Human Resource Solutions

The Recruitment Advert

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING - DO WE NEED IT 
AND HOW CAN WE GET THE BEST FROM IT

A reasonably sized recruitment display advert in the Appointments section of one of the quality newspapers can cost somewhere in the region of £2000-3000. Given that the recruiting Organisation often want to complement this advert with a similar one in an appropriate professional or management journal the starting cost of using advertising for even a middle management post can easily be in the region of £4-5000; this easily doubles for senior posts. Add to this the cost of having the advert designed in the first place and the whole process is clearly excruciatingly expensive.

Recruitment advertising often produces an unpredictable response and often we are unaware what factors have led to this. Is it the design of the advert, where it appeared, the content of the advert (e.g. the salary offered, location etc.), the time of year, or is it simply due to the availability or not of appropriate candidates for the post. The point is that some of these factors can be influenced by the appointing organisation and some cannot, unless we know what they are we cannot influence them.

So how can we be sure that we maximise our investment in recruitment advertising?

Firstly do we need to advertise the position at all?

• Are there suitable candidates within the Organisation that could be developed into the position.
• We all have networks of colleagues in other organisations - do they know of anyone suitable that we could target (or do they know someone who could make a recommendation?)
• What about professional associations; if we know the "right" candidate is likely to be a member, could we obtain an appropriately sorted mailing list and target that way. The same principle applies to graduates, could we target the appropriate colleges / universities.
• Recruitment agencies may have the right person on their books, this can be a very quick way to recruit, but can be expensive in agency fees (usually a percentage of the first year salary). Similarly recruitment / headhunting organisations can be used - again this is expensive (and they often want to use advertising at your expense anyway!)
• Online recruitment via the internet is becoming increasingly popular; this may be worth exploring especially if the post is in the high tech area.

If we cannot generate the "right" candidate using the above techniques, then we may wish to advertise, however bear in mind the following points:

• Determine carefully the best advertising media; if the potential candidate is as likely to read a professional journal as the Appointment pages in the press, why not choose whichever is the cheapest.
• If you must advertise in the quality press, then negotiate a rate with them or at least look for some reductions e.g. for the same advert in a sister publication. And remember (despite what they may tell you) adverts do not need to be big to be effective!
• Give some thought to using an agency to design and place the advert, they should be experts at this. Also if they are worth their salt they should be able to negotiate a discount with the papers (because they deal with high volumes of adverts), which would go some way to covering the design costs.
• Ask all applicants where they saw the advert and record this information then use it when planning your next campaign to see which advertising source produced the "best" (not necessarily the highest) response.
• Look back at what design and content has produced a successful response before, a good advert can be re-used many times! (and thus reduce the cost of design).

Traditional recruitment advertising is the most accepted way of filling middle and senior posts, but remember it is not necessarily the most cost-effective or the best!

 

© Human Resource Solutions 2001

Human Resource Solutions can assist you with the entire recruitment process, including the all important job advert. However if you want to have a go yourself, try the following as a guide:

7 Point Plan for writing effective recruitment adverts