Which On-Line recruitment platform provides the best bang for your buck

[derek martin]

We have been using "Indeed" for many years but find the website clunky and results not so great. We have recently been receiving frequent email offers from companies offering a flat rate to advertise on all the big Recruitment platforms at once. Has anybody got any advice about best value for money recruitment advertising as there are so many options and it can be a costly exercise with limited results.

 

[IanSuth]

OK ex recruitment consultant of 27 years here - mainly IT but also some Engineering and Finance, now working in applicant assessment tools so reckon i have some knowledge.

What kind of people are you trying to recruit ?

How often ? (as in is it a regular need or fluctuating with zero need gaps)

Location ? most of the online sites were engineered pre covid and are really really tied into each role having a fixed location - different ones deal with that in different ways (their used to be a website called PlanetRecruit who killed themselves with a poorly implemented change to their location matching algorithm)

If you let me know those I will give you some ideas - but here is one for nothing. LinkedIn is a good long term solution for building up applicant knowledge of what you look for - it is often not good for getting a quick response but if you regularly put on what you need when you are looking it builds up a sort of visible profile of what you look for so people will approach you to see if you are looking.

Re those multi posting sites - the tech was offered to agencies first and we used to outperform our competitors through tailoring our ads individually to a few sites. I could write an ad for the same job 3 ways for Totaljobs, Indeed and CVLibrary and on each have my ad above the bunch of multiposted ads for the same job because they were using "write one post many" tech which gives an "average" approach to the ad. Equally alot of the job sites are either sister companies or have reciprocal cross posting deals so you are not getting the deal you think you are when they say "will be posted on 300 sites"

 

[Ozzy]

Has anybody got any advice about best value for money recruitment advertising

It might well be that it just isn't right for you, but after attempting to directly recruit in house several times over the years I have made the decision to work exclusively between two agencies. We simply didn't have the time to sift through all the chaff sent in from LinkedIn, Monster and other recruitment sites so choose to pass this onto an agency.
They have got to know our business, our culture and the type of people who work well here. We main with one agency and as I look around my office almost all my staff have come via that agency. It costs more but when thinking about the time taken recruiting, sifting and pre-vetting - I personally find it money well spent.

Having said that, not all recruitment agencies are built the same. I've come across a few rubbish ones.

 

[IanSuth]

Having said that, not all recruitment agencies are built the same. I've come across a few rubbish ones.

Only a few ?

When i started in recruitment agencies had to be licenced and removal of licence was the ultimate sanction for breaking the law (Employment agencies act 1973)

First they dropped the licencing saying we could self regulate (which was impossible as there was no requirement to belong to the professional body and in fact that body was riven by the conflicting needs of owners and consultants )

Then the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 completely changed the landscape placing a lot of extra requirements on those acting professionally (legally) but with zero penalties for those ignoring the rules. It has been updated since but only for regs being weakened not sanctions harder.

It is amazing how many people do not know that agencies have to by law (except in certain defined circumstances) tell you the name of the company your cv is going to before submitting it, in fact by the letter of the law they are also meant to tell you if the role is weekly or monthly paid even.

It is a sector that really needs some regulation or requirement for training - over the years i took various exams and updates when laws came out or were changed but there is literally zero to stop you opening OzRec as a sidehustle on UKBF and starting posting jobs and sending cv's around without even reading the laws let alone following them.

 

[Porky]

We have been using "Indeed" for many years but find the website clunky and results not so great. We have recently been receiving frequent email offers from companies offering a flat rate to advertise on all the big Recruitment platforms at once. Has anybody got any advice about best value for money recruitment advertising as there are so many options and it can be a costly exercise with limited results.

@derek martin
There are a number of these hybrid companies that can multi post your job over different sites for max exposure and streamline results with an ATS to filter out / short list, I used:-

Career Kinetics - Lowering the Real Cost of Recruitment

Career Kinetics Offer Managed Recruitment Services Including Recruitment Advertising & Careers Websites.

www.careerkinetics.com

This was for a telesales role but I know they cover all sectors. They were significantly less than me buying direct from indeed and linked in that’s for sure, they did a great job.
Otherwise, it’s finding a good agency but frankly I have had horrendous experiences with many I have used, most are a total waste of time and charge too much imo
Good luck