I am often asked how much it costs to recruit in Oxfordshire. This will always have many variables depending the role, your business, candidate profile and your preferred method to recruit, but by far the biggest cost of recruitment is when it goes wrong.

As business owners or hiring managers, we are often guilty of wanting to recruit that new hire into our businesses yesterday, but my biggest advice is please DO NOT rush your recruitment process! Finding the right fit for your business and indeed the candidate is the only way to recruit successfully.

Having said all the above, I can completely empathise as we are in the most candidate driven market in memory if not ever, therefore we are all having the same challenges. Being totally honest, here at Thompson & Terry Recruitment, our time investment per hire is c. 270% higher than that of before COVID, but as a result of being firm with our values we are proud to say that our success-rate is higher than ever!

But what can you do to cut recruitment cost?

• Retention: Well, the first thing that I always say to any business that I talk to about recruitment is that retention must always come before recruitment; there is no value in ‘filling the bath before you put the plug in’ and that analogy can really cut your recruitment spend considerably (I will be writing a blog with tips on this point over the next few weeks).
• Ask your people: I always recommend that businesses should ask their people who do they know that would be a good fit for any vacancies and also ask for any feedback from when they joined the business before starting your recruitment campaign.
• Finding the best talent: Being totally honest, in most cases long are the days where you can put an advert on Indeed (or the newspaper) and be inundated with applications; here at Thompson & Terry Recruitment, 49 out of our last 50 placements were as a result of ‘headhunting’ the very best candidate, rather than the candidate applying for the job. As a business, don’t be afraid to approach potential candidates with a friendly message.
• A thorough but fast process: This point could often be seen as an oxymoron, but it’s so important that it isn’t. I always say to any employer that the purpose of an interview process is to ensure that both the employer and candidate have a complete understanding of what the relationship looks like and when you both look back in 6 months there are no surprises. Having said that, as an employer looking to recruit in a candidate driven market, my advice is to move very quickly; respond to candidates quickly, be flexible with interview times and most importantly once you are ready to offer, do it quickly.
• Communication: Your recruitment process doesn’t stop when the offer is accepted, it’s so important that you keep regular communication and really hand hold throughout the onboarding process. Once the candidate joins your organisation, make sure they have a really good induction and training program; we often speak to candidates who have left organisations quite early on (not that we’ve placed!) and the biggest reasons are lack of communication or lack of training.

In summary, recruiting the best talent into your business will often be a challenge and in order to recruit successfully it will almost certainly take a bigger time investment than the past. Having said that, if you communicate, plan and follow a thorough and transparent process you will be able to hire outstanding talent.

If any more detailed insight on any part of this blog would be useful, or indeed a conversation around any more specific challenges, please do get in touch, I am always happy to help.