3 Ways to Get More Out of Your Recruitment Budget

Budget time has rolled around once again. While budgeting is primarily about looking forward, it’s an ideal time to reflect upon what you’re spending, where that spend has given you your best return on investment (ROI), and where your spending has been less productive. Recruitment marketing budgets can often be hard to determine, as people are variables determined by market health and company output and growth. As with all financial strategies, the money allocated to recruitment should be used in the most effective way possible.

Recruitment campaign health must be continuously monitored to ensure maximum ROI. To determine your own recruitment strategy health, ask yourself the following questions:

If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, your recruiting strategy needs help.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the myriad of recruitment marketing options available including paid ads, job boards, recruitment websites, programmatic job advertising, recruiting agency services, and more. Carefully choosing where to spend that recruitment budget each year is the secret to maintaining a healthy recruiting strategy. So, to cut to the chase, how can you get more out of your budget while maximizing its efficacy? Let’s take a closer look.

3 Steps to Maximize Recruiting Budget Efficacy

Optimize your media spend

Optimizing your media spend can be a tricky undertaking. While we’re all for strategically incorporating sponsored listings into your overall sourcing strategy, it’s become common practice for employers to simply throw money at the problem and hope for the best. This is a great way to burn through a budget and have little to show for it. So how do you optimize that spend?

First, know the options. There are sponsored and non-sponsored job postings and simple and advanced pricing for those sponsored listings. Sponsoring a job posting will push it to more job seekers, and choosing simple or advanced pricing will determine how the money is allocated. Before a route is chosen, research all available options and how each will affect the outcome of the media strategy.

Next, look at your position. This starts by understanding your position within the overall job market.  Generally, if you are looking for highly specialized talent, need to hire a large number of people to fill a role, or have struggled to find the right candidate in the past, you will likely have a tougher time filling those positions. That’s where sponsored listings can give you a much-needed boost to the pool of qualified applicants. But remember, the key to success is strategy. Don’t spend more; spend wisely.

For more information on Media Optimization check out these resources:

Optimizing Your Indeed Strategy To Maximize Your Sourcing Efforts

5 Steps To Getting Your Money's Worth Out Of Sponsored Job Postings

How Wicresoft increased applications and reduced cost-per-application for a healthcare organization

Uncover your authentic employer brand

A strong employer brand ensures that job seekers understand your company culture and what to expect if they choose to work with you. Having an employer brand that is a true reflection of your company (not a projection of what you wish your company might be) increases the chances that those who apply are going to be a good fit with your team, culture, and set of values.

How does employer branding affect your bottom line? Employer brand saves time by attracting 50% more qualified candidates, which in turn leads to a 1-2x faster hiring time. Additionally, companies with a strong employer brand have been shown to grow at a rate of 20% higher than their counterparts, and have a reduced employee turnover by up to 28%. These metrics culminate in a powerful 50% reduction in cost-per-hire. 

Learn more about employer branding, and how to uncover yours, here.

Update your career website

52% of applicants seek out an employer’s career website before deciding whether they should apply. As career sites are the number one destination for job seekers looking to research and educate themselves on a potential employer, it is imperative that organizations be able to offer these dedicated sites to stay ahead of the competition.

Having a site to facilitate inquiries allows companies to increase exposure on Google and other search engines, attract more qualified applicants, generate click leads, and house employer brand and other storytelling materials.

Learn more about career websites and updating yours here.

Lowering your recruitment marketing budget comes down to maximizing the efficiency of each expenditure through metric assessment.

With so many moving parts, it can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint what might be causing your strategy to be lackluster. To dig deeper into your recruitment marketing budget and the trouble it might be facing, check out our infographic.

Have questions? To speak with an expert or to get an assessment of your recruitment marketing budget, schedule a meeting with us!