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As Jobs Boards costs spiral – is redeployment the answer?

Working with more than 400 recruitment agencies across the UK gives us great insight into what’s really happening in the contractor recruitment market.  A big pain point for agencies at the moment is the cost of jobs boards, which by all accounts has positively skyrocketed, particularly since the lifting of covid lockdowns.  In a survey carried out by Liquid Friday, 65% of recruitment professionals said that they are feeling the impact of increased jobs boards costs.  It’s a trend set against the tightest labour market in 20 years, with increasing vacancies being reported across many skills areas and falling candidate numbers to fill them.

Cost Vs Performance

Jobs boards have been quick to take advantage of the market conditions, with some increasing their fees by more than 300%.  Others have changed their pricing model - Total Jobs for example have recently changed their rates so how much you pay to place a job ad is no longer based on customer size or type. Yet the effectiveness of jobs boards ads hasn’t kept up with the soaring costs. The general consensus is that the performance of vacancy listings on jobs boards has gone down; if they offered value for money before, they certainly don’t now. 

Measuring Jobs Boards ROI

It goes without saying, but in this climate, recruitment businesses ( and in-house recruiters for that matter) need to be carefully monitoring their jobs board ROI, by tracking advertising spend per candidate.  ROI will inform sourcing strategy. One agency told us that they have already reduced down to using just one jobs board. Others are reducing their reliance on platforms and shifting their focus to alternative sourcing channels, including social media, referrals and job fairs. 

Switching emphasis to redeployment

The rising costs of jobs boards clearly is having a knock-on impact on the overall cost of acquiring new candidates to fill vacancies. For agencies in the the contractor recruitment space, one way this can be mitigated is by increasing the redeployment of candidates already on your books, ie. ensuring they stay with you for multiple assignments, not just one. Experts agree that tapping into resource that you already have, is the way forward. Writing in HR Manager, Firefish Software CEO, Wendy McDougall suggests that increasing jobs boards costs are leading recruiters to look inward: “Often the best way of generating good candidates is to focus less on advertising and more at managing your existing database of potential talent. By re-engaging the names on those databases and talent pools, using modern technology solutions, and finding some flexibility, you can make those names fit the roles. Rather than putting effort into creating ever-more eye-catching adverts, the smarter approach is to work with what you’ve already got.”

Coming soon -  a redeployment game changer! 

It’s all very well to say “work with you’ve got”, but knowing when to reach out to workers is critical in the redeployment process. Candidates tend to drop off radar while they are in work, but they won’t wait around for a call once they’ve finished an assignment - they want the next job lined up. At Liquid Friday, we are passionate about providing our recruitment clients and partners with innovative solutions that have a positive, measurable commercial impact. We have developed unique technology that will be free to access for all Liquid Friday agency clients. Using a combination of machine learning and real time data, it will give agencies insight into when their actively deployed candidates are likely to be seeking new assignment opportunities and potentially going to another agency. Exciting eh! Watch this space for further information and speak to your Liquid Friday Account Manager if you would like to arrange a preview demo of the software.