7 Tips to Reduce the Cost of Talent Acquisition

For employers, success is inevitably and directly tied to your people… or the caliber of talent you can both attract and retain as an organization. And because top performers often prefer to work with other top performers, the types of employees you hire today can have an incredible impact on your success and the employees you attract for many years to come.

Due to the cost and time required from hiring managers, the process is often poorly executed. And although the cost of hiring is significant, more than ever, the competition for talent among employers and recruiters is fierce. For this reason, having the right “Talent Acquisition Strategy” along with efficient processes and the right Human Capital Management (HCM) technology is critical. Are the tools you use to hire causing delays, increasing administrative costs and creating poor results in your hiring pipeline?

Recruitment vs. Talent Acquisition

Did you know there is a difference between the terms “recruitment” and “talent acquisition?” For many, these terms are used equally and interchangeably.

For others within the industry, there’s an important difference to acknowledge. “Recruitment” is considered a short-term and reactive approach to hiring. It’s the process of filling vacant positions based on known short-term needs. In contrast, “talent acquisition” is a much longer-term approach and strategy. It’s a more proactive approach to developing a long-term pipeline of relationships and the right talent over time, while anticipating future needs and skill sets desired. It goes well beyond current vacancies. On which side does your organization fall?

Use the Right Technology for Talent Acquisition

In a world full of recruiters, social media, remote work and more opportunity for employees than ever, it’s important that employers adopt the right tools to attract better talent while minimizing the administrative cost of hiring. If you’re not using an industry-leading HCM suite with Talent Acquisition built in, your processes can likely improve.

Here are seven tips or simple features your Talent Acquisition tool should offer to reduce the time and cost:

1. Custom Approval Workflows – Hiring typically involves multiple stakeholders and decision makers, but completing those approvals and checks can be time consuming. With a modern Human Capital Management system, your hiring team can easily collaborate electronically on notes and create custom workflows to accelerate the process for HR, managers and recruiters. This provides the ability to better manage, track and speed up approvals.
2. Paperless Recruiting and Onboarding – In today’s technology world, be sure you’re using tools that deliver a better online experience to candidates. Not only should candidates access a self-service portal to view open positions and upload their resume, but also, HR should be able to use that same data to minimize the time it takes to hire and onboard the new employee, minimizing duplicate data entry.
3. Post to 8000+ Free Job Boards – Getting your jobs to the right candidates is critical, but it can be both time consuming and costly. Choose an HCM solution that streamlines the job posting process. For example, our solution posts to over 8000+ free job boards to help you get in front of the right candidates as efficiently as possible.
4. Develop Pre-screening Questions – Accelerate and narrow your search more effectively by developing a set of online pre-screening questions. This is an excellent way to assist both the candidate and hiring manager in identifying a good fit position.
5. Send Automated Notifications to Candidates – One of the more taxing aspects of hiring on both hiring managers and candidates is communication, such as calendaring and keeping everyone up to date on the status of the position. With a modern Talent Acquisition solution, now you can send automated notifications to candidates to do things like confirm receipt and update job status or use the calendaring tool to streamline progress.
6. Resume Parsing – Creating a resume, then re-entering all the data can be a major frustration for candidates resulting in significant duplicate entry. The candidate often wonders why they spent the time to organize a resume when they must re-enter all the data anyway. But with “Resume Parsing,” your system can parse and pull key data from the candidates resume to significantly reduce the time it takes to enter that data.
7. Track Candidates Across Custom Hiring Stages – With the right Talent Acquisition tool, not only can you define the right hiring stages (10 by default), but you’re able to track and visualize candidates as they progress through those stages. Managing your hiring pipeline has never been more visual and efficient.

When it comes to successful hiring that reduces the impact on the organization, improving your time-to-hire and cost-per-hire is half the battle. You’re often only as effective as the tools you use. But by adopting a workforce management solution that has Applicant Tracking and Talent Acquisition built in, the cost and quality of your hiring results improve. And because these tools are connected to HR, payroll, timekeeping, performance, and so on, your HR team can easily transition from reactive hiring from a short-term perspective to a “talent acquisition” strategy that carries a long-term focus.

Contact a Human Capital Management Specialist at Payroll Link today to learn more.