made by LinkedIn’s recruiting services, the reality is that there are other ways of reaching candidates that don’t cost anything and that allow you to tap into a larger audience than just that reached on LinkedIn. People aggregators such as Connect6 allow a recruiter to search for candidates simultaneously across a variety of social profile sites and to see detailed information about the candidates uncovered. For low volume users the tool is entirely free. Or you could try other tools like the candidate sourcing tool here on Social-Hire.

Also keep in mind that even when these tools generate candidate results from LinkedIn, you don’t necessarily have to pay in order to reach out to those candidates. A great trick to use on LinkedIn is to join the groups that your target candidates are a member of. From within groups, you can look at group members and click to “send message” – which allows you to send your prospects a free message direct to their private inbox (exactly as if you’d paid for InMails).


Leverage your existing candidate and client relationships with retargeting

Your business has undoubtedly interacted with tens of thousands of candidates over the last years. If you’re a recruitment agency, you probably also have a large list of past, current and prospective clients. But what are you doing to maximise the results you’re getting from people already predisposed to being hired by your company?

One of the things that social media has made possible is the ability to target updates and adverts at a list of users you specify. This is known in the marketing world as retargeting. You can retarget people who have visited your careers pages. Or you can retarget a list of email contacts from your ATS. Whilst not free, this approach can be extremely cost-effective. Speaking to Social-Hire, it’s not uncommon for such campaigns to attract candidates three times more effectively than a regular advertising campaign. So consider the option of putting your next campaign on Facebook or Twitter, right in front of the very people most likely to respond favourably to your business.


Get your team using an effective recruitment tool that streamlines your workflows and maximises your effectiveness.

Many recruiters are trying to operate using Outlook and Excel for candidate management. Or they’re being hamstrung by an ATS that is costly or has functional shortcomings (or both). You need to streamline your workflows and maximise your team’s effectiveness by having a tool that does everything you need, for free. Take Qandidate.com as an example. You can create your vacancies, brand you career site, set-up filter questions, make use of automated email templates, manage your candidates and invite them into your talentpool. Does your current solution do all of that and at zero cost? If not, it could be time to explore your alternatives.


Leverage your existing staff networks

Have you taken full advantage of all the potential hires (or clients) that your employees have within their networks? Using social sharing tools like Buffer, recruiting teams can now easily hook up all of their staff’s social networks to share industry insights, employer branding messages and company updates. The reach that can be achieved if you get this right is extensive. The keys are to be consistent in your sharing of content – and to make sure the majority of your updates are informative or insightful for your target audience, rather than purely promotional. Get this right and you will find people engaging with your company’s updates, resharing them with their networks, driving up awareness of your recruiting brand and attracting candidates to your business.


Track key metrics to transform your results

What performance data would have the greatest impact in helping your business to improve its attraction and hiring approaches? Some things you might want to start measuring more comprehensively (and then acting on accordingly) would include:

  • Cost per hire. Over time are you becoming more or less effective at attracting hires on budget? Plus what cost per hire can you assign to your various recruiting channels – and where might you therefore want to designate more of your recruiting budget?
     
  • Shortlist candidates generated per £ / $ / € of spend on each advertising channel you use (focus your spend on those channels producing the greatest return)
     
  • Applicants generated per job ad view (who writes the most effective job adverts in your business, or what style of job posting is generating the best conversions from views to applicants?)
     
  • Shortlist candidates per hire (how effectively are you screening candidates, to ensure your time is invested with those candidates most likely to be made offers – and freed up to work on other campaigns?)
     
  • Candidate drop-out rates and Acceptance rates – what proportion of shortlist candidates drop out of your process after being invited to interview? Or decline an offer once it’s been made? (do you have a problem with candidate experience, or is your offer just not competitive in today’s market?)


Concluding Remarks

The recruitment marketplace is constantly evolving. Things that very previously costly to do may now be free. Tactics that weren’t possible are made possible by advances in technology and social media sites’ desire to monetise their audience. Be sure to stop every few months this year and assess whether you’ve taken the time to ensure that ideas like those presented above are being leveraged in your business and not overlooked. Would love to hear any other suggestions you may have, please do add in the comments section below.

 

About the Author

Qandidate.com is a full blown recruitment system,providing you with all the information and tools you need to make your recruiting process effortless. It’s refreshingly easy.More than 8000 companies have subscribed for Qandidate.com’s free recruitment system. Big companies, small companies, complex companies, international companies, in all shapes and sizes.Find out more by joining us for a demo of Qandidate.com in the coming days.

 

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