As the economic uncertainty continues, financial directors will be under even more pressure to cut costs. Even with all the talk of redundancies and budget cutting, companies will still need to hire staff due to organic movement of people throughout their career path.

Just how do you reign in those costs and not compromise on the quality of the recruitment process?

The Solution:

Use the Internet more effectively and help your HR manager work smarter.

A considerable number of medium to large corporations in Ireland are wasting a lot of money in their recruitment budgets. HR departments only pay lip service to using the net to finding candidates, as it is a time consuming and a slow process going through so many candidates before they find the 'diamond in the rough'. 

Time poor HR executives will not allocate the resources it takes in sourcing quality CVs from the internet, and are then given the budget approval to outsource and use agencies. This is one area where financial directors can make considerable savings going forward.

When outsourcing HR to recruitment agencies, the agencies/recruiters then basically do the actual work of managing the job on the job boards and filtering candidates to send over. If budgets allow, then that's fine, as agencies and recruiters do provide a very good screening service most of the time.

But we have heard great success stories of companies who have saved hundreds of thousands of euros by using the net more effectively.  Price Waterhouse in the UK used job boards last year to hire 1000 grads and saved over 1 million sterling alone. An Irish software firm has just hired 50 IT engineers this year without paying one agency fee.

Top Tips

So here are our top 10 tips for saving money on recruitment costs:

• Training: Make sure your HR manager is fully trained by your job board provider on how to use their website effectively.
  
• Database of CVs: Make sure HR spend at least 2 hours per week emailing prospective candidates from the searchable CV databases available on job boards.  This aspect of the service is time consuming but clients that do use this, report great success. The searchable databases are what the recruiters use every day. 
  
• Offer referral/finders fee to all staff asking them who they know, just as the agencies do. We recommend 1K for hire or approx 20% of agency fee.
  
• Don't just stick with the biggest job board. Sign up with at least 5 job boards.  With the cost of advertising on job boards from as little as €75 per month, it spreads the net wider for your jobs and provides inexpensive branding for the company showing a progressive organisation.
  
• Don't spend a penny on newspaper advertising unless you just want branding as it's a complete waste of time and money.
  
• Use your own supplier network.  Suppliers are naturally more inclined to be more helpful to their clients.  Why not send them a monthly newsletter with a list of vacancies in your organisation asking them to pass on to who they know.
  
• Make sure your own website has a 'simple to apply' and prominent career section. It is amazing how many websites have such off-putting application sections.  Pay Google a few euros per click to advertise your job  - keywords such as 'sales jobs' might cost about 2 euros!
  
• Overpay key staff 15% above market rates.  The cost of replacing them is 40-50% of their annual salary if you include agency fees, lost days in training and the IP that has just walked out the door, probably to your competition. 
  
• PSLs (Preferred supplier lists): Ask HR to select 3 strong recruitment consultants per category, e.g. sales, IT, finance, etc... and deal directly with the recruiter themselves, not just the company. Even move to a new agency if they move. It is the recruiter who will know your company/industry and culture inside out. It's in their interest to work extra hard for you if your hiring perhaps 10 people a year from them. Fees of max 20%. 
  
• Try and hire an ex recruiter ('poacher turned game keeper') on a 4 month-contract to implement all of the above with KPIs.  They know how to work the job boards 100%. 
  

Bottom line:  HR has changed dramatically in the last 5 years with the net becoming a very powerful resource. If used properly, and then in conjunction with good recruiters, thousands of euros can be saved.


_{This article was contributed by Niall Kelly, Director of Jobs Online Group Ltd}