Online job postings are an important asset to your recruitment process because they help you reach a wide audience of quality candidates. The time and money spent on online job applicant sources should help you efficiently hire quality employees — but not all job boards result in strong hires.
Do you know the return on investment of the various job boards your dealership uses? The following tips can help you be more strategic and efficient with your job board spending.
Focus on Quality over Quantity
A quality applicant is someone who is qualified to advance to the “candidate” and “interview” stages. Prioritizing quality over quantity will not only help weed out applicants who aren’t a fit, but it can save money on job boards in the long haul.
If your business values quantity, you may make the mistake of spending on one-off job board ads or boosts. While this investment may increase the total amount of applicants, with a high volume often comes low-quality applicants. Simply put, these applicants aren’t a good value for your business. In some cases, you might even make the mistake of hiring an unqualified applicant in an effort to fill an open role quickly, which will result in more losses — to both profitability and productivity — in the long run.
Continuously examine how many quality applicants you’re receiving from each channel — rather than the total number of applicants — and evolve your sourcing strategy to focus on the highest-performing channels.
Measure the Success of Each Sourcing Channel
Once you have an efficient process to differentiate between quality candidates and unqualified applicants, continue to measure the success of each sourcing channel. Only spend time and money on channels that deliver quality candidates.
To understand the ROI for each sourcing channel, divide the total costs of each channel by the number of quality applicants you receive. This will give you a cost per candidate, which enables you easily to compare job boards and other networks that might have different pricing models. With this data you can craft a proper budget for sources with higher ROI.
Eliminate Sourcing Channels with Limited ROI
Measuring the amount of quality candidates from each channel will help you optimize your budget and ensure you’re investing in sources that deliver quality talent and reduce spending on low-quality sources. If certain sources are not producing results — quality candidates or eventual hires — it’s time to reallocate this spend to an applicant source with a higher ROI.
Determine which sources are sending you strong candidates by answering the following questions about each one you use:
• What percentage of applicants were qualified enough to turn into candidates?
• How many candidates completed one or multiple interviews?
• How many interviewees were hired?
Utilize a Multichannel Strategy
Vary your job postings by tapping into a variety of recruitment channels and spending your budget on the sites that produce the best ROI and highest quality candidates. A multichannel strategy can include classified ads, social networks and mass media job boards, among other sources.
Continue to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of each source and make changes to posts, channels and budget as necessary. These measurements will help you determine the most effective channels and allow you to invest in those with the highest ROI. Over time, a smart sourcing saves time and money and helps your dealership build the best possible team.
Adam Robinson
