High recruitment costs are among the many challenges businesses face. We've complied 7 tips to help you optimize your recruitment spend. 

There are 4 Key Challenges that have the greatest impact on recruitment costs:

• During times of rapid growth, how to hire volumes of candidates whilst maintaining the quality 
• Deciding on the best tools and processes 
• Lack of time and resources 
• Competing for staff against competitors and more established businesses

1. Process, Process, Process

It may sound obvious but having a well structured recruitment process in place is key to optimizing your recruitment spend. Ensure that you've mapped out the entire process from job requisition through to on-boarding. Consider what elements you can automate, what parts of the process can be streamlined and what tools you'll need to deliver the results. 

Like everything, it's essential to test the process as a candidate. Make sure it's easy to follow and gives a great candidate experience.

2. Have a smart sourcing strategy 

Before you start looking at where you're going to source candidates from, it's imperative that you understand your candidate persona. You should be thinking as a Marketer, look to segment your candidates by their needs, what resonates with them and where your potential candidates spend time digitally (Facebook, LinkedIn etc). Unless you have this in place you run the risk of blowing your advertising budget without any ROI. 

Think like a Marketer - how are you going to attract and convert job seekers into your applicants ?

3. Select and use the best recruiting tools

The HRTech sector is booming ! There are hundreds, if not thousands of vendors who are all vying for your business - there are some fantastic ones out there (and some not so!). 

We suggest as a minimum:

• Applicant Tracking System
• Digital Assessments
• Video interviews

By investing in just these 3 tools you'll quickly release your ROI. Take into consideration the time your Line Managers and Directors spend interviewing substandard candidates - by using these tools correctly you should be able to achieve interview to hire ratios of 3:1. Feel free to download our Recruitment Budget calculator to help you work out the cost of interviews. 

Invest time selecting your tools ! 

4. Use digital assessments

If there's one recruitment tool that you really should add into your process then that's digital assessments. By using these types assessments we've been able to process thousands of candidates in a matter of days. Gone are the days of wading through CV's - digital assessments allows your candidates to prove what's on their CV. Give them real word working scenarios such as making a sales call, updating a CRM or writing code. 

If designed correctly the top performing candidates will rise to the top and you can automate feedback to the unsuccessful candidates. 

Ask candidates to prove what's on their CV !

5. Drive your referral program 

Your most important recruiting assets are at your fingertips, and you may not even realize it. They are your own employees. Building a rewarding referral program should result in more direct hires and less reliance on other sources. Remember to ensure that each and every candidate, regardless of source, is put through the same assessment process.  

Many ATS systems have built in referral features - when you go to market try to find a system that has this feature integrated. 

Rewarding your staff for referrals is vital - of course you can make it a monetary amount but many organizations are starting to think a little more creatively.

Reward referrals creatively ! 

6. Measure and optimize

Very few companies are measuring recruiting results effectively. Again, many ATS platforms have inbuilt analytics and whilst they can look a bit daunting at first glance it's important that you spend time analyzing the results. 

The key things to look out for are:

1) The source of your successful  job applicants (don't be fooled by the number alone, look at where you're actually generating interviews from)

2) The ratio of interviews to hire - how many interviews are needed to make a hire? 

3) Time to hire - how long is it taking from approval to your new hire sitting at his/her desk ?

By spending time analyzing your results you'll be able to quickly identify areas to optimize.

Measure, analyze and improve ! 

7. Build your brand to attract talent

Attracting candidates to even show an interest in your job offer can be a challenge. There is no better way of attracting candidates, than by raising the profile of your company and creating an Employee Value Proposition.

Get yourself visible. Here's some of the ideas that we know have turned around the perception of many organizations:

• Nurturing failed candidates that are potential for future roles.
• Build your online brand presence. Engage social media and let people see what a great company you are.
• Build a powerful careers page that differentiates your recruitment brand. Give your staff and the hiring team an opportunity to talk about how much they enjoy your company (video is great).
• Talk about your performance, your growth and your people's growth within a nurturing environment.

Develop your EVP with your team ! 

Where do you start ?

All you need is a little investigative time and effort.  You don't have to change all your processes and re-invent the wheel to have a positive impact on recruitment costs. Explore the technology vendors, see what's available and see what parts of the process you can automate. 

And, if you're a technophobe, or don't have the time, use those HR-Tech services organizations who will guide you. Sometimes we are scared that if something is too good it can't be true. These days that is not always the case, especially when there is the adoption of technology involved.

So, if you are advised that costs will come down dramatically and the service is quicker and more accurate, perhaps it might actually be too good an opportunity to miss. Of course, use due diligence, check credentials, compare offerings of any HR services organizations you approach. 

The first place to start is by properly measuring and budgeting your recruitment campaign. We've created a great recruitment budget calculator to help you with your planning.