How to Recruit Top Talent on a Budget?

Learn how to recruit top talent on a budget! Discover creative, cost-effective ways to attract and hire top candidates. To find the perfect talent for your company, you don't have to settle for a big budget. You don't need a big budget to attract and hire top talent! Recruiting is no longer so much about flashy ads, but more about targeting the right audience with the right message.

If you focus on keeping your current employees satisfied, actively manage your social media presence, and maintain consistent messaging, your company's external reputation will thrive, bolstering an appealing employer brand. Effective employee management plays a crucial role in nurturing internal satisfaction, which reflects positively on your company's external image and attractiveness to prospective talent.

This will make potential job seekers interested in the position and the company as a whole. Remember that there are cost-effective ways to promote your business, so don't feel limited by your budget.

Below you'll find information about unique ways to advertise on a budget, as well as examples of companies that can serve as inspiration.

How do you recruit on a budget?
Get creative when recruiting!

There are many successful recruiting methods. Recruitment software programs like IceHrm and LinkedIn Talent make it fairly easy to target qualified candidates.

If you want a more personal approach, colleges and high schools offer career fairs for people who are actively looking for jobs or internships. Currently, many colleges and universities also offer online career fairs.

The 4 most important cost-effective methods of recruiting

Referrals, job fairs, social media recruiting, and organized job postings are all ways to make people aware of your company. Soon you will be able to attract dedicated, loyal employees to complement your employee family.

Depending on which medium you choose and which you prefer, the following sections will explain in more detail how you can use it cost-effectively.

Recruiting method #1: Create an attention-grabbing job ad

A Glassdoor study reveals the top 5 things people look for when researching a company and job openings.

The following bullet points show what you should pay attention to when creating an attention-grabbing job advertisement and what message you want to convey.

Salary, benefits and work location are the three most important points, so creating a job posting with these points at the top can be a good marketing approach.

• Salaries (67%)
• Social benefits (63%)
• Location (59%)
• Commuting time (43%)
• Employee reviews (32%).

Recruiting Method #2: Go to job fairs

Job fairs are a powerful way to communicate face-to-face with people who are actively looking for jobs. You can research colleges in your area, and depending on what industry your company is looking for, you can go to the career fair for that department.

For example, if there is a marketing position to be filled, communications and business schools would be a good way to find qualified applicants. This is also a cost-effective approach as most trade show booths cost between $50 and $250.

Nowadays, with COVID-19 in full swing, many institutions have shifted their career fairs to virtual platforms, so this option no longer needs to be ruled out.

Recruiting Method #3: Ask Your Employees to Refer People

According to Glassdoor, 45% of people found their job through a recommendation from friends. Employee referral programs are a great way to attract like-minded people to your company, reducing the risk of conflict with employees. They also give your company a face and serve as a personal testimony.
To reinforce this initiative, it might be a good idea to offer your employees a referral rewards program to increase the chances of getting more people on board.

Under the Refer a Friend initiative, the strong advocates can receive various rewards depending on their budget:

• Gift cards
• Cash benefits
• Donate money for a good cause
• Course cards for yoga, pilates etc.
• Work from home
• Special days off.

With all the great things you and your business do, having a social media presence is more important now than ever. It helps applicants get to know the employees, find out what the company stands for and what everyday life in the workplace is like. Without a social media presence, job seekers may think your company is closed and out of date.

These days, people seem to be more attracted to companies that value their employees, are transparent, and have a strong social media presence.

According to a study by Resume Lab, after receiving a job offer, 37% of candidates said they would look for another job offer if they couldn't find enough information about the company online.

This shows that there are several things you should prioritize if you want to make your business marketable and attractive to job seekers, and that these things don't necessarily have to break your budget.

Social media is a free tool that plays a big role in the job search, so you should set up your company platform (or revamp the one you already have).

BONUS: 2 proven ways to attract top talent

With satisfied employees voicing their testimonials online, it automatically makes the job more attractive to people stumbling upon the position and business itself. There are businesses that may seem nice throughout their website and job descriptions, but in reality, they aren’t.

Job seekers care about this, and that’s why it’s important to focus on internal employee satisfaction. There are other ways to make a company more appealing as well.

The list below provides 2 additional ways to keep employees happy within the organization, and ways to promote things externally as well for a possible job seeker to see.

Talent attraction tip #1: Promote gratitude in your organization

A place that uplifts people and makes them feel recognized is a place that doesn’t go unnoticed. Through gratification within the organization, you will create happy, motivated employees that will hopefully pass along the message to relay to others.

That can be through social media or places like Glassdoor, where employees can write their reviews on how their experience at a company has been so far. For cost-effective gratification, consider words of encouragement when projects are successfully completed, or recognizing their yearly work-anniversary with messages from the whole office.

With websites like Glassdoor that make people's testimonials towards companies public, it’s important to make your company appealing within the organization, for it to be appealing externally. There are ways to make employees feel recognized and cared about, and words of gratitude is a great place to start.

Talent attraction tip #2: Provide a generous paid time off

To promote a healthy work-life balance, a generous paid time off is important for many employees. It allows them to take a break from work and focus on their mental and physical health.

Work is such a large part of people's lives, and a company that actually cares about the wellbeing of their employees is a job people want. This is a benefit that possible employees will see, take note of, and hopefully encourages them to apply.

Learn from the best: How to Google, Facebook and Tesla attract top talent?

Although the companies below typically have big budgets, they have found innovative ways to be cost-effective and competitive at the same time. This is something any business, small or big, can learn from.

Coming up with your own, unique version can help you reach the people you want for the job position. From Facebook to Google, these large enterprises can give some inspiration for what you want to start implementing.

Example #1: Facebook

The Facebook recruiting process prides itself on being fast-paced. Not only does this show who the quick, timely candidates are, but this ensures that the cost spent on advertising and keeping the job post up, is lowered.

Efficiency is key if you want to keep prices low, and time spent productively. Another point to note is that the most recent hires’ job search typically lasted less than 2 months, so it’s important to give quick responses and keep people in the loop.

If you have a long, extended, delayed recruitment process, people might accept another offer somewhere else during that time period.

Example #2: Tesla

The American vehicle brand has unique and slightly different interviews that many other places. They find candidates who are up for a challenge, and truly know the ins and outs of the position. This calls for fewer hours spent on training, which can help with the cost of hiring.

According to the Wikibuy post, the average cost-per-hire is $3,000, which can be a lot for smaller, start-up companies.

Example #3: Google

Google is extremely organized when it comes to their recruitment process. This leaves no room for confusion or inconsistency, which is important to candidates as well.

They start with phone screenings, then in-person interviews, with a four-point ranking scale that the interviewers have.

Finding the right candidate can be difficult, and with the right organization and process like Google has, it makes things more structured and efficient.

Key takeaway: No recruiting budget? Get creative!

It’s important to find the right employees. Thankfully, discovering the perfect talent for your company doesn’t require settling if you don’t happen to have a large budget.

There are many creative ways to stand out on the FREE job posting sites, career fairs, and online job advertisements as well.

INFOGRAPHIC: Additional ideas for recruiting on a budget

Interested to learn more ways to obtain the right employees for you while still keeping the recruitment low-cost? Follow IceHrm today!