Everything is more expensive – that’s not news. We see it in our daily lives. We’ve seen it in wages. Now, increased costs are rearing themselves on the job boards.
That’s not fun!
The companies most affected are the companies who were receiving a very low cost per application. Gone are the days of getting a CPA under $1 and it’s becoming even more challenging to get a CPA under $2. It’s really painful when that CPA increases by more than 100% after getting accustomed to such a low CPA.
So, what can you do?
BE INTENTIONAL WITH SPEND
The cost to get an application probably isn’t going down. The parent company of Indeed has seen revenue from sponsored jobs decrease by 50% – that revenue needs to be recouped.
It’s not as bad as it used to be, but we can’t be posting and praying. We can’t just be posting all of our jobs without a strategy and hoping to get applies (or complaining when we don’t!)
How can you be intentional with your recruitment spend?
Let’s look at our most recent case study – a staffing agency was managing spend on its own with no budget distinction between the direct hire positions and the temp-to-hire positions. They received too many applies on the temp-to-hire positions, not meeting business goals.
Being more intentional in this situation meant splitting up the direct hire positions and temp-to-hire positions into two campaigns to ensure dedicated spend that met their business goals. Continually tweaking those campaigns led to a 43% increase in direct-hire applies and a 13% decrease in application cost for temp-to-hire positions.
Costs aren’t coming back down (or at least we can’t plan on it.) Even if they do – staffing agencies must be more intentional with their spend. The structure and goals should meet your business goals. If your recruitment spend strategy matches your business goals, it will lead to better results for your staffing agency.
CONVERT MORE CANDIDATES
If we have to pay more for clicks (or for apply starts), then we need to maximize our conversion rate (percentage of clicks that lead to applications). For example, if we convert 10% of candidates and our old CPC was $0.25, then our old CPA was $2.50. If that CPC increases to $0.37, then our new CPA is $3.70 if our conversion rate stays consistent.
If our conversion rate gets worse and CPC goes up, then we will pay even MORE for applies. If we can maintain or even improve our conversion rate, then our CPA will stay the same as the CPC increase or even be lower.
So, how do we increase our conversion rates? What helps improve the percentage of clicks that lead to applications?
- Job Title Matches the Job Description – if you have a good job title that candidates find but it doesn’t match the job description, then you’re going to pay for the click (or even maybe the apply start) and not get a conversion. Paying more for window shoppers!
- No Salary Anywhere – candidates want to see the salary, somewhere, anywhere in the job posting. We’ve gotten used to searching for it in the job description, so if the salary isn’t in the search result, the candidate will click to hope to find it in the description. When it’s not in there, that’s going to lead to more clicks that don’t lead to applies.
- Easy Apply Process – this one is straightforward but we have to make it simple for candidates to apply to jobs.
If you are looking for help with your recruitment marketing – the team at Haley Marketing is here to help. Contact our team today to get started on finding the right candidates for your open jobs!
