When every recruitment dollar counts and you need to get great people hired, maximizing your budget is key. Most talent attraction teams wish they had a little more budget to work with, but the reality is you can still get great results even when resources are limited!
The secret is knowing where to spend your recruiting dollars to get the most bang for your buck, and social recruiting is one of the best approaches. Keep reading for a full breakdown of what a successful, low-cost recruiting strategy looks like.
Building a comprehensive recruiting strategy
First, let’s take a look at why budget constraints are relevant to so many teams right now. Part of the problem is that today’s recruiting strategies can’t just rely on one tactic. There are too many channels and approaches to limit yourself to just one.
Job seekers are everywhere, so the goal is to have your jobs and employer brand visible in as many places as possible (so that you can reach as many candidates as possible!).
Despite that fact, in our December 2023 report, we found that 30% of HR executives report that not using enough tactics is an obstacle to driving qualified candidates to their open roles.
Navigating budget constraints in talent acquisition
Unfortunately, being everywhere at once isn’t cheap. Because there are so many more channels and tactics to consider than five or ten years ago, many teams are feeling the budget strain in ways that they didn’t used to.
Today, 43% of HR executives believe that their biggest obstacle to driving qualified candidates to open roles is that budgets for paid promotions are too small. For these teams, getting great results with limited funding is an ongoing balancing act.
The key to recruiting on a budget is being intentional about your strategy: using data to guide your priorities, experimenting with channels you haven’t considered before (especially more cost-effective channels!), and adjusting when your tactics don’t perform as expected.
More on that below!
Why social media is ideal for budget-friendly recruiting
Organic social recruiting is one of the best strategies for teams with budget constraints because it’s free. You can post as many times as you want, using job posts and employer brand posts to build a name for yourself.
It’s also effective—passive candidates may not be browsing job boards or attending hiring events, but they are scrolling social media. When the time is right for them to consider new opportunities, they’ll already be familiar with your content and your employer brand.
Organic social recruiting also helps cover gaps that may exist in your other tactics. For this reason, it’s especially effective for budget-strapped teams that need to make the most of what’s available to them. Thanks to its $0 price tag, organic social can help you compete with employers with much larger budgets and still get great results.
Keep in mind that it may be difficult to quantify the success of your social recruiting since it’s a long-term play. Watch for increases in applicants and more qualified candidates over time—both signals that your social recruitment efforts are working.
Automated social recruiting vs. manual social recruiting
Automation can help talent attraction teams scale their social recruiting efforts, but on a tight budget, investing in an automation tool may not be in the budget.
Without a tool to streamline the process, it’s especially important to identify someone on the team to be in charge of scheduling job and employer brand content for social media. Consistency is key, so giving one person this role ensures that content will get posted and that the messaging and strategy will be cohesive over time.
But even without an all-in-one tool like CareerArc, there are tons of resources that can make social recruiting more efficient. For example, tools like ChatGPT can help you with captions, and Canva can help you with basic graphics. Don’t be afraid to lean on free or low-cost resources to get your program off the ground as seamlessly as possible.
If you’re evaluating all your options, keep in mind that automation does save you time that could be spent on other recruiting priorities. For many teams, it’s worth the investment to free up time for other high-value recruitment efforts—especially with tools like CareerArc that provide unlimited posts and profile connections (including your employees’ profiles!). Your cost per hire may even decrease thanks to your automation support!
Looking ahead: social recruiting on a budget
Ultimately, social media isn’t going anywhere, so now is the time to experiment with your strategy—especially if you’re on a tight budget. Social recruiting is one of the only recruiting strategies that you can constantly iterate and optimize for free, and it delivers results that rival the high-spend tactics you might be used to.
The more constrained your resources, the more valuable social recruiting becomes as part of your holistic strategy. In other words, if you’re not already prioritizing your social content, it’s time to start!
Using CareerArc to streamline social recruiting
If you are in the market for a tool to maximize your social recruiting efforts, CareerArc lets you automate the process from start to finish. It’s a great opportunity to prioritize your social recruiting strategy with minimal impact on the team’s workload.
