Some businesses try to recruit on their own because they think using an external recruiter is too expensive. But there are ways you can tap into a recruiter’s expertise and still keep your costs down. To give us some views on how to save money in the recruitment process, we spoke to College of Law alumni and recruiter Jason Elias, director of Elias Recruitment. Here are 4 of his tips for saving money on recruitment.

 

 

On certain assignments, some recruiters may offer an “a la carte” choice of recruitment options charged at an hourly rate. This works well where employers like to do certain parts of the process themselves (like reference checking) but want a recruiter to do time intensive or low value parts like screening applications and notifying candidates of the outcome. Clients can pick and choose and only pay for what they need with a cost effective hourly rate, saving employers both time and money.

 

If you’re using a recruiter, give them exclusivity. There are so many advantages to an exclusive recruitment arrangement for employers and I’ve written about some of them here. But one of the big cost benefits is that most recruiters will agree to a discount in exchange for the certainty that comes from an exclusive relationship. And just because the relationship is exclusive, don’t assume the net won’t be cast widely. Many recruiters are also members of a group or network that shares their listings with other recruiters, giving you a broad reach without paying any more or having to deal with multiple recruiters.

 

Sometimes recruiters will offer a discount in return for an upfront “skin in the game” commitment. After all, this kind of “pay-in-advance” arrangement also gives recruiters certainty, protecting them from clients who change their minds halfway through the process.

 

 

Many recruitment fees are tied to salary, so employers don’t know exactly what they’re going to pay until the salary offer is made and accepted. Less reputable recruiters may even talk up the salary to boost their commission. Some recruiters may be willing to negotiate an “agreed salary” up front, on which the fee will be based – almost like insuring your car on an “agreed” or “market value” basis. This kind of certainty can really help clients with budgeting and can also save thousands. For example, we recently had a candidate request a higher offer and to protect the client we agreed to lock our fee at the original offer, saving them over $2,000.