Whether the economy is boom or bust, every penny matters for recruiters and talent acquisition professionals on a budget. From time-to-hire to cost-per-hire, KPIs must be consistently met while sticking to the agreed-upon allowance. A recruiting budget is essential because companies must understand how much they are willing to spend per candidate and how to manage their financial and performance expectations in a given year, especially when there is an upswing in hiring.

This post will discuss campaign strategy optimization for better budget spend, no matter how many job requisitions or sites are involved. We will also discuss how programmatic, data, ad targeting, and how making better-informed spending decisions can help you maximize your ROI across a high volume of job ads and multiple sites.

Managing High-Volume Recruiting

Today’s economy is undoubtedly healthier than it was during the recession of 2008. GDP growth is up by 2.6% and the stock market is more robust than it has been in many years. Unemployment is dropping, and the job market added 200,000 jobs in January 2018 alone. This means that 2018 will likely be a year where recruiters have their work cut out for them, with many being expected to hire more personnel, with both, a controlled cost-per-hire and time-to-hire as primary KPIs.

High-volume recruiters are in a unique position. They are under immense pressure to fill several roles (sometimes daily), under tight deadlines, and must continuously satisfy critical metrics to prove their efforts are hitting targets and maintaining profitability. The experts at SHRM give some tips to help high-volume recruiters looking to maximize their ROI. These include:

• Conducting thorough research that goes beyond the job boards and delves deeper into state unemployment databases, military and industry-specific websites, colleges, places of worship, and workforce development centers to find ready-to-work talent.
• Developing a candidate persona and understanding when to reach out to candidates when they are most available. For example, if you are recruiting for entry-level roles and recent grads, target your efforts around springtime to align with college graduation season, when more young workers will be seeking employment.
• Build a referral process. Job boards, resume databases, and automation have their place but don’t forget the power of relationships to help you fill large numbers of vacant roles with qualified talent. Ask successful talent for referrals, and then ask referrals for referrals, by tapping this potentially endless network of resources, you can substantially lower your talent acquisition costs and improve your ROI.
• Use data and automation to your advantage. While some recruiters can get away with using an Excel spreadsheet to track things like how many calls and emails they make in a day, high-volume recruiters are better off using a reliable applicant tracking system and other software to keep them on top of productivity goals and their talent pipeline.

Implementing Social Geo-Targeting for ROI

If you want to take your recruiting efforts to the next level, geo-targeting should be on your radar for 2018. Job boards will remain an essential aspect of recruitment, and you’ll want to use them to every possible advantage, but to make your talent acquisition campaign stand out, you’ll need to engage in targeted efforts that identify and reach potential recruits with relevant and relatable messaging.

According to Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology, writing for SHRM, your time investment in crafting a compelling brand, excellent job posts, and a hip landing page is not well-spent if you are not explicitly targetting your efforts via SEO optimization and especially geo-targeting. Wondering what geo-targeting is precisely?

“Geotargeting is the practice of delivering content to a user based on his or her geographic location. This can be done on the city or zip code level via IP address or device ID, or on a more granular level through GPS signals, geofencing, and more. Marketing effectively uses geotargeting strategies to reach potential buyers that fit certain geographic profiles. It’s the reason you tend to see products or events and often sponsored posts in your social streams that are meant for you or someone like you that lives in a specific city or surrounding area.” – Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology

Not only does Geo-targeting make your talent acquisition efforts more relevant and actionable, but it can also save you time and money by allowing you to focus on just the individuals who are likely to be both qualified and interested in a role. For example, sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to make targeted ads for a set budget, audience parameters, and geography and will do the targeting for you — allowing you to free up time to work on other recruiting efforts. This is an excellent example of the convergence of data, geo-targeting, and automation working to save recruiters time and keep them on budget.