How much time does recruitment really cost you?

Recruiting in-house might seem cost-effective at first glance, but it often comes with significant hidden time costs. Here’s a quick rundown of the time-consuming steps involved in traditional recruitment:

1. Crafting and posting job ads: Writing a compelling job ad tailored to attract the right candidates is the first step. Posting this ad on various job boards and niche sites takes time and meticulous effort.
2. Screening applications: Once the job ad is live, you’ll likely receive a flood of applications. Each resume and cover letter needs to be reviewed to filter out unqualified candidates.
3. Conducting interviews: After narrowing down the list, scheduling and conducting multiple rounds of interviews is a time-intensive process that requires careful coordination and preparation.
4. Follow-ups and communication: Keeping candidates informed and engaged throughout the hiring process requires ongoing communication, which adds to your workload.

These steps can extend the hiring timeline significantly. On average, it takes about 44 days to fill a position through in-house recruitment. For small businesses, this prolonged period can strain resources and delay key projects.

How Recruit Shop saves you time

Recruit Shop can drastically reduce the time you spend on recruitment. Here’s how:

1. Efficient hiring process: Recruit Shop’s average time to hire is just 28 days, significantly shorter than the typical 44 days for in-house recruitment. This means you can fill your vacancies faster and keep your business running smoothly.
2. Comprehensive job ad management: Recruit Shop handles the entire job advertisement process. We post your job across all major job boards and specialised sites, increasing visibility and attracting top talent.
3. Candidate screening and shortlisting: Recruit Shop screens all applications and shortlists the most suitable candidates. By the time candidates reach you, they are already pre-qualified and interview-ready, saving you hours of initial screening.
4. Increased visibility: Compared to posting ads independently, Recruit Shop achieves 17% more views in job searches, 29% more ad clicks, and 30% more applications started. This means a higher chance of finding the perfect fit faster.

Real savings 

In addition to saving time, Recruit Shop offers significant cost savings. Our low cost, flat fee recruitment service is $2,995 + GST – this fee is a fraction of what you might spend on in-house recruitment, which can easily escalate due to multiple job postings and extended vacancy periods.

Why choose Recruit Shop?

1. Affordable pricing: Compared to the industry standard of charging 15% of the average Australian salary (approximately $13,500 for a $90,000 salary), Recruit Shop’s flat fee is exceptionally cost-effective.
2. High customer satisfaction: With a 4.7/5 star rating on Google Reviews from hundreds of clients, Recruit Shop is a trusted partner for many businesses.
3. Employee Guarantee: Recruit Shop offers a guarantee on our placements, providing peace of mind and ensuring you get the right hire.

Act now and save time and money

With Recruit Shop, you can simplify your recruitment process, save valuable time, and focus on what truly matters—growing your business. Take advantage of our low cost, flat fee Recruitment Service for just $2,995 + GST. 

By investing in Recruit Shop’s recruitment service, you’re not just saving money—you’re reclaiming time and reducing stress, allowing you to keep your business on track and thriving.

As a result, many small business owners are finding themselves overwhelmed by the volume of candidates they are receiving. Managing this surge efficiently is crucial to ensure you don’t miss out on top talent due to a cluttered recruitment process.

Here are four actionable strategies to help you effectively screen and manage the influx of applicants.

By the way, if you’re finding that you’re not attracting enough applicants, perhaps it’s time to consider if your job ads are being written effectively. Check out this blog post on how to write a job ad, or this one about how to build a competitive employee benefits package. Ok, now onto the four strategies.

1. Streamline Your Criteria

Sharpening your job criteria can significantly decrease the time spent reviewing applications. Focus on these elements:

• Essential Skills and Experience: Clearly define must-have skills and experiences in your job ads. This discourages under qualified applicants and helps you quickly identify top candidates.
• Role-Specific Questions: Include a few role-specific questions in the application process. Responses can quickly indicate which candidates have a serious understanding of the position and the necessary expertise. For example, if you’re recruiting an Accountant, a role specific question might be “Can you walk us through your process for preparing end-of-month financial reports? Please include the tools you use and how you ensure accuracy and compliance with financial regulations.”
• Prioritise Quality Over Quantity: Rather than casting a wide net, target your recruitment ads to specific platforms known for quality candidates in your industry.

2. Conduct Initial Screening Calls

Instead of deep-diving into full interviews with a large number of candidates, implement a tiered interview process:

• Brief Screening Calls: Start with a 10-15 minute phone call. This initial touchpoint can help you gauge the applicant’s communication skills, enthusiasm, and suitability for the culture of your company.
• Focused Discussions: Use these calls to ask about specific qualifications or discuss answers to the application questions. This helps further filter candidates before committing to longer, formal interviews.
• Efficient Scheduling: Batch calls and set specific times for these screenings to streamline your calendar and maintain productivity.

3. Utilise Skill-Based Assessments

Incorporating skill-based assessments into the application process is an effective, low-effort strategy to manage a high volume of applicants. Here’s how it helps:

• Automated Filtering: By embedding simple, role-specific assessments in the application form, you can automatically filter out candidates who do not meet the basic skill requirements for the position.
• Focused Applicant Pool: This approach ensures that only candidates who have demonstrated the necessary skills and competencies advance in the recruitment process, significantly narrowing down the pool.
• Efficient Screening: Skill assessments can range from multiple-choice questions to practical tasks, depending on the nature of the job. This not only saves time in reviewing applications but also highlights candidates with the best potential for the role.

4. Implement an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can be a game-changer for businesses drowning in applications. And they aren’t out of reach for small businesses, with providers like our partner, Scout Talent, who offer a lite version of their ATS (designed specifically for small businesses) for only $150 per month. Here’s how an ATS helps:

• Automated Screening: You can set up filters and keywords to automatically screen out candidates who don’t meet essential criteria, reducing the initial pool to a more manageable size.
• Organised Candidate Profiles: Keep all applicant information in one place. This makes it easier to track, compare, and revisit applicant profiles during the hiring process.
• Communication Efficiency: Use automated responses to acknowledge every application and keep candidates informed of their status, enhancing your company’s professional image.

Dealing with a high volume of applicants doesn’t have to overwhelm your small business. By implementing strategies such as automated screening, refining job criteria, and utilising skill-based assessments, you can efficiently manage the surge in applications. These approaches not only save time but also ensure that you focus on candidates who are most likely to succeed in the role.

If the task still seems daunting, remember that Recruit Shop is here to assist. For a low-cost flat fee of $2995 +GST, our team can handle the recruitment process for you, from advertising the job to delivering you a shortlist of qualified candidates. Let us help you streamline your recruitment so you can focus on what you do best — growing your business.

Call Recruit Shop today!

Major platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok are available for free and used by millions and millions of people, young and old, every day.

We’re not just talking about stalking potential hires and sussing out their profiles, either. We’re talking about reaching out to passive candidates and building a talent pool with your posts.

Not only are we going to share tips to use social media for better recruitment; but we’re also going to teach you how to promote your business’s brand as a great employer and create a community of candidates who actually want to work with you.

How to use social media for better recruitment

Don’t panic. We’re also a small business. We’re not going to tell you that the only way to recruit socially is to pour days and days into your Facebook profile. We understand that small business owners and operators are time-poor and need to get great results in good time. So rest assured that these tips are going to be easy, accessible, and light on your budget.

1. Celebrate your employer brand

Employer branding is easier to understand – and build – than you might expect. Essentially, your employer brand is the reputation your business has from the perspective of potential employees. It’s also understood as the values you give to your employees. Considering this, you can imagine how important it is to have a good, strong employer brand! You want people to want to work with you.

There are several ways you can use social media to build your brand as an employer:

• Dedicate a couple of posts a month, at least, to showcasing your culture, benefits, values, and team.
• We all love stories about people, so you could get your current team members to tell success stories in text or on video and share these with your audience.
• Introduce your team members and their roles to your audience, and share behind-the-scenes pictures of your team hard at work, having fun, or celebrating milestones together.
• Post some of this content to your business page’s story, if available, as this generates more engagement and pushes you up in the algorithm, too!

2. Create a recruitment community

You may already post your vacancies on your business’s social media accounts, but you could take it a step further. Rather than clog your main page with job posts, consider creating a branded Facebook or LinkedIn group to share your vacancies with a dedicated group of interested candidates. Alternatively, you could join existing jobseeker groups to tap into an existing group of eager potential employees.

There are a couple of ways to funnel candidates into your recruitment community, such as:

• Directing anyone who expresses interest in working with you to your branded group;
• Making an occasional social post that directs jobseekers to your talent community (with lots of #nowhiring hashtags);
• Asking for expressions of interest in your branded community; and,
• Promoting your recruitment community in relevant networks and social media groups (if allowed).

With a steady stream of candidates filing into your community, you end up with an engaged group of potential team members that you can tap into whenever a vacancy comes up. Bonus: it costs nothing.

3. Generate recruitment leads

In recent years, we’ve all gotten used to the highly visual, dopamine-delivering online world and the instant gratification that comes with it. It’s time to shake up your recruitment methods to take advantage of those short attention spans.

Long, drawn-out application processes push candidates away. If you’re struggling to get any applications for your SEEK ads, try using social media to generate recruitment leads.

Put out a post (paid or organic) with an eye-catching, relevant image and a call to action like:

• Tag someone who’d be interested in this role;
• DM us with your name, number, and relevant qualification; or,
• DM us your resume and we’ll do the rest.

Ultimately, you are removing as many barriers between yourself and interested candidates as possible.

Note: This approach works particularly well when you’re hiring in bulk, or for a role that, at its core, only requires a couple of key qualifications.

We’re hopeful that these tips to use social media for better recruitment will help you cut through the noise and get better results when you’re hiring. If you have any questions about how to get more applications or attract more candidates to your small business, reach out to us and we can help you achieve your goals.

Here are some key digital recruitment strategies to boost your current plan and help you get the results you need to drive your business forward. 

Small business digital recruitment strategies 

There are a number of things, big and small, that you can change or introduce into your recruitment plan to get better results for your business, namely: 

Engaging candidates for future hires 

If you’ve recently run a recruitment campaign and had to make a tough decision between two great candidates, it’s well worth engaging the unsuccessful candidate for future hires. For bigger businesses, this is the process of talent pooling. But, for those with fewer resources at hand, it starts with simply asking the candidate if you can contact them for future vacancies that may come up. If they were willing to work with you once, they’ll likely want to work with you again. And, taking interest in their skills and experience is a good move for your business reputation. 

Consider setting a calendar reminder to send a short, friendly email to the candidate again in a few months time to let them know that you haven’t forgotten them and still have their resume on your radar for future opportunities. 

Providing a good candidate experience 

Make the recruitment process as painless as possible for your candidates. Start with simple things like enabling the “instant apply” button on job boards. Think of the jobs you’ve applied for where you could apply with just your SEEK or LinkedIn profile. It’s a breeze, and thus encourages more applications for your role. 

Another key consideration is optimising your job ad for mobile. It sounds technical, but it just means testing how your job ad looks and functions on a mobile phone. Walls of text without line breaks or any bold print are annoying to read on mobile and turn candidates away from your role. Plus, mobile devices comprise more than 50% of all internet traffic globally. You can’t afford to forget about it. 

(Click here for tips to optimise your job listing for better results). 

Finally, always communicate consistently with candidates. It takes some time, granted, but making the effort to let candidates know that you’ve received their application, whether they are unsuccessful, or next steps after an interview, goes a long way for your business. 

Using different platforms for active candidates 

Not all job boards are created equal. Rather, not all job boards attract the same candidates. If you only post your vacancies to big boards like SEEK and Indeed, you’ll miss out on great candidates who prioritise specialised job boards, like Ethical Jobs, or OurMob. If your business fits into a more niche category, you can use that fact to increase the chance of hiring someone who’s highly engaged with your mission. 

Don’t forget to leverage social media, either. LinkedIn is an obvious choice for attracting people to your vacancy. But, Facebook and Instagram can be useful too on account of their targeting capabilities. They allow you to put your job ad in front of specific demographics, people with certain interests, locations, job titles, and so on. People give social platforms incredible amounts of personal data, and that enables you to use it to your benefit. 

Considering flexibility and what it can do for you 

By now you’ve undoubtedly heard that candidates demand flexibility in the workplace. For a small business, this might sound like a barrier to hiring. But we challenge you to not only consider offering flexible arrangements to new hires but to consider what flexibility can do for you. 

Perhaps your business runs slightly outside of normal hours, or your team can work asynchronously without causing chaos in the business. These can be drawcards to candidates looking for roles that support their version of work-life balance. 

Remote work is a major drawcard at the moment, and huge companies like Atlassian have enjoyed much success with their newly-launched “work from anywhere” policy. Could this approach work for you? 

Similarly, consider working with part-time or freelance team members, perhaps even from other countries. Having ad hoc support could close critical skills gaps without breaking your budget or introducing traditional recruitment challenges. 

Targeting passive candidates online 

Not all eligible candidates are scouring job boards for their next career move. Some of them already have jobs and, whilst they’re performing well, they’re thinking about making a change to suit their life, their passion, or their location. 

Key amongst these digital recruitment strategies is headhunting online. The process sees you or an affordable recruitment service provider reaching out to suitable candidates online and sending them personalised invitations to apply for your vacancy. If you’re not doing it, be assured that your competitors are. It can be time-consuming, so this is one strategy that’s worth outsourcing to a professional for support. 

Leveraging online skills testing 

Take a leap of faith and go all-in with your new strategic recruitment plan. It’s an incredibly competitive market right now. So, try casting your net wider and considering candidates from all walks of life. 

Some will be overqualified but are looking to downsize to prioritise their family, hobbies, or mental health, for example. Some will be from a totally different industry, but they’ll have a load of transferable skills that suit your role. Some might have no formal qualification but a few years of experience and a dedication to developing their skills in their personal time.  

Leverage online skills testing to get an idea of each candidate’s hands-on skills. What they have on paper is often less relevant than what they can achieve in the real world, after all. And, you’re more likely to find a new superstar for your small business with this open-minded approach. 

Using your status to your advantage 

In the past, candidates had to articulate their value to their prospective employers. But the tables have turned and the onus is now on you to articulate your value to prospective applicants. That is to say, it’s not just about a competitive salary and benefits. Obviously, those things are incredibly important, but job security, a sense of trust, achievement, empowerment, and purpose are high priorities for candidates post-2020. 

As a small business, you’re uniquely positioned to demonstrate a clear path of value from employee to client. They can more easily see the real-world impact they’re having on your valued customers. You can use this, as well things like a close-knit team, social responsibility, and ethical practices, for example, as a ticket to attract highly engaged candidates. Make these emotional benefits clear in your job ads, interviews, and even your marketing materials. 

As a small business, you’re uniquely positioned to illustrate a clear transference of value from employee to client. Use this to your advantage and make it clear in your job ads, interviews, and even your marketing assets. 

A strategic recruitment plan for your small business 

If you need support achieving your recruitment goals, consider working with an affordable recruitment service. Your time is precious and so is your money, so spend both wisely with a low-cost flat-fee recruitment service that helps you drive your business’s growth. Our team of consultants draws on decades of combined experience hiring for small to medium-sized businesses across Australia and New Zealand. Reach out to us for more information about our budget-friendly recruitment service and how we implement digital recruitment strategies to get better results for your business.