The cost of hiring the right employee can be hefty. A recent report by The US Bureau Of Labor Statistics shows that the cost of hiring has increased by 0.7% in Dec 2015 and Unit labor costs have increased by 2.8 percent over the last four quarters. While recruiting, employers have to bear advertising costs, and go through thousands of resumes, calls, interviews, background checks, etc in order to find the right talent but, this process is costly. Small businesses may not be able to afford dozens of recruiters or best new ATS application. The truth is, small businesses are already recruiting on shoestring budgets but when companies need to expand then it seems like a soaring goal. To address the problem here are some tips that will help you in budget friendly recruiting-

Hop on social media to find right talent- Social media has the potential to go viral. Posting your job description on social networking sites; would result in candidates applying on your career page. According to a report by Glassdoor recruiting stats “86% of people in the first 10 years of their career are likely to use social media in their job search”. Without paying for any ads, employers can build a solid network of followers and connections they can share their content with qualified candidates in their own network. Jobcast reported that 93% of companies use LinkedIn for recruiting, 66% use Facebook, and 54% use Twitter.You can engage employees to promote your company and brand on their social channels using hashtags, photos that showcase company culture. If you don’t want to spend your time browsing through 100 profiles a day then you can use tools that help in recruitment through social media.

Take advantage of your careers site- Use your career site to build an employer brand. Interesting and user-friendly sites can allure more job seekers. You can use your  career site for attracting more candidates, and from social media you can direct candidates to your career page where they will be able to apply for the job position. Employer brand directly influences your ability to attract, hire and retain top talents.”69% of the candidates would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed” as per Glassdoor Hr Recruiting stats.  

Use recruiting tools- For recruiters finding the right talent is time-consuming. Employers should  invest a small amount in online recruitment software such as instaTalent.This employee recruitment software uses cognitive computing, big data analytics, web mining, taxonomies and graph algorithms to find the top 10 best fit candidates.This employee hiring solution is very cost effective. Tools help employers focus their quality time on the right talent. Read our blog on why company need to invest in HR tech.

Focus on quality rather than quantity – Focus on few candidates rather than posting job descriptions on multiple job boards and getting thousands of candidates. Allen Waldron from Senex says “Rather than deal with 100 job applicants, I’d rather deal with a few people who I can really spend time with”. Having minimum candidates in your talent pipeline gives employers an edge when it comes to really knowing candidates.  

Turn your employees into recruiters- A referred candidate is cheaper than a traditional hire. Employers don’t have to pay traditional recruiting costs such as advertising on job boards,calling, assessments tests, and background checks to source new candidates.Employee referral programs stand to be an everlasting trend.The referred candidates stay for longer periods of time, a referred candidate will be onboard faster that a traditional hire and referred candidate will easily adapt to your company’s culture. Employers can use this strategy for example, during onboarding, after you onboard a new hire and the company is comfortable with the candidate’s role; You can ask the new hire, if he/she knows anyone else in the industry, for the hope of getting two hires for the price of one.  

Boomerangs/Old employees- Employers can go out of their way and contact their old employees who relieved earlier. Give them a call, ping them on LinkedIn or email them. Talk to them and get to know if they have any potential candidates in their minds or ask them if they would like to rejoin the company.