What is direct recruitment and how can it help your business?
Direct recruitment involves using websites and adverts to advertise your available jobs directly to prospective candidates, rather than using an agency or business partner to fill the role for you. While it may seem like a simple concept, there are many advantages to this system, which we’ll look at in this article, including how it saves you time and money and how it helps you recruit the most suitable candidate for your job role. In addition, we’ll also look at some things you need to consider before getting started with direct recruitment.
Why you should think about direct recruitment
Smaller business owners are increasingly turning to recruiting directly as an effective, streamlined way to find new talent. Direct recruitment involves no middleman; you advertise for a position, review applications, interview the most suitable candidates, then hire whomever you deem fit. It’s simple — and it saves you time and money by cutting out expensive middlemen like recruitment agencies.
Key benefits of hiring directly
There are many advantages to hiring directly — and no, it’s not just because it’s extremely cost effective. Direct recruitment helps you achieve certain business goals that can benefit your company long-term.
One potentially huge benefit is building your own talent pool. As well as advertising your jobs on popular job boards and sites, it’s becoming more and more common for business who recruit directly to have their own careers site. Candidates can then visit your site to find out everything they need to know – culture, values etc. – before applying for jobs directly. The major advantage of this is that it allows you to build a large pool of interested candidates that you can contact in the future without paying fees to anyone, including job boards for new adverts.
Another benefit can be speed. Hiring through traditional recruitment agencies can typically take a lot longer than hiring directly. You’ll need to wait until they find candidates, often they will meet and interview candidates prior to them even making you aware of the candidate. Also, if you are then unhappy with any candidate that an agency brings forward for an interview, you’re then back to square one. Not only can hiring direct be much quicker and easier for you, it can also make the process a lot easier and more transparent for the candidates and your new hire.
Things to think about before going direct
This type of recruitment often involves candidates responding to specific job advertisements, which can be a time-consuming process for both jobseekers and then you as the employer to review the applications… In addition, jobs can go unfilled for longer periods when there are a number of applicants who are considered to be ‘equally suitable’ for each role.
Finally, direct recruitment does not tend to attract as many passive candidates – those who do not actively seek out new roles but could still be interested in new opportunities. These people might hear about a role through their existing networks or by word of mouth, so direct recruitment methods may not always reach them.
Interested in speaking to one of the team about direct recruitment and what you can be doing to improve your recruitment processes?
