How to Recruit Efficiently, Compliantly and With Reduced Costs

Did you know that when you have a job opening in your organisation, it can take up to 63 days and an average of £3,000 to fill? However, in the quest for top talent, time and money are the two important factors recruiters and hiring teams cannot afford to compromise on. This is why having a well-defined recruitment process improvement plan is so crucial.

The ability to swiftly identify, engage, and advance high-calibre candidates through the hiring pipeline can make all the difference between securing the perfect hire or settling for a less qualified candidate. Achieving this delicate balance requires an efficient hiring process that encompasses speed, quality, compliance, and cost efficiency across your entire organisation.

To achieve optimal results and maximise the effectiveness of your recruiting and hiring endeavours, HR leaders, hiring teams, and recruiters should focus on three primary goals: time efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and compliance.

Before delving into each goal and exploring the best practices and advice to achieve them, it is essential to understand the recruitment process and identify potential pitfalls that may hinder your journey to finding the best talent for your organisation.

Understanding the Components of the Recruitment Process

The first step in creating an efficient hiring process is understanding how it works. That means analysing each step and identifying areas for improvement so that organisations can enhance their recruitment efforts. Typically, the hiring process encompasses the following key stages:

• Identifying the Need and Decision-Making

The process begins with recognising the need to hire a new employee. This involves assessing workload, skills gaps, and business objectives to determine the position's requirements. At this stage, it’s also crucial to clearly understand the role and its responsibilities before proceeding.

• Planning the Hiring Process

Planning involves defining the job requirements, creating clear and detailed job descriptions, and outlining the desired qualifications and experience. This step sets the foundation for attracting and evaluating potential candidates effectively.

• Attracting Candidates

To reach a wide pool of qualified applicants, organisations often engage in active candidate sourcing and advertise job openings through various channels. This may involve posting job ads on job boards, leveraging social media platforms, engaging with professional networks, or partnering with recruitment agencies.

• Screening and Interviewing

Once applications start flowing in, the screening process begins. This typically involves reviewing resumes and applications, shortlisting candidates, and conducting initial interviews to assess their suitability. Effective screening helps filter out unsuitable candidates and identify potential matches.

• Identifying and Selecting Top Candidates

From the pool of screened candidates, the hiring team identifies the top performers. This may involve conducting additional interviews, assessments, or reference checks to evaluate their skills, qualifications, and cultural fit within the organisation.

• Making the Offer

This includes providing an offer letter, negotiating terms such as compensation, start date and working hours, and outlining performance expectations. Once the candidate accepts the offer, the process moves to the next stage.

• Onboarding and Training

To ensure a smooth transition, the newly hired employee goes through an onboarding and training programme. This stage aims to familiarise them with the organisation’s culture, policies, procedures, and job responsibilities. Effective onboarding contributes to higher employee engagement and retention.

Once you have your process mapped out in front of you, it’s easier to identify what’s holding your organisation back from achieving an efficient hiring process, including potential setbacks, delays, and unnecessary expenses.

What Can Go Wrong in a Recruitment Process

Like most issues in a business or organisation, inefficient hiring processes often boil down to poor planning, lack of communication, and the misuse of technology and tools. Here are some common issues that can hinder an efficient hiring process:

1. Lack of Planning

Effective recruitment is all about planning: preparing for current and future needs, working on strategies to fill those needs, and executing plans to find the perfect candidate. Taking the time to plan ensures informed decision-making, alignment with organisational objectives, and an overall strategic advantage for successful talent acquisition.

2. Lack of Clarity

Unclear or vague job requirements could lead to wasting valuable time and resources from dealing with unqualified applicants. Setting clear expectations by crafting tailored job descriptions for each vacancy can not only streamline the recruitment process but also enable candidates to self-assess their suitability more accurately and ensure a better fit for the role.

3. Roadblocks, Delays and Lost Productivity

To ensure an efficient hiring process, it is crucial to address common roadblocks and delays that hinder productivity. These may include lengthy decision-making processes, delays in initiating the hiring process, slow offer management, and inadequate onboarding and training programmes. Addressing such issues can be as simple as automating certain tasks or eliminating unnecessary red tape that leads to productivity backlogs.

4. Lack of Communication

Effective internal communication is crucial for optimising the recruitment process and maximising its effectiveness. Lack of regular meetings among the hiring team, managers, and strategic leaders, as well as a lack of alignment in candidate selection, can definitely hinder efficiency. Fostering regular dialogue with colleagues helps identify and remove roadblocks, ensures proper planning, and provides clear and accurate requirements to candidates.

5. Wrong Technology and Tools

Improving the efficiency of screening methods and candidate sourcing strategies can be easily achieved through automation. However, choosing the right tools and technologies is essential, as utilising overly complex or outdated systems might lead to even more unnecessary delays and complications in the recruitment process, and outdated or insufficient technologies may struggle to keep up with your team's needs.

Whether you’re using an ATS, CRM, video interviewing software, or any other recruitment tool or automated process, it is crucial to ensure they are well-suited to your company's size and hiring needs and that they’re ultimately helping, not hindering, your hiring process.

You might also be interested in – Overcoming the Challenges in Recruiting Tech Specialists

Effective and Efficient Recruitment: The Key Goals for Success

In the realm of talent acquisition, recognising and addressing the above issues is crucial not only for optimising the recruitment process but also for building a thriving business. In the following sections, we will explore some of the most effective strategies to enhance time efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure compliance in your hiring process while securing top talent for your organisation.

Goal No 1: Time Efficiency

The average time to hire often exceeds a month, from the job opening to the final handshake, and sometimes, this timeline may not be fast enough. To speed things up, it’s essential to find ways to reduce unnecessary delays and improve inefficient processes that can lead to poor hires and, ultimately, lost revenue.

Here are some strategies that can help streamline the hiring process and reduce time-to-fill:

1. Utilise Recruiting Automation

In today's highly competitive market, successful companies understand the importance of achieving better results in less time and with limited resources, especially when it comes to hiring top talent. If your organisation is also aiming to boost its competitive advantage in recruitment, the solution lies in leveraging candidate recruiting automation technologies.

Examples of recruiting automation technologies can be found throughout the recruiting funnel, from initial candidate sourcing to the final hiring decision.

• Candidate Sourcing

Recruiting automation makes candidate sourcing and engagement easier. These technologies take care of finding and connecting with passive candidates, and by gathering and analysing data about their skills and experience, they can also match them automatically with suitable job opportunities. These solutions can also handle candidate outreach and follow-up, making sure candidates stay engaged.

You might want to try: Dripify, Entelo, Jobsoid

• Candidate Screening

AI chatbots and candidate engagement technologies automate candidate screening, update applicant status, and enhance the overall candidate experience, enabling companies to offer a seamless, standardised, and scalable interface for potential job seekers.

You might want to try: ConveyIQ’s, SeekOut

• Interview Scheduling

Recruitment automation technologies offer the promise that one of the most tedious parts of the hiring workflow, scheduling candidates for interviews, can be partially or completely automated via their technology.

You might want to try: HireEZ, Workstream

• Assessments and Interviews

Technologies in this space facilitate coding tests to identify skilled developers and assess non-technical qualities for better hiring outcomes. Moreover, recruiting automation enables digital on-demand interviews, automating the entire process.

You might want to try: SmartRecruiters, Fetcher

• CRM / Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing and candidate relationship management (CRM) platforms can help your organisation maintain relationships with candidates on an ongoing basis at scale.

You might want to try: Octopus CRM, Zoho Recruit

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

Most ATS software today leverages intelligent technology, like artificial intelligence and machine learning, to automate the interview process and improve both the candidate and recruiter experience.

You might want to try: Freshteam, BreezyHR

Discover – Which Recruitment Model Is Best for You?

2. Create a Clear Target Candidate Profile

To streamline your evaluation process and ensure a better alignment with your needs, it's important to create a target candidate profile. This profile should include key factors such as relevant experience, personality traits, preferred working styles, motivational factors, and location. By doing so, you'll have a clear and fair strategy for evaluating candidates, which means you'll spend less time making decisions and justifying your selections.

While creating the profile, remember to prioritise the most important qualities you're looking for in a candidate. However, it's essential not to be overly rigid, as you may unintentionally overlook qualified individuals and end up investing extra time and resources in search of someone else. The goal is to have a focused idea of whom you want to pursue but remain open to potential candidates who possess valuable skills and attributes.

Avoid the temptation to review every candidate who meets one or two criteria, as this can lead to a massive influx of applicants and wasted time. Instead, use the targeted candidate profile as a guide to home in on individuals who closely match your requirements. Give these candidates thorough consideration to ensure you don't dismiss or accept someone too lightly. By following this approach, you can save time and make more informed decisions throughout the hiring process.

3. Adopt Remote Interviewing

Remote interviewing has gained significant popularity, especially in the post-pandemic era when face-to-face interviews were not feasible. This trend is continuing as more companies embrace virtual interviewing to streamline their screening and selection stages.

The advantages of remote interviewing are evident. By conducting interviews remotely, companies experience a shorter time to hire, minimise the risk of unconscious biases influencing decisions, simplify scheduling, and ultimately reduce hiring costs. According to Aberdeen’s talent acquisition research, organisations utilising virtual interviews are 2.7 times more likely to reduce their cost per hire compared to those who don't leverage them and improve their time to hire by 60%.

To optimise your interviewing processes, consider implementing one-way video interviews for initial candidate screening instead of traditional phone calls. This approach helps streamline the process and minimises the labour hours associated with screening. As you progress to the later stages of the candidate journey, continue with live virtual interviews to personally meet the candidates. An interview scheduling tool will make the process even easier.

Goal No 2: Cost Effectiveness

The cost of hiring a new team member varies significantly depending on how you calculate that cost. If we consider the onboarding period, the time it takes for the new hire to reach full productivity, the average cost of replacing just one employee could soar up to £30,000, according to an analysis from Oxford Economics.

To cut down some of these expenses, here are some cost-effective strategies you can employ to maintain a healthy recruitment budget without compromising the quality of your hires:

1. Invest in Quality Right from the Start

One of the most effective ways to drive cost-effective recruiting is to invest in quality hiring practices right from the start. But how can you get it right from the get-go?

The first step is to focus on quality when attracting and selecting candidates for your organisation. This means finding individuals who not only have the necessary skills and experience but also align with your company’s culture. By making the right hiring decisions from the start, you can greatly reduce the chances of costly hiring mistakes and subsequent turnover. This saves you from unneeded expenses associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training new employees to replace those who didn't quite fit the bill.

The second step is to invest in quality talent acquisition processes and tools that can significantly streamline your hiring efforts. Implementing effective applicant tracking systems and conducting thorough background checks and interviews ensure that you have all the information needed to make informed hiring decisions. These tools and processes not only help you identify the right candidates, but they also minimise the risk of making costly mistakes.

Investing in quality right from the start also has additional benefits, like contributing to building a positive employer brand and reputation. When your organisation prioritises quality in its hiring practices, it naturally attracts top talent in the market. As word spreads about your commitment to excellence, more qualified candidates actively seek opportunities with your company. This increased interest results in a larger pool of talented applicants, allowing you to be more selective and ultimately hire the best candidates. A strong employer brand not only reduces the time and resources spent on sourcing candidates but also leads to cost savings by attracting individuals who are more likely to stay with the company in the long run.

2. Lean on Your Current Employees

When it comes to filling open roles, it's also worth tapping into your existing team members to boost your recruitment efforts without incurring additional costs. With three simple tactics, you can engage your current workforce in your recruitment strategy and make the most out of it:

• Focus on Internal Mobility: Before seeking external candidates or requesting employee recommendations, take a moment to identify individuals within your organisation who have the potential to be promoted. By considering internal candidates first, you benefit from their familiarity with your team dynamics, business operations, and positive contributions to the company culture.
• Encourage Employee Referrals: By establishing an employee referral programme, you can encourage your team members to recommend potential candidates. To make it more attractive, think beyond traditional monetary rewards and consider offering enticing experiences as incentives, like a weekend getaway. Such tactics can also foster a sense of teamwork and collaboration among your employees.
• Leverage Your Employees as Recruiters: Try building an internal employer branding team and leverage the power of your employees as recruiters by tapping into their digital networks. Provide your team with pre-prepared social media posts and encourage them to share these posts on their personal social media profiles. By doing so, you increase your chances of attracting applications from high-quality candidates while simultaneously expanding your talent pipeline. This approach not only harnesses the influence of your employees but also strengthens your employer brand.

3. Try Passive Recruiting Strategies

Are you familiar with the phrase, “If the mountain doesn’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain?” Well, in passive recruitment, your organisation is the mountain waiting for the right candidates to come to you. Here are a couple of ideas to help you get started:

• Take Advantage of Your Social Media

Social recruiting is an incredibly cost-effective approach to hiring employees. When your organisation engages with potential candidates through social media, it offers them valuable insights into your day-to-day operations, vision, values, and the kind of people who thrive in your work environment. This transparency and authenticity significantly increase the volume of applications you receive from individuals who are already confident that they would be a great fit for your culture and share your vision and values.

And the best part is that social media can be entirely free. However, when you're just starting out, it's important to focus on the most appropriate channels for your specific audience rather than trying to be present on every possible platform. For many organisations, LinkedIn proves to be the most relevant platform for their recruitment strategy.

• Build Talent Pools and Networks

Sometimes, you come across many exceptional candidates for a single role. Don't let those valuable contacts go to waste; instead, build talent pools of individuals you can reach out to when future positions become available. By pre-qualifying applicants, you can streamline the entire hiring process, making it easier, faster, and more cost-efficient than starting from scratch.

Similarly, don't overlook the potential of former employees who have moved on to new opportunities. Stay connected with your alumni network, as they may be interested in returning to your organisation or recommending qualified friends for open positions. This approach is one of the quickest and most cost-effective methods for addressing skill gaps.

Find out the best ways to Calculate Costs per Hire and Reduce Recruitment Costs

Goal No 3: Compliance

Recruitment is a complex and time-consuming process by nature that can become overwhelming if not handled correctly right from the start. That’s mainly because it can throw up lots of potential issues, especially regarding discrimination and data protection. This is why being compliant during recruitment should be a key priority for any organisation.

Recruitment compliance refers to how organisations attract, select, and appoint qualified candidates for open positions while adhering to labour laws, industry regulations, privacy policies, local legislation, and diversity and inclusion guidelines. In an increasingly regulated landscape, ensuring compliance is essential for establishing a hiring process that upholds ethical standards, reduces legal risks, and fosters a positive candidate experience.

Here are some conditions that HR leaders and recruiters must prioritise to recruit and hire compliantly:

1. Legal Framework and Data Protection

Recruiting and hiring new employees is a task that comes with important legal considerations, and compliance extends way beyond the pre-employment issues that may arise during the process. As an employer or a member of a hiring team, you may often find yourself navigating a complex legal framework to avoid indirect discrimination, handle health and disability inquiries with care, make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants, and ask appropriate questions regarding criminal records and personal information. Compliance also entails verifying the right to work in the country.

Data protection is another crucial aspect, particularly with the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Establishing robust measures to safeguard candidate and employee information and ensuring transparency in data processing is key. This involves providing clear privacy policies that outline how the organisation collects, processes, and safeguards data. These policies should specify the storage location of data, clarify that it will be used solely for recruitment purposes, and offer guidance on requesting data deletion or correction. Obtaining consent for processing sensitive data is equally vital.

Furthermore, as a business, it’s essential to recognise your sole liability for compliance and accountability. This extends beyond understanding the legal framework and implementing data protection measures—it also entails taking ownership of the actions of business partners. Failure to comply with legal requirements can have severe consequences, impacting both the reputation and legal standing of your organisation.

2. Unbiased Selection Processes

When crafting job ads, it is crucial to prioritise non-discrimination and ensure that the wording and placement of your advertisements do not exclude individuals based on what are known as “protected characteristics” in the Equality Act 2010. This requires careful consideration, as it may not always be as straightforward as it seems. For instance, instead of stating "Dutch IT Analyst," which could discriminate based on race, it would be more appropriate to use "Dutch-speaking IT Analyst." No matter the case, you should always be able to justify any job requirements based on legitimate reasons.

Another protected characteristic is any form of disability. When interacting with neurodiverse individuals or candidates with disabilities, it’s important to keep in mind that questions about it can only be asked under specific circumstances. For example, you can ask about health or disability if the job requires reasonable adjustments to be carried out or if it determines whether the candidate requires assistance during the selection process or interview.

In terms of any other personal information, this should only be required on an application form or during an interview if it is essential for the job. This means that diving into anything that relates to the interviewee’s age, sex or gender, sexual orientation, relationship or pregnancy status, colour, nationality, or religion must be avoided if not for legitimate reasons; otherwise, it could be considered discriminatory. For example, asking a female candidate about her plans for having children in the near future while not asking the same question to a male candidate is difficult to defend without coming across as biased. Everyone should be evaluated on their qualifications and abilities, regardless of gender or family plans.

Similarly, it's essential to ensure that evaluation tests or assessments don't give an unfair advantage to one group of applicants over another. You’d want to create a level playing field for all candidates, giving each of them an equal opportunity to showcase their skills and potential. And while it is acceptable to give preference to a candidate with a protected characteristic if they are equally suitable for the job, this should only be done when there is underrepresentation or disadvantage associated with that characteristic within your organisation.

By promoting fairness and inclusivity throughout the hiring process, you can build a diverse workforce that reflects the wide variety of talents and perspectives in our society while safeguarding your organisation’s reputation.

3. Transparency Regarding the Contract

Transparency is key when it comes to the employment contract, ensuring that both the employer and the new hire are on the same page and compliant with legal requirements. During the negotiation process, it's important to have open discussions and clearly outline the terms of the contract, whether it's a permanent, freelance, part-time, or fixed-term arrangement. This way, everyone involved understands the nature of the employment from the start.

Additionally, it's crucial to provide a comprehensive overview of what the new hire can expect. The offer letter and contract should clearly explain the benefits package, including details about pension contributions, holiday allowances, and any unique perks that come with the role or the company. Moreover, they should explicitly address important company policies that relate to the specific role or the organisation, including policies about sickness, absence, or flexible working options.

By being transparent about these aspects, both the employer and the employee are aware of their expectations and rights, setting the stage for a positive and productive working environment.

4. Fair Onboarding Process Guidelines

Creating a positive onboarding process is an essential step in making the new employee feel valued and welcomed into the organisation from day one. It starts by introducing them to the company culture and ensuring they feel part of the team right away. However, it's not just about a warm introduction; you also need to prioritise a fair and compliant process. This includes familiarising the new team member with office essentials (such as facilities and health and safety contacts, information on the location of important items like the first aid kit and fire extinguishers, as well as emergency evacuation procedures), and carefully preparing their workstation according to their health and safety requirements and taking into account any specific needs they may have to minimise potential risks.

Inclusivity is key during the onboarding process, too, especially when it comes to addressing any existing conditions or disabilities that may impact the employee's ability to perform their tasks. To promptly identify and address these concerns, you need to make the appropriate accommodations to ensure their comfort and success in their new role.

Setting clear goals and expectations during this process and having a personal development plan in place is also vital to foster open communication and growth. In the case of remote roles, you can establish structures that help the new hire feel connected and integrated into the team and provide guidelines on how to manage time effectively, meet objectives, and measure success in their role.

5. Compliance When Hiring Internationally

Employing and managing international teams can be quite a task. It's not just about navigating the regulatory aspects and properly classifying employees. When hiring talent from overseas, there are several other factors you need to consider and prepare for, such as:

• Working across different time zones: With team members spread across the globe, coordinating work and meetings can be a challenge. You need to be mindful of time differences and find effective ways to ensure smooth collaboration.
• Payment and exchange rates: Dealing with international payments and exchange rates adds another layer of complexity. It's important to establish clear processes and systems to handle international transactions smoothly and fairly.
• Employment contracts: When hiring internationally, you need to ensure that employment contracts are tailored to comply with local laws and regulations. This includes understanding the specific requirements and provisions in each country.
• Statutory regulations: Each country has its own set of labour laws and statutory regulations that you must be aware of and adhere to. Staying updated on these regulations is crucial to maintain compliance and avoid any legal issues.

But hiring internationally goes beyond compliance alone. It also requires a deep understanding of local cultures, politics, and languages to ensure employee satisfaction, especially in remote work scenarios.

How Templeton Can Help

If you want to hire internationally and build a successful global workforce, it's important to address not only compliance and regulatory aspects but also factors like time zones, payment methods, employment contracts, and statutory regulations. To ensure that everything is managed properly, you’ll need a recruitment partner with the right knowledge and tools.

Templeton holds a 27-year track record of recruiting time efficiently, cost-effectively, and compliantly thousands of quality IT professionals around the globe and a vast database filled with potential candidates that suit your needs. Find out more about our multi-award-winning recruitment services.

You might also be interested in – Top 5 Emerging Trends in Recruitment: How HR Leaders Should Adapt