Recruitment: Our 9 tips for a cost-effective recruitment process!

Setting up a recruitment process that enables you to source the best candidate profiles is both a challenge and an opportunity. However, companies that are content to respond to applications from APEC or Pôle Emploi are missing out on the best candidates.

So how do you recruit these hard-to-find individuals without spending a fortune? We've investigated for you: here are 9 tips for effective, low-cost recruitment today.

• Defining the recruitment process
• Recruitment: what are the challenges facing small and medium-sized businesses?
• 9 tips for an efficient recruitment process
  • Tip 1: Anticipate recruitment needs to avoid rush jobs
  • Tip 2: Use your employer brand to attract the right profiles
  • Tip 3: Involve employees in HR interviews
  • Tip 4: Post job offers on recruitment sites
  • Tip 5: Make yourself known in the fields of expertise in which you recruit
  • Tip 6: Use your corporate website to recruit
  • Tip 7: Create a candidate experience in parallel with the HR process
  • Tip 8: Reduce recruitment risks
  • Tip 9: Offer more attractive packages than the competition
• Conclusion

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Definition of the recruitment process

The recruitment process refers to the logical succession of recruitment phases that lead to the integration of a new employee into a company. Classically, there are 6 stages in the recruitment process, which can be subdivided into sub-stages: definition of the open position, definition of the required profile, sourcing of candidates, selection, bilateral agreement between employer and candidate, and finally onboarding.

Recruitment: what are the challenges facing VSEs and SMEs?

According to a Brookings Data study in July 2014, 75% of hires in 2025 will be millenials. Yet we know that the expectations of these candidates and potential candidates have nothing in common with past generations, for whom salary and regular recognition were enough. Millennials, now students, work-study students or young executives, have new expectations:

• they want to be considered and involved;
• they attach great importance to the company project, but don't like corporatism;
• they are prepared to work for a lower salary, but want freedom in their working hours, etc.

This paradigm shift is a real challenge for the HR function, which must not only fill vacancies, but also participate in changing the company's culture.

This challenge is only becoming more acute in modern companies, whose growth and changing needs are changing rapidly. In this case, HR policy needs to be ahead of employee expectations.

We have extracted a few figures from a recent survey of small and medium-sized businesses conducted by Wide Open . It illustrates the extent to which pressure is mounting on HR managers and recruiters. What we shall see next, however, shows that it is possible to implement changes immediately without committing more human and financial resources. Quite the contrary, in fact.

This study highlights the fact that Human Resources Management (HRM) expectations are disproportionate to the resources available to recruiters. Many HRIS systems are limited to payroll management and legal obligations, when more collaborative and connected tools are needed. What's more, training for Human Resources Departments (HRDs) is not in line with today's needs in career management, sourcing and talent recruitment.

Do you find yourself in this situation? Read on to optimize every stage of your recruitment process.

9 tips for an efficient recruitment process

Without further ado, here are some simple HR tools and tips you can deploy right now to put the power back into your human resources management.

Tip 1: Anticipate recruitment to avoid the rush

Filling a position and looking for a job have one thing in common: starting the search when the need is there is tantamount to leaving with a major handicap. As we saw in the extract from the Wide Open study, 95% of recruiters feel under constant pressure to fill vacancies, which has an impact on the quality of the recruitment process, on the quality of candidates, but above all on the chances of success of the recruitment mission.
This is all the more true in fast-growing companies. In this context, the urgency is permanent, and recruitment errors are more frequent if there is no anticipation.

As a result, recruiters need to be constantly on the lookout and have sourcing tools at their disposal, so they can quickly start promoting a new position (permanent, fixed-term or even internship). This means having initial contact with candidates before they are needed, constantly detecting profiles and attracting talent. Recruitment software fulfils part of this mission (CV libraries, headhunting on professional social networks such as LinkedIn and Viadeo, etc.). The other is made up of the best practices we'll discover below.

Tip 2: Attract the right profiles with your employer brand

The collaboration between a company and an employee is much more complex than an exchange of skills and time in return for payment. More than ever, candidates are looking for meaning in their jobs, which is why branding is so important. It answers WHY as well as WHAT, WHERE and HOW.

The WHY allows both recruiter and candidate to confirm that they share the same belief. The other questions are of a practical nature, and merely validate the belief.

More concretely, employer branding must highlight several essential points:

• Corporate culture: work-life balance, support for noble causes, encouragement of entrepreneurship, equal opportunities, etc.
  
• Values: trust, high standards, equality, etc. These are all points that structure the company's development. The more a candidate shares the company's values, the more motivated he or she will be.
  
• Mission: this is often explicit in American companies, and less so in French ones. Yet it is fundamental: what is your role in the world? Example: "Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world" .
  
• Vision: the vision can be described as the company's "ultimate goal" in a context it imagines. It offers candidates the opportunity to project themselves into the long term, and to understand the meaning of the objectives set.
  
• Objectives: objectives provide a framework for employees' short- and medium-term missions. They provide a more operational perspective.
  
• The product: this point is essential, yet many recruiters overlook it. It embodies the candidate's contribution and position.

Google (Alphabet), number one in the Forbes rankings, is particularly good at branding itself to job applicants, receiving 3 million applications a year.

Tip 3: Involve employees in HR interviews

A company's employees can relay job offers to excellent candidates in their personal network. Furthermore, potential candidates are more likely to be convinced by employees than by "corporate" messages.
It's for these two reasons that companies wishing to recruit more easily and cost-effectively need to encourage their employees to pass on job offers, and to encourage unsolicited applications from people they feel match the company's expectations. The first step is to inform all employees of future recruitment waves or specific job openings. The second step is to set up a cooptation system, which will in any case be less costly than a headhunting firm.

In addition to acquiring application files, it is very economical and effective to involve employees in the candidate selection process. They will be more attentive to technical skills and past experience, which adds an extra layer of internal control. The recruiter, on the other hand, can concentrate on interpersonal skills, personality tests and administrative aspects.

Tip 4: Post job offers on recruitment sites

There are almost 200 job boards and recruitment sites, ranging from the intranet of a Parisian university to international job boards like Indeed, via the Pôle Emploi and APEC websites. As these platforms are veritable breeding grounds for candidates in France, it is highly recommended to be listed on them and, what's more, to be more visible than other recruiters.

To achieve this, there are recruitment tools such as Gestmax or Taleez , which broadcast your vacancy on all relevant job boards in a matter of seconds, when it would take you days to do it manually. In the Gestmax example, the tool positions your offer on premium slots without charging you any additional fees.

The savings are immediate:

• The time it takes to place the ad is zero. The recruiter can concentrate on higher value-added work.
• Premium positions on job boards are integrated into the recruitment software subscription.
• There's no need to call on the services of a recruitment agency or headhunter, because your method will be just as effective.

The recruitment software you can find here also lets you monitor the recruitment process and build up a CV library. They also enable you to forge relationships with leading schools (ESSEC, HEC) without any extra effort.

Tip 5: Make yourself known in the areas of expertise in which you recruit

Being visible at events that interest your potential candidates is an excellent way of attracting the best people at low cost. Here are a few concrete benefits:

• On the candidate side:
  • Only the most motivated people attend events;
  • Events on specific themes attract the most experts.
• For recruiters:
  • Participation in such events is generally free of charge;
  • Exposure and attention are maximized, and the context lends credibility to your message.

All you need to do at the end of your presentation is to conclude in a corporate manner and say that the company is recruiting. These meetups or online conferences should preferably be given by employees from the profession in question, rather than by HR staff.

Tip 6: Use your company website to recruit

Taking advantage of your company website costs absolutely nothing, apart from a few hours of page and text preparation. Create a "recruitment" page to describe open positions, but also to answer a fundamental question: why work for you?

Recruitment software such as Gestmax lets you encapsulate your job offers directly on your site. This gives visitors real-time access to the positions on offer, and enables them to apply via an online form.

A strong trend in recruitment is inbound recruiting, inspired by inbound marketing, which consists of devising a conversion tunnel to capture the best profiles and turn them into candidates. In this way, a stranger becomes a visitor, then a candidate, then an employee and finally an ambassador.

To do this, you need to use all the levers of the Web, such as good SEO practices, your blog, career site, company pages, job boards and social networks. For example, if you have a job opening for a JAVA developer in Lyon, name your page "Développeur Java Lyon" (Java Developer Lyon) to move up the Google rankings.

Tip 7: Create a candidate experience alongside the HR process

The candidate experience is inspired by marketing and sales methods designed to enhance the customer experience. The idea is to engage the candidate in all the steps leading up to their hiring and, in so doing, eliminate potential friction.

This starts with up-to-date offers on your site and job boards (recruitment software synchronizes offers with your site and job boards). The online application process must also be easy, fluid and reassuring for the candidate. Recruitment software such as Taleez, with its ergonomic, customizable career site, offers an exceptional candidate experience.

In addition to showcasing the employer brand to attract the best profiles directly, this type of software allows you to create a candidate account and send notifications at every stage of the recruitment process.

E-mails and phone calls should show your appreciation of the candidate: they've made the effort to come to you, so thank them. Last but not least, the collaborative aspects of recruitment are appreciated by candidates: the harmony that emerges gives an image of professionalism and a healthy corporate culture (good internal communication).

Tip 8: Reduce recruitment risks

It's easy to reduce the risks involved in recruitment without using a recruitment consultant. There's no need for psycho-technical testing or any other science. Here are 4 things to put in place immediately:

• Ask for and verify recommendations;
• Let the candidate speak and listen. Detect any inconsistencies;
• Interview at least 3 colleagues to get 3 opinions;
• Target the right people: according to Pfau and Ira Kay, you should seek out people who have done the job you're looking for, in the same context and in a company with a similar culture. This advice is based on the observation that past habits are the best predictor of future ones.
  In the same way, don't try to train people who don't have the profile for the thing you want. If you're looking for a project manager, look for someone who has that experience, and who's methodical and good at working with others.

Tip 9: Offer more attractive packages than the competition

The subtlety is in the phrase. Generally speaking, it's a good practice to offer a higher salary than the local competition. The best profiles will spontaneously come to you rather than your competitors and, above all, they'll stay with you. The cost of a resignation is several thousand euros, so offering a salary a few hundred euros higher than the average is to your advantage.

However, salary is not the only way to consider an employee: luncheon vouchers, housing allowance, profit-sharing, stock options, annual bonus, supplementary health insurance, etc., are all part of the package. By playing on the tax and cost (versus perceived value) of these benefits, you can offer a package that will be perceived as more attractive.

For these benefits to be appreciated, however, you need to communicate their cost, difficulty of implementation and risks.

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Conclusion

We have seen in this article that HR management in terms of human capital alone is a strategic issue. However, HR software and recruitment methods are not keeping up with the pressure on HR departments. To alleviate this problem, there's no need to question your HRIS or call in a recruitment consultancy: inexpensive recruitment software combined with good practices can save you money and make it easy to recruit profiles that were so hard to find before.

Updated article, originally published in October 2017.