Increasingly companies are seeing the benefit of pulling their recruitment in-house.

But should you be doing it?

Here are five good reasons as to why you should look at bringing your recruitment in-house:

• The obvious.  Cost saving.  Recruitment agency fees can be anywhere from 10% (if you are lucky) to 30% of the candidate’s starting salary.  Hire 5 people per annum on the UK average wage of £27,600, at a fairly conservative agency fee of 12.5%, that’s a staggering £17,250 every year.  Probably minimum.  Then what if they leave?  Bringing the function in-house, can cost as little or as much as you have available in the budget – provided there is some experience at the helm.
• Employer Branding.  Employer what now?  Employer branding is how your company is perceived by the outside world as an employer.  In much the same way as you would brand a product or service, employer branding looks at who your target audience might be, where to find them and how to engage with them.
• Recruitment Forecasting.  You probably do your cashflow forecasting and your sales forecasting – you might even forecast your marketing activity.  But if you aren’t forecasting your recruitment, you’ll never be ahead of the curve and you’ll always end up in recruitment panic mode.  Plan ahead.  Facts plus educated guesses about turnover of staff and spikes in business activity equal a decent recruitment forecast.
• Talent Pooling.  Don’t just leave it to chance that an agency has a pool of talent you can tap into at a premium.  What do you think they’re doing that you can’t?  Build a pool of talent.  Engage with them, get to know them and let them buy into your employer brand.  Make sure your talent pool is relevant, up to date and searchable (all in line with GDPR). 
• Candidate Experience.  If you aren’t speaking with your candidates directly, then you don’t know what is being said.  Candidates can quickly become disengaged if they aren’t speaking directly with the business they want to work for. 

Of course, if you are only making 5 hires a year – you don’t need a full time in-house recruiter.  You need a flexible hiring partner to work with you, and guide you through the process. 

Consider contacting a freelance in-house recruiter, or a company who can put the systems and processes in place.
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Nail down a great process, automate appropriate elements and take back control of your hiring.

OK, so when do we need this person in place?

Erm – well, yesterday?

Sound familiar?  Whether you have found yourself saying those words or you have been on the receiving end of them – it is the bane of the recruitment industry.

But here’s the thing.  I do not believe for a second that you didn’t see this coming.

If you run a business big enough to hire people, then you run a business big enough to do your due diligence when it comes to forecasting.  In the same way you forecast your cashflow or your P&L.  In the same way you set business goals and aspirations.  In the same breath as planning for business growth, you should be forecasting your recruitment.

Murray in accounts.  He’s retiring in January.

Sarah in HR.  She’ll be going on maternity leave in March.

Richard in sales.  You’ve heard on the grapevine that he’s been to a couple of interviews recently with some of your competitors.  You’re expecting his notice on your desk any day now.

Oh, and there are plans to expand into Europe in 2019, new product lines and new sales opportunities.  

Sounds obvious when you spell it out like that.  But the amount of business owners failing to do their due diligence on recruitment is shocking.  Well, I say that – it’s what 90% of the recruitment agency industry is built on – PPP (piss poor planning).

So the next time you sit down to look at your annual accounts, or set your company goals for the year – strategise your recruitment.  Think about who is ‘at risk’.  Think about succession planning.  Think about how the business will grow – and map the impact that will have on the people in every department.

Including notice periods, an average recruitment process can take 4-6 months (done right).  Do an internal ‘talent inventory’ to assess what capabilities you currently have, what you’re missing and how you will bridge the gap to take your business to the next level.

Who do you need to find?  How will you find them?  How will you attract them into your business?

Be proactive.  Not reactive.  Otherwise you can kiss goodbye to 20% - 30% of your next hire’s starting salary as an agency fee, because they have sensed your last minute panic and charged you top dollar.
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Good for them.  You deserve it.