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As a general rule, recruiting agencies charge between 10-30% of the base annual salary of the role you are recruiting for. The median average salary for all workers in the UK is £25,971, meaning that the average recruiting cost is between £2,597-£7,791 per candidate. In this article, we explore the other costs that you should be aware of when recruiting.
Costs of recruitment
In addition to salary and agency fees, there are a range of different recruiting costs you may need to take into account.
Advertising
If you would like to advertise the job yourself, then you can promote your vacancies on your social media channels. This costs nothing! However, LinkedIn do offer a paid version of their job advert feature that you can use to maximise your results.
Depending on your budget, you could boost the post promoting your job advert on Facebook/ LinkedIn and/or Instagram. Opting for a budget of £50 and running the boost for 5 days is a great way to increase the reach of your post. Boosting a post is the easiest way of advertising on Facebook/ LinkedIn and Instagram without needing to set up specific campaigns through an Ads Manager account. Not only can you increase the reach of your post, but you can target where your post will be displayed based on demographics such as location.
You can also post job adverts on websites such as Indeed. This is free, however you can pay to ‘sponsor’ your advert to help attract as many candidates as possible. You can tailor this to your budget, with anything from £5 a day to £100 a day.
Writing job descriptions
Time is money! Don’t forget that there is a lot of background work that goes into hiring a new employee. You might not initially associate the time spent recruiting as a recruiting cost, but ultimately it is a large overhead.
At the very start of the process, you or someone within your team will need to write a job description. This may also potentially need signing off by senior staff members. This doesn’t happen overnight and you and your team may need to take time out of your usual workload to make this happen.
Assessing CV’s
Similarly, time will also be spent assessing CVs. With the competition rising to gain valuable job roles, you could be in a position where you have to assess a large number of them. Whilst this is a great position to be in, your staff may spend a lot of time selecting candidates for interviews. This time-consuming task could mean that your current staff efforts are outgoing driven rather than completing other assignments which are more income-driven.
Interviews
Conducting interviews will also take a substantial amount of time out of your current staff’s workflow. Let’s say you find eight strong candidates to interview. Each interview is likely to take around an hour. That’s eight hours of interviews and around a day’s work.
Not only this, but you may also need to consider the cost of hiring an interview space if you do not have an office base and wish to do face-to-face interviews. This could be a conference room or meeting room. A cheaper option could be to carry out interviews in a public coffee shop. But remember to factor in the cost of eight flat whites!
Screening costs
All companies will be required to do certain checks in the hiring process to ensure that they are fully compliant with employment laws, such as Right to Work checks. You may also need certain pre-employment checks for your role such as a DBS check. Depending on your industry you may be required to complete higher level checks such as a BPSS or BS7858 screening checks.
These checks usually come as part of a package, and at Secure Screening Services we have a range of screening packages to suit your requirements, starting from £69.50 – £129.00 per person. If you are unsure which checks your company needs to complete, then chat to us at Secure Screening Services where we put together tailored packages to ensure you are only paying for what you actually need.
Cost of bad recruitment
As highlighted above, there are lots of things to consider when in the recruitment process. And like all things in life, there are no shortcuts to success! If you do not take the time to hire with best standard practice then you could end up hiring someone who isn’t right for the role. This can have a negative, domino effect in your workspace.
Did you know that the cost of a bad hire can equal 30% of the employee’s potential first-year earnings? Not only is it expensive and time-consuming to hire an employee, but a lot of time and effort goes into getting them up and running in the first place. This can include induction, training costs and emotional resources! If your new candidate does not fit the role and team culture, it may put staff in a position where they are required to have difficult conversations, which isn’t nice for anyone.
One of the biggest costs of bad recruitment is the cost of having to do it all again to find a more suitable candidate for the role. This can also be mentally taxing for you and your colleagues. Plus, if your company has a high turnover rate, this can affect staff morale. The value of being part of a team, enjoying what you do and working hard decreases. A happy team is more likely to be a successful team.
How to reduce hiring costs
You should never cut corners when hiring, however, there are ways to reduce costs. Here are some tips to consider to ensure you hire the right candidate the first time around and don’t spend a fortune doing so!
Get the most out of your job advert!
To put together an effective job advert, you will need to be honest and detailed about the responsibilities of the role, day-to-day tasks and the required qualifications. Make sure you also sell the perks of being part of your company and describe the company culture.
For instance, if you are recruiting for a hybrid working role, are there certain days that the candidate would be required to come into the office if successful? Are there times when this person may be expected to work outside of normal working hours, to attend industry events for example?
Remember, honesty is the best policy! Now is the time to manage expectations.
Interview tips
The interview is your chance to test the knowledge of your candidate and to see if their personality would fit into your team environment. It’s equally a chance for the candidate to see whether they would enjoy working for you! So ensure you invite plenty of opportunities for questions.
Here are some tips on getting the most out of an interview:
- Ask plenty of questions about the candidate’s experience and knowledge to complete the day-to-day tasks of the role.
- Before the interview, set a test/task for the candidate to complete or give them a scenario and ask how they would go about completing this. This can be an interesting thing to discuss and dissect when you meet them.
- Don’t make it all about work. Ask the candidate about themselves. Do they have the qualities that your company desires? You can always train someone if they do not have the experience or knowledge, but you can’t teach qualities. If you need someone trustworthy and who is a natural team player, find out whether they possess these qualities.
Screen your candidates!
Screening and hiring go hand in hand – and here is why.
Screening gives your company the confidence that you are hiring reliable and trustworthy people. It gives you confirmation that the information the candidate has given you is accurate and that they have the right qualifications to carry out the necessary work.
Screening reduces the cost of recruitment whilst increasing the quality of your hire. Quality of hire is important as it prevents you from having to repeat the recruitment process multiple times. All companies want to add talent to their team, and a quality hire can mean retaining your staff, increasing productivity and reducing training costs.
Reduce your recruiting costs with Secure Screening Services!
We can help your company – small or large – reduce your recruiting cost with our quality screening services! Not only will our experts recommend you the best products for your company, but we will help save you time in the hiring process and find you the right candidates the first time around.
We will provide you with clear and concise PDF reports on the completion of employment screening. Our reports have an easy-to-read cover sheet that shows the result of the screening followed by a comprehensive report should you want to get into the details.
Our commitment to you will always be to provide you with the correct package with the right information for your needs.
Interested? Get in touch with us by calling: 01243767868 or email hello@securescreeningservices.com.
