Today’s talent teams are faced with two major challenges: sourcing the best talent —and navigating a tumultuous economy. Some teams need to scale up their recruitment efforts and drive higher productivity, others need to navigate reduced headcounts or reduced budgets. Wherever your team sits, in today’s talent market doing more with less and maximising ROI is crucial to success. So how can you get the most from your budget —and ensure you’re getting the best quality hires? Let’s dive in.
Know your numbers
It starts by understanding your metrics: know what channels you’re investing in, their cost, and how you’re measuring ROI for each. One of the most useful ways to evaluate ROI for sourcing channels is to calculate the sourcing channel effectiveness.
Sourcing channel effectiveness helps hiring teams drill down into what channels are really delivering —not just driving high application volumes, but driving successful hires. This provides a clear snapshot of what sources present an opportunity for increased investment, and which to pull back on. From there you can fine-tune your strategy, scale what’s working and stop what’s not, to take your budget further.
PageUp data shows the average sourcing channel effectiveness across our clients’ most commonly used channels. Often, the most costly channels deliver the fewest high-quality hires —presenting an opportunity for talent leaders to re-evaluate their approach.
Source: PageUp data, 2023
Build talent pipelines
Year after year, PageUp data consistently shows talent pipelines to be one of the most effective sourcing channels. A rich pool of engaged talent is an invaluable asset for hiring teams —it takes only 4 applications on average for 1 hire. Not only can a strong pipeline of talent reduce external advertising costs and agency fees, but also greatly reduce time-to-hire.
Rather than scrambling to find suitable candidates when a position opens up, hiring teams can tap into their talent pipeline to access a pool of qualified and engaged individuals. This means higher applicant quality and reduced risk of candidate ‘ghosting’ throughout the recruitment process. This translates into more efficient hiring and significant cost savings in the long term.
Invest in your internal talent
Often underutilisedunderutilized, internal talent offers a high-quality pool of culturally aligned, pre-vetted talent. Providing employees with the opportunity to move, develop and grow within an organisationorganization is widely recognisedrecognized as a great strategy — but one that is traditionally difficult to do well. When executed well, companies that promote internal mobility can significantly reduce their time to hire, boost employee engagement and fill critical skills shortages within the organisationorganization.
Instead of seeking external candidates who may require lengthy onboarding and cultural integration, hiring teams can identify high-potential employees who already understand the organisationorganization‘s values, mission, and dynamics. This results in a smoother transition, faster time-to-competency and reduced hiring costs: overall, it’s 1.7X more expensive to fill a role externally versus internally.
It’s also a great long-term strategic decision for businesses to undertake. 94% of HR professionals say that putting a focus on internal mobility helps to retain talent. In the wake of the Great Resignation, rising burnout and increasingly disengaged employees, retention and churn mitigation need to be front of mind for talent teams —it costs less to retain a top performer than to hire a new one. Research has shown that employees stay 2X longer at organisationsorganizations with a strong culture of internal mobility, making it a great tool in the talent team’s toolkit to reduce attrition.
A strong stance on internal mobility also acts as a drawcard for top candidates, boosting the employer brand. In recent PageUp research, 94% of applicants said that a focus on development was a key driver in pursuing a role —but only 29% felt companies were getting this right. By showcasing a commitment to internal mobility and career progression, talent teams won’t only be able to keep current employees engaged —they’ll also be able to engage external talent more effectively.
Start an employee referrals program
Implementing an employee referrals program can be a highly effective strategy for hiring teams to drive return on investment (ROI) in their hiring budgets. Our sourcing channel effectiveness data shows referrals produce more quality hires than channels like job boards, or social media. While traditional methods like job advertisements and external agencies often incur substantial expenses, an employee referrals program can generate a steady stream of qualified candidates at a fraction of the cost.
By leveraging the networks and connections of current employees, organisationsorganizations can tap into a high-quality talent pool that is pre-screened and recommended by trusted insiders —your current team. Referred candidates tend to have higher retention rates and better cultural fit, leading to increased productivity and employee satisfaction. The program also promotes employee engagement and strengthens the sense of camaraderie within the organisationorganization, as employees feel valued and involved in the hiring process —it’s a win-win-win.
Invest in your careerscareer site
A well-established careerscareer site can lay the foundation for a great hiring process. Not only are they more effective at producing quality hires than job boards, but they also act as your virtual shopfront. A good careerscareer site showcases your employer brand and generates applications —while also capturing the interest of passive candidates, to grow your talent pipelines. It’s a high-value resource that’s important to get right.
PageUp research shows that a great careerscareer site should address these core elements:
- OrganisationalOrganizational mission and values
- DEI, social, environment, well-being and purpose-based work
- Flexible work arrangements and work/life balance
- Rewards and benefits
- Development, future career opportunities and internal mobility
Your employer brand should shine on your careerscareer site, to help differentiate your company from competitors and attract candidates aligned to your values and mission. But, it’s not about presenting a polished, corporate careers page addressing each of the above elements. Today, it’s vital to present an authentic employer brand. Using employee-generated content is a simple way to establish credibility, trust and authenticity with today’s savvy jobseekers. Encourage employees to share their stories or engage with prospective applicants through live chat sessions, Q&As and video content.
Review your careerscareer site and evaluate it through the jobseeker lens: is it easy to navigate? Can I find and review roles quickly and simply? Is there in-depth information, landing pages and microsites on specific role types, departments etc? Does it feel genuine and show a true ‘day-in-the-life’?
A great example of a high-converting careers site is APM: their site converted 80% of visitors into applicants in the first 8 weeks of going live. Read their story to see how they did it. A great example of a well-constructed career site is Columbia University. Read their story to see how they transformed their hiring with Recruitment Marketing
Re-engage ex-employees
Re-engaging ex-employees (also called “boomerang” or alumni talent) can be a highly cost-effective strategy. Targeting alumni talent often means reduced onboarding and training costs associated with bringing in new hires from external sources. Ex-employees who return as “boomerang” employees often bring fresh perspectives, updated skills, and valuable external experiences acquired during their time away. This infusion of new ideas and knowledge can contribute to innovation and growth within the organisationorganization without incurring the expenses, risk and time investment typically associated with hiring external talent. Keeping the door open for alumni talent also creates a sense of trust, loyalty, and mutual investment —as opposed to burning bridges when employees choose to move on.
A clear success story when it comes to alumni recruiting is Flight Centre Travel Group. At the height of the pandemic, FCTG had to make the difficult decision to stand down 70% of its staff. But, as the pandemic restrictions lifted in the following years, the Talent Acquisition team knew they’d need to re-hire —fast. They used Recruitment Marketing to create an alumni portal for ex-employees to encourage them to stay connected with the brand. During the low period, these alumni were kept engaged with relevant content until FCTG was ready and able to re-hire en masse. Now, this alumni program remains one of the team’s most effective sourcing channels, with incredible ROI. Cost per hire over the course of the program has averaged approximately $2, and time per hire averaged just 4 hours. You can read more about their story here.
Use technology to boost productivity
Finally, it’s important to find ways to reduce waste and streamline processes to boost productivity and drive better ROI from your budget. With the right tech stack, hiring teams can easily automate key stages of the hiring process that would have otherwise been a heavy administrative burden. With PageUp, you can set up automated workflows to sort and tag prospective candidates, create candidate nurture flows and trigger automatic incomplete application reminders to help drive more conversions, without lifting a finger. Setting up workflows to guide applicants through their hiring journey helps hiring teams find the right candidates, faster than ever, giving them more time to spend on strategic, low-cost talent acquisition, building pipelines and future-proofing their hiring strategy.
Want to learn more about how PageUp can help your team drive ROI and hire the best talent? Book a demo to see PageUp in action.
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