We thought we should start this off with some common comments heard from across the pond and their reasons for straying away from using a recruitment agency to source their talent and in doing so, hopefully debunk some myths of how costly recruitment agencies are!
Sometimes it can be painstaking to agree that your business needs support and it doesn’t
matter how many times you fly over the elephant in the room, recruitment equals
staff and staff equals forward movement of the business…
Overheads
How much are the overheads of your internal team? Say 2-3 in house recruiters, between 25-30k each a year salary, plus the cost of your advertising, LinkedIn keys etc or is it being handled by Bev who’s trying to balance recruitment as well as HR and twenty other plates at once?
Often business owners see an agency (a word we are not a fan of!) as an additional cost that can be avoided in the recruitment process if it is handled in house, though shining a light inside the business at the time, resources, money lost and reputation damage, highlight the cracks where talent is missing…and of course it goes without saying…. the lack of heads in the business affects how that business is operating productively and efficiently, as well as the happiness and overall wellbeing of the staff.
If this sounds like your business, do not fear! There is short- and long-term cost savings to using a recruitment agency and it’s important for you to remember the long term wins you are getting, opposed to the one off ‘fee’ you will pay for that staff member.
Short term savings from choosing a recruitment agency
- No fees for advertising your roles! Say goodbye to the CPC for Indeed advertising. No subscription fees. No job board fees. Zero, Zip, Zilch. These are all handled by the agency.
- Not overworking your employees lumbered with recruitment or taking them away from their usual duties, creating a knock-on effect in their quality of work elsewhere…
- No paying overtime for employees helping out with in house recruitment
- Reduced risk of taking on the wrong candidate resulting in poor performance, staff training and re-hiring
- Time! Time is money, wasting time is wasting money, it’s a no brainer really…
Long term savings
- Long term salary save – working with an agency there is already a pre-built relationship between the agency and candidate, as well as the agency and the client. The more we know about you as a business and the more we know about the candidate, the easier it is to find your long-term fit. Long term = less money… if you know, you know.
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Coming back to the same recruitment agency for a new role means, we know you! Which also means, we know where to look and who to look for, equalling a quicker turnaround time.
Reputation – Let’s be honest, it’s not a good look when a business is so stretched it begins damaging the reputation. Overworked and underpaid is now a meme, you should check it out, if it’s your business that is hashtagged # underneath it…well let’s just say not all press is good press! It means it’s time for a change…
So, to sum up a few things
If your business is paying out like the list below:
- Salaries: Est £60,000+ PA if you recruit in-house
- Advertising costs – Indeed, Job boards, Linkedin Keys to name a few £10k-£15k PER MONTH
- Reputation damage – well the cost of that one, it could take a fair few years to recover
- Loss of sales and customers due to poor service from being understaffed.
- Increased employee stress… there goes another good staff member…you get the jist.
You could be looking at spending more than £250k a year, that’s not including the cost of the staff member once you get them onboard. So, make sure the staff member is the right one.
Pay the small salary fee at the agency and get the rebate if for whatever reason they don’t work out. It’s a win win all round… so in short, yes.
If you mean big business, a recruitment agency can 100% save you money! And we are not just saying that because we are, well, an agency. We are saying it because it’s true!