Recruiting the right staff for your business is an important process. However, as a busy member of the senior management team, you might not always have the time or the resources to sift through an endless stream of CVs and find your perfect candidate.

This is why many smaller companies turn to recruitment agencies to help them to find their next new hire. As growing businesses, SMEs have often built up relationships with agencies over the years and generally, they are the first port of call when a new vacancy opens up within the company.

However, whilst saving time is important, the reliance on traditional agencies can send costs spiralling. Download our latest case study to learn how Webrecruit Ireland can help cut your costs, but not at the expense of recruiting top quality talent.

Developing an understanding of your recruitment stats and regularly reviewing the amount of money that you spend on outsourcing your recruitment is essential.

By taking stock of how many of your roles you’re outsourcing to a recruitment agency, you can start to identify ways to reduce your spend, whilst not increasing your time-to-hire. (For more information on how to audit your agency usage, download our latest guide, the In-House Direct Sourcing Guide).

So, how can you calculate just how much reliance you’re placing on recruitment agencies?

Follow these three steps, to gain a percentage of your agency usage:

1. Make a list of the vacancies that your business has recruited for over the past year.

2. Then, out of these roles, calculate the number that you have outsourced to an external agency.

3. Divide the number of roles that you have outsourced by your total number of vacancies over the past year, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage of your agency usage.

For example, if your business has hired 32 new staff over the past year and, out of those 32 vacancies, has used a recruitment agency for 8 vacancies, you’d calculate the following:

8/32 = 0.25
0.25 x 100 = 25%

These stats will not only allow you to calculate just how much money you’ve spent outsourcing your recruitment, it’ll also allow you to identify ways to reduce this figure.

What is a ‘good’ percentage?

Only you and your business can determine this, but this should be tied to your overall recruitment objectives. Perhaps set a target for the following year to reduce your reliance by 10% to ascertain how good your business is at using other methods to attract candidates.

Of course, recruitment agencies will always have a part to play – especially when sourcing for candidates with specific skill sets… but to what extent you rely on them should be tied to your overall employer objectives.

Next steps

If new positions are opening up fairly regularly in a department (sales, for instance, can often be known for having a high staff attrition rate), keep a note of any candidates who impressed you but didn’t quite get the job. This way, when the time comes to make your next hire, you’ll already have a mini talent pool of candidates to choose from before you even think about contacting your agency of choice.

Looking for a more comprehensive recruitment service at a fraction of the cost of a traditional agency? With Webrecruit Ireland’s Talent Recruit, you’ll have access to a team of dedicated resourcers to help you fill your vacancy and drive down your time-to-hire.