Why Cost Savings is One of the Top Benefits of Programmatic Advertising
Talent acquisition has become an increasingly challenging task in recent years. The Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, and New Collar trends, combined with ongoing economic uncertainty, have made it difficult to find talent to fill even one position, let alone many.
A growing number of companies are leveraging new tools and third-party service providers to meet their recruitment needs. But are they really worth what they cost?
The benefits of programmatic advertising for recruitment campaigns sound great — ad costs are optimised to target optimal candidates and re-engage qualified potential hires.
But when budgets are tight, the costs of programmatic recruiting can feel like a significant investment that might not pay off. Is it worth it, or could you save money by handling your hiring internally like you always have? Let’s examine the difference between a job advertising platform and the costs of hiring staff on your own.
What's Included in the Hiring Process?
The latest recruiting metrics benchmarks from the Society for Human Resource Management put the average cost per hire around $4,700. Depending on the size and scope of your business and the positions you’re recruiting for, that figure can actually run as high as three to four times the position’s salary. Figures like that can add up quickly if you’re hiring a large number of employees all at once.
How does it get so high?
Hiring new staff takes a surprising amount of work. The recruitment process can take up a lot of your internal team’s time — and that’s before you get to the costs related to ad placement or recruiting. Consider all the steps involved.
1. Identify and Describe the Need
As a recruiter, you may be filling roles for seasonal or contingent workers, or you are recruiting in a high-growth company or in a space where there is naturally a high turnover of staff. Consider the needs of the teams you are hiring for before deciding how many people to hire and what skills or qualifications candidates will need.
2. Advertise or Engage Recruiters
Once you’ve created a clear, detailed job description, it’s time to communicate that information to potential candidates. Whether you rely on the services of a recruitment agency or post the position on different platforms yourself, there will definitely be costs involved at this stage. This can include agency fees, ad costs or subscription fees for technology platforms.
3. Review and Pre-Screen
If you’ve done a good job spreading the word about your opening(s) and built your brand up as a place people want to work, the applications should be rolling in by now. Your internal team will need to review each resume received and, depending on the position, pre-screen candidates for employment suitability. If the previous step was a success, you’ll have a lot to sift through; if it wasn’t, you might find yourself reviewing and re-reviewing applicants in search of the right fit for your team.
4. Background or Skills Checks
Depending on the nature of the position you’re hiring for, you may also need to conduct background checks or assess specific skills of potential new hires before you commit to interviewing them.
5. Set Up and Conduct Interviews
This is another step that is more time-consuming than it appears at first glance. A few 15- or even 30-minute interviews don’t feel like a heavy lift, but first your team must spend time setting up all the interviews with candidates that have reached this stage.
Once that’s done, some interview preparations will be required, and anyone involved in the interviews will need to regroup after the process is completed to select the successful candidate(s). For more advanced positions, this step may need to be repeated for several rounds.
The Benefits of Programmatic Recruitment Advertising
As recruitment costs continue to climb, the benefits of programmatic advertising for recruitment become more pronounced. Companies that leverage programmatic recruitment are twice as likely to spend less time and resources on hiring. And applying a programmatic approach to high-volume recruiting only amplifies those savings.
- Advertising spend is optimised with programmatic platforms, which can more accurately target your ideal candidates
- Reaching more people qualified recruits (and reducing time spent on unqualified applications) makes the entire process of screening and interviewing less time-consuming and more efficient
- A superior hiring process reduces churn, decreasing the resources you have to allocate to filling vacant positions
Calculating the ROI of Recruitment Marketing
Measuring the return on investment for recruitment marketing can be challenging. Traditional ROI calculations involve subtracting the initial cost of an investment from its final value, dividing that number by the cost of the investment, and multiplying it by 100. However, recruitment marketing involves various costs and is influenced by external factors such as market trends and seasonality, making it more complex.
To accurately assess the ROI of your specific strategy, it is best to monitor four key metrics over time:
- Cost-per-click
- Cost-per-application
- Apply rate
- Application-to-hire rate
By establishing a baseline for each metric, you can measure any changes that result from modifying your strategy. For instance, incorporating a programmatic job ad platform into your approach may impact your CPC, CPA, apply rates, and applicant-to-hire ratios, allowing you to determine the platform’s value.
Start Building Your Recruiting Strategy with Hirematic
Your talent acquisition team shouldn’t have to be advertising experts. At Hirematic, we help you find and hire the right people — faster and with fewer resources. Our intelligent multi-channel recruiting solution uses AI and automation to help you optimise your recruiting spend and improve the quality of your applicant field.
Need help developing your recruiting strategy? Contact our job ad experts to see how Hirematic’s programmatic solution can work for you.
