I sat down with a client last week and talked them through how to avoid paying a recruitment fee for a Marketing Executive they have pencilled in for hiring in Q3.

Here's the step-by-step process I recommended. (Takes a bit of setting up, but get it right and you'll save a lot of time ⌚ and cash 🤑).

1️⃣ Know why people should work for you and make them feel it... (never underestimate the feels)

2️⃣ Stay front of mind - make sure that you're not forgotten about, actually have an employer branding content plan (DM me for ideas on how our clients do this really well).

3️⃣ Personalise your employer branding offering for each role you recruit, and build a job Ad and an outreach campaign that speaks to the persona you want to hire.

4️⃣ Create a recruitment process that puts the people you want front and centre. Make sure they get a chance to voice their questions (Tip - sh!tty tests that bear no relation the day-job, complicated ATS forms and hand-shake measuring contests are a turn off.)

5️⃣ Make it your mission to give feedback that means no one leaves the process anything but an absolute evangelist for your business. Anything less than 'cheerleader' status is unacceptable.

6️⃣ Create an 'always on' evergreen employer branding content plan, and measure its return by the quality of the inbound applications you receive. 

Do the above, rinse, refine, and repeat and you'll find you create a funnel that'll see off recruitment fees on pretty much every junior role. 

Richard Benningsen