We are always surprised when we are told ‘it’s too expensive to use an employment agency, I can do it myself at a fraction of the cost’. This may be true, however have you actually added up how much that ‘fraction of the cost really is’?
I recently had an interesting discussion about this with a Business Manager who was looking for a Secretary for the company he works for. He had placed an advert on a job site and was thrilled with the number of applicants.
He then spent hours processing each application to discount the following;
* Applicants who had applied but had no relevant experience.
* Applicants who had applied and had not bothered to change their profession according to the job they had applied for.
* CV’s with spelling and grammar mistakes (an important attribute for the job)
From this list he then screened which applicants who were suitable according to skills.
Next, he rang each suitable individual who he thought was right for the job, out of the applicants who got back to him he then sent a confirmation e-mail asking them to attend an interview.
The Business Manager spent 2 days interviewing candidates (some of which did not turn up ) before he eventually found the right applicant. At this point he was feeling stressed and exhausted by the experience!
He felt terrible that he had not had time to e-mail all the unsuitable candidates to thank them for applying and to let them know that they had been unsuccessful. This is something he would have done if he had the time to do so.
Adding up the hours he spent on this exercise and the cost to his company in working time lost he was shocked.
Most larger businesses have HR teams who undertake their recruiting process but even they have so much legislation to keep up with today that they often turn to an employment business for help.
Recruiting is what we do every day, leaving managers to concentrate on what they do best. We can reduce all the time and stress of recruiting and present you with a short list of suitable candidates who have been hand-picked and interviewed. We will also get back to all the unsuccessful applicants.
So next time you do your own recruiting try this exercise and add up the financial cost to your company, it might surprise you too!
The Business Manager had not used an employment agency before, however ,he will next time!
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