A Cheap Hiring Solution Or A Con?

A waste of your time or a hiring solution?

Take your salary and divide it by the number of weeks you work. Then divide that by the number of hours you work each week. e.g. £60,000 ÷ 48 weeks = £1250 per week ÷ 45 hours per week = £27.77 per hour.

What’s the hourly figure for your salary?

Now take that figure and times it by the number of hours you waste sieving through unsuitable job applications from a hiring solution like Indeed. I am using Indeed as the example because my client said, ‘Indeed is a cheap hiring solution.’ and lately I have heard so many people saying they are inundated with unsuitable applications from Indeed. Of course, I hear similar about LinkedIn and it’s not cheap!!

My client agreed that she wasted too many hours going through hundreds of unsuitable applications, and that not all of these are people hear back. 😢 (Adding ‘If you don’t hear back in 2 weeks, assume you haven’t been successful’ may help you cope with the volume but it isn’t a great experience for the applicant. Applicants talk.)

When I ask why people continue to post jobs on a platform that is delivering unsuitable applicants, I hear a wide range of reasons that usually remind me of that feeling that you might win if you buy a lottery ticket. ‘Because in the pile of applications, even though it takes hours, we sometimes find someone.’

The impact of a cheap hiring solution on candex

In this market you may care less about candex but this market will turn and the applicant pipe will reduce. And many of those suitable-but-lost-in-the-pile disgruntled applicants won’t consider your company/client again. So don’t think it’s ok to not get back to people!

Let tech do the heavy lifting

Surprised the Author of The Robot-Proof Recruiter is saying that? Hey, I am not anti-tech. I am anti it being used as a barrier to human connection.

If you have too many unsuitable applicants then do something about it.

1. Start with a much better job intake with your hiring manager. (Chapter 5) Everything stems from here. Be far more curious. Be far more specific. Use this to create a significantly better job advertisement. Mitch Sullivan or Katrina Kibben can help with that, and I can help you get far more information out of your managers!
2. Turn off quick/easy apply! Which may sound counterintuitive but if someone matches your well written job advert and is sufficiently interested, they will be ok to take a few steps to apply. And surely they’d prefer not to be lost in the pile of people who mindlessly hit ‘quick apply’. You can always turn it back on later if it stops the flow altogether.
3. Research and consider niche job boards instead of just posting on the ‘cheap’ hiring solution. Remember that your time is money.
4. Direct applicants to your fit-for-purpose-ATS* and use appropriate job-specific pre-screening questions to help sieve. Ensure these take mere moments to complete but enough time that they take some effort. You don’t want to stop people applying with BS like ‘copy your entire CV into these boxes’, you simply want to stem the flow. (*fit-for-purpose is not a mis-sold HRIS add-on that doesn’t permit screening questions per job! 🤬)
5. Use technology to help you reply to everyone – see pages 166-167 Edition 2 – and commit to it, because 86% of ghosted applicants are left feeling down or depressed. Down or depressed.

Try sourcing before advertising

This may sound controversial but must you advertise the job immediately or at all? Consider, per specific job, whether it is worth the wasted hours sieving unsuitable applicants, the reputation loss that happens when lack of time leads to the neglect of other candidates, and so on.

Would it be better to invest time sourcing for people? No, I don’t mean just using the paid LI recruiter options because then you’d miss accessing the billions of working people who don’t have a LinkedIn profile.

Sourcing is a skill and it is worth developing – done well it saves so much time and pays for itself over and over. I’ve long moved on from teaching sourcing but there are many people around who would be happy to help you, and you can start by looking at speakers at SourceCon and SoSu Sourcing Summit. Your investment in learning sourcing will swiftly pay for itself.

But the choice is yours.

It may seem wasting time sieving unsuitable applicants is a burden you must bear, but is it really?

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