6 Low-Cost Recruitment Techniques for Your Hiring Process

Because qualified workers are essential to the success of any organization, effective recruitment is a critical business function. However, the costs associated with recruitment can be significant. In fact, a report from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) found that the average cost per hire is nearly $4,700. Additionally, the average executive cost per hire is more than $28,000.

With traditional recruitment methods such as paid job boards and recruitment agencies, costs can add up quickly. To optimize your recruitment budget and reallocate spending to other parts of the business, your team can embrace alternative, low-cost recruitment techniques.

Top low-cost recruitment tips to consider include:

1. Build talent communities
2. Turn to current team members as a top talent source
3. Make the most of social media
4. Post on niche, free, and low-cost job sites
5. Use Boolean searches
6. Reduce total recruitment time

1. Build talent communities

Similar to nurturing relationships with customers and prospects, each time you interact with a candidate, you have the opportunity to develop a long-term connection. Forward-thinking companies have proactive processes in place to build talent communities. This approach helps recruitment and talent acquisition teams avoid starting the recruitment process from scratch each time a skills gap arises—which can reduce costs as a result. Talent communities can include past candidates, as well as former team members, often referred to as company alumni.

Even if individuals don’t join your organization the first time they meet one of your recruiters at a networking event or apply for a role, they may be qualified and the right fit for a different role in the future. And if a team member left the company on a positive note, they may be willing to come back if the right opportunity arises.

Past candidates have already engaged with your company and may have also previously completed initial recruitment steps, which can reduce overall hiring time and costs. Former team members are familiar with the company’s culture, mission, and day-to-day processes and have likely also gained new skills and perspectives that will benefit the organization. An individual who may not have previously had the experience to take on a leadership role when they left the company may now possess relevant skills for a management or executive role, which can reduce costs compared to starting the search for an executive from scratch.  

Some ways to to build and engage a talent community include:

• Maintaining a database of candidates and past team members using an applicant tracking system (ATS) or similar solution
• Connecting with individuals on LinkedIn or other professional networks
• Adding an option to join your talent community on your career site if the right role isn’t immediately available
• Sending newsletters and other communication to your database featuring company updates such as workplace awards and team member spotlights
• Hosting virtual or in-person informal networking events or office tours
• Supporting a positive experience for all individuals—including sharing feedback with qualified individuals who don’t receive an offer—to keep talent engaged
• Creating alumni groups for former team members on a social media network or other platform
• Leveraging ATS data and intelligence to match past candidates and team members to the latest open roles

2. Turn to current team members as a top talent source

While many recruitment efforts focus on engaging talent from external sources, your best—and most cost-effective—source for qualified individuals may be your current team members. By turning to individuals already on your team, you can encourage workers to take on new opportunities within the organization or refer their contacts to your open roles.

Engaging, developing, and retaining existing team members through internal recruitment can save your team time and reduce hiring costs that would have otherwise been spent recruiting, onboarding, and training new workers.

When current workers refer individuals to your open roles, you can reduce recruitment advertising costs as well as time spent on initial screening. And individuals referred by trusted team members are likely among the best candidates because current workers want to collaborate with individuals who will make positive contributions to the team.

Here are some steps you can consider to encourage internal worker transitions and referrals:

• Circulating open positions internally and encouraging team members to apply
• Providing access to talent development tools and resources for individuals to develop and improve their skills
• Holding managers accountable to regularly checking in with workers about their career goals
• Utilizing a management development program to train existing team members to take on leadership or executive roles
• Conducting companywide talent reviews to understand workers’ skills and potential across the organization
• Implementing a succession plan to backfill roles when team members change roles internally
• Sharing success stories about team members who have successfully transitioned roles
• Developing a formal referral program, with incentives to encourage participation
• Offering additional incentives for referrals to leadership and executive positions
• Adding a field on job applications for individuals to share whether they were referred by an existing team member
• Encouraging team members to share open roles on social media and other networks

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3. Make the most of social media

Social media is one of the most widely used and cost-effective recruitment sources. In fact, research from CareerArc found that 92% of respondents surveyed use social and professional networks to recruit talent, ranking above referrals, job boards, and advertisements.

While social media sites offer sponsored posts and other paid options, many social media recruitment tactics can be implemented free of charge—which can help reduce your overall recruitment budget.  

A few ways to embrace social media for your low-cost recruitment strategy include:

• Completing company profiles or pages with relevant and engaging content on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
• Posting open roles, searching for and messaging talent, and joining networking groups on LinkedIn
• Commenting on posts by individuals looking for work
• Searching relevant hashtags for qualified job seekers on Twitter
• Promoting job openings and benefits of joining your team
• Highlighting team member success stories, testimonials, and workplace awards
• Producing and sharing videos that highlight your company culture and employer brand
• Responding to individuals who engage with your organization’s social media content by commenting on posts, resharing posts, or sending messages
• Following other organizations’ LinkedIn pages for competitive intelligence and new ideas

4. Post on niche, free, and low-cost job sites

While most job boards and job search sites include options to post open roles for free, traditional widely used job boards often prioritize paid, sponsored posts at the top of job search feeds. With paid job posts, the costs can add up quickly.

Instead of investing a significant amount of your recruiting budget in traditional job boards, consider sharing your open roles on niche, free, and low-cost recruitment sites. Some examples include:

• Industry-specific job boards for targeted roles, such as Wellfound for developer and tech roles, SHRM HR Jobs for human resources positions, and Idealist for nonprofit jobs
• Job boards aimed at specific demographics, such as Diversity.com for underrepresented talent and Career Contessa for women
• Executive job boards for senior-level leaders, including ExecuNet and ExecThread
• Local classified websites such as Craigslist
• Career center pages at colleges or other educational institutions
• Work marketplaces like Upwork

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Rather than exclusively recruiting full-time, in-house workers, engaging independent talent on the Upwork Talent Marketplace™ can help your organization access experienced professionals with more than 10,000 in-demand skills, while reducing costs and increasing workforce agility.

5. Use Boolean searches

‍Boolean search is a specialized search process that combines words and phrases using the words “and,” “or,” or “not,” as well as special characters such as brackets and quotation marks, all of which are known as Boolean operators. This type of search is used to limit, broaden, or define the desired search results.

Boolean searches can be used on search engines, social networks, and in many technology solutions including applicant tracking systems and have a wide range of uses. For recruitment, one of the most common uses is finding qualified individuals that align with job requirements.

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Using the examples in the table above, a recruiter can more easily identify customer service professionals with management or leadership experience. Without either the “and” operator or quotation marks, customer support professionals or other individuals with “customer” in their job title may appear in search results. As a result, narrowing down the best-fit individuals will take longer. By using the “not” operator and excluding the word “specialist,” the recruiter can reduce the number of individuals who possess less experience who appear in the search results.

While not exclusive to recruitment, some benefits of Boolean searches for recruiters include:

• Saving time and resources rather than manually weeding through or reviewing unqualified talent
• Finding individuals with specific qualifications on free search engines or job sites
• Identifying and reaching passive candidates to expand the talent pool beyond individuals actively searching for jobs  
• Eliminating prospective job seekers or applicants who don’t align with requirements
• Driving cost savings that would have otherwise been spent on paid job postings or advertisements  

6. Reduce total recruitment time

Recent research from Robert Half found that organizations looking to fill white-collar roles report that the average time to hire is 11 weeks, up from seven weeks in 2021. And the longer a role is open, the more total cost per hire increases.

Some expenses that factor into cost per hire include salary and benefits for recruiters and HR team members involved in the process, job board and social media advertising, talent assessments, and background and reference checks. Additionally, lost productivity due to vacant positions can have a negative impact on your overall business outcomes.

Some ways to reduce total hiring time—which can help decrease recruitment costs—include:

• Embracing artificial intelligence and other technology to automate tasks including sourcing talent, screening candidates, scheduling interviews, sending communications, administering talent assessments, and initiating reference and background checks
• Standardizing the hiring process and assigning roles and responsibilities along the way to remove bottlenecks
• Holding recruitment team members accountable to reviewing and responding to applicants in a set timeline, such as within 48 hours
• Streamlining the total number of interview rounds for each prospective team member
• Leveraging an interview scorecard, so all individuals are rated on a standardized, objective scale  
• Sending digital onboarding paperwork before the first day to help get new team members up to speed quickly
• Measuring recruitment effectiveness to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement

Find the best talent with effective recruitment

Identifying and implementing low-cost recruitment techniques can help your organization optimize your recruitment budget. Determining which techniques are the most effective—while ensuring you’re not sacrificing candidate quality—can take time and experimentation.

Partner with specialized recruiters to discuss the skills your team needs, eliminate the guesswork, and select from a shortlist of qualified independent professionals from Upwork’s global talent community. Learn more and get started today.