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There’s a reason the iconic movie line isn’t “Show me the time!”. First up, it doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? And second, whilst the old cliché does suggest time equals money…we don’t always hold them in equal stead. Money seems more tangible than time.

When you first consider a recruitment company’s fees you see it mostly as an expense, correct? In our experience, the first and most obvious reason people spurn the use of a recruitment agency is to save money. But if there’s in fact a value on your time – and there always is – then what is the real cost (or return) of using or not using a recruiter? When weighing up the real costs factoring in both time and money you might find the answer is surprising.

Let’s firstly explore how you can recruit without the help of a recruiter (in other words, us!) and save money. No tricks, no gimmicks, just good advice to follow.

The first thing we would try is the oldest trick in the book. Just ask. Word of mouth is a common way for business to get done, and if you know the right people, it can be very effective. Your ability to do well here relies on the quality of your network; the better your network the less time you are likely to need to invest. And you don’t need money.

Along those lines you could turn to social media and with some clever searching tactics to approach active and passive job seekers. This is on the more time consuming side and you also need to be able to persuade, not just find candidates. While the persuasion side of things can indeed be very time consuming, it can still be very worthwhile when dealing with the right candidate.

Next, we would of course advertise. This is the easiest way to tap into a pool of candidates. You could be frugal and just focus on one job board; most likely Seek. Within a few hours (sometimes minutes) you can have a stream of applications and resumes flowing into your inbox. Yes, there will be a hard cost to advertising but it’s often less than a recruiter’s fees (but there are reasons for this). So, who needs a recruiter, eh?

Depending on the urgency behind your recruiting need you could also invest time to train potential candidates so they grow into your role from within. If done right, you can save on advertising costs, the time needed to vet candidates, on-boarding and so on.

At the end of the day there’s a litany of ways, ranging from the traditional to the more creative, of recruiting staff. What we do know however is that recruitment is as important a business process as any and it is not simple. Hiring the wrong person for a role can be very costly. Therefore, you need a rock solid recruitment process that mitigates this risk.

Upon finding a range of suitable candidates, you then have the inevitable and critical steps to vet them and select the best one.

It is typical for any given role to receive 100 applications. This can create a lot of work: sorting through resumes and arranging interviews with suitable candidates alone can be very time consuming.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Reference checks, follow up interviews, formalising an offer, preparing contracts, and on-boarding are just a few of the critical remaining steps. All of these are also time consuming and carry their own risk if not done correctly.

A good recruitment agency will add value across the entire recruitment process. Firstly, a good recruitment agency will have its own network of candidates to tap into and other quick ways of generating interest in the role from quality people. Then a good agency will save you time by managing the process right to the end (saving you a lot of time) and do it in such a way that mitigates risk.

…and sometimes the cost is far less than you expect (especially if factoring in the value from time saved and risks mitigated).

A recruitment agency might not be the answer to all your prayers, but we believe its worth putting in a call to one before looking for your next staff member and discussing where they can help you exactly – you might be surprised. The only thing you have to lose is the time for your phone call. And we all know what time equals…money! But in this case, probably more than you realise.

Do you have any other tips on how to recruit on a budget? We’d love to hear from you in our comments section below.