When Is It Smart to Outsource Your Job Advertising Spend Management?

When Is It Smart to Outsource Your Job Advertising Spend Management?

Interested in programmatic advertising, but concerned about giving up control of your recruitment strategy? In this video, Director of Recruitment Marketing Matt Lozar answers the top 4 questions staffing firms have about outsourcing job advertising:

We hear this pain from clients all the time.

They’re posting their jobs and they’re praying. They’re praying that candidates click on their jobs, that they find their jobs, then click on their jobs, apply for their jobs and that they’re quality candidates for their job openings.

And it leads to one thing: frustration.

There is a better way to manage your recruitment budget! Namely, outsource the function to an expert in recruitment marketing and work with them in a partnership.

Here are 4 of the most common questions we receive about recruitment marketing partnerships:

Why would we give up control of our recruitment strategy?

Well, why do companies outsource their hiring to you? Why do your clients come to staffing agencies, your staffing agency to work with you? You’re the experts, your clients hate hiring, and it’s more efficient for them to outsource that to your staffing agency.

The same logic applies to outsourcing your recruitment strategy. Find a great partner who’s an expert, because you hate manually posting and monitoring, and then manually taking down jobs across multiple job boards.

Your team needs that time back. Right now, it feels like twice the work for half the results. When that happens, when budgets are tight, when every expense is being counted, it’s vital to find the automation and the technology that’s going to give you more time to fill open job orders. As with outsourcing recruiting, it’s more efficient to work with a company that has the expertise, the technology, the processes and the knowledge in place to deliver great results.

And really, you’re not giving up control; you’re working together. The correct partner is going to want to work with you to meet your recruitment goals. You’re not turning the keys over to a company and letting them run everything. You’re working together to use those tools the right way to help you meet your recruitment goals.

Will I lose my applications?

Absolutely not. Applications are the lifeblood of your staffing agency, so it can be a little scary changing the way you’re spending your money. When you outsource your job board spend management, though, you’re really only changing the way that money is spent. You’re still posting on a lot of the same job boards. It could be exactly the same job boards. We’re just trying to get more efficiency out of that budget.

Let’s take a look at a couple of case studies.

Staffing Company 1:

Before working with Haley Marketing, this client had 62 of their 92 jobs that were sponsored, receive zero applications. When I’ve said that stat before to potential clients, to prospects, I’ve heard audible groans on the phone because they feel the pain. They understand what’s happening there, and it’s great to see there is a better way.

The first month our team managed this company’s recruitment budget and their strategy, only 2 of the 66 jobs had no applications. Extend that out to the entire year, and just 10 of their 282 jobs had no applications. We were able to create a strategy to program the software and teach the software to come up with a strategy to get more applications across more jobs.

Staffing Company 2:

This Ohio-based light industrial staffing firm was only advertising on Indeed, and that’s the correct strategy for them. To meet their goal of getting as many applications as possible, we created a strategy and tactics to lower that cost per application to as low as it could be to maximize that budget and get more applications out of their current job spend budget.

And we were able to do that. Did their overall costs increase? Yes, slightly, but their applications went up by 60%. Overall costs are only up 7%. That’s an enormous increase on the application count, with a lower cost per application and more ROI from their budget.

How much does it cost to outsource your job spend management?

Different formulas work for different agencies. We measure costs in three ways:

  1. Ad spend. The biggest part of the budget obviously is going to be what you’re spending with the job boards directly. The goal is always to reduce that or if it stays the same, to get more out of it. Instead of spending that money directly with the job boards, it goes to the company that you’re partnering with in this recruitment strategy.
  2. Software fees. We license software from a company called Appcast to manage client budgets and put the technology in place to increase the efficiency and get more ROI.
  3. Management fees. Think back to how, when companies come to you when they outsource their hiring, there’s a big difference between the pay rate and the bill rate. A recruitment marketing agency makes money in the same way. The company you’re partnering with charges a management fee to cover the time and expertise for managing your budget, working with you on that plan to get the most out of your budget, and delivering as many applications as possible.

One more quick case study…

Staffing Company 3:

This California-based healthcare staffing agency places candidates in nonclinical and clinical jobs with healthcare facilities. The last month they handled job board spend management internally, they had 379 applications on Indeed (an okay amount). But when they outsourced to us, they saw a 131% increase in applications. We created a strategy to get their jobs to five different job boards. We continue to analyze that data to make sure their money is being spent in the appropriate place.

Which companies find the most success with programmatic job advertising?

To answer that, let’s start by flipping it to: Which companies don’t find success? It’s the ones that are looking for the purple unicorns. There isn’t a hidden treasure cove of candidates; there’s no silver bullet here.

Will outsourcing your job spend management deliver better results? Of course. Is it going to solve all your recruitment problems overnight? It is not. You have to be willing to work together with your recruitment partner, to trust the data and make sure you’re using that data to meet your recruitment goals.

To find the greatest success when outsourcing your recruitment budget:

  • Embrace the technology and automation. Know that it’s going to help you. It’s not going to take applications away from you.
  • Embrace the changes. You have to be willing and open to moving money around with flexibility and trusting the data to help you make future decisions. For example, let’s say you invested 50% of your budget on job board A and 50% on job board B. When you have the right technology and automation in place, you can see which of the job boards are helping you meet your goals. It could be lowering cost per application. It could be the lowest cost per quality application or which job boards are bringing us the most physical placements and ROI.
  • Build a quick and clean application process that is easy to track. When you know if candidates applied from Indeed or ZipRecruiter or Appcast or any of the job boards that you’re sponsoring on, you can analyze the data quickly and make the best decisions for your company.
  • Build a strong working relationship with your partner. Tell us what your recruitment goals are, and we can help you put the right strategy in place to: determine which job boards to advertise on; organize and group your jobs; meet those recruitment goals; and then continually optimize the process as your needs and conditions change.

Could outsourcing your job board spend management be the smart move for your staffing agency?

Find out during a free, no-obligation 30-minute recruitment marketing focus call.

During the call our experts will review your recruitment advertising strategy, social recruiting tactics and employer branding. After the call, we’ll provide a complimentary audit of your recruitment marketing strategy, evaluating your challenges and sharing relevant best practices.

If you are spending $2,000 a month or more on job ads, let’s talk.

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