How do you budget for recruiting channels?

1 Assess your current situation

Before you start allocating your budget, you need to understand your current recruiting performance and needs. This means analyzing your hiring data, such as the number of hires, the time to hire, the cost per hire, the quality of hire, and the sources of hire. You also need to identify your hiring gaps, challenges, and priorities, such as the roles you need to fill, the skills you are looking for, the diversity you want to achieve, and the market conditions you face. This will help you determine where you need to invest more or less, and what channels are working well or not for your recruiting strategy.

2 Set your goals and metrics

Once you have a clear picture of your current situation, you need to set your goals and metrics for your recruiting channels. This means defining what you want to achieve with each channel, such as the number of applicants, the conversion rate, the quality of candidates, the engagement level, and the retention rate. You also need to establish how you will measure and track your results, such as the tools you will use, the frequency you will report, and the benchmarks you will compare. This will help you align your budget with your expected outcomes and evaluate your return on investment.

3 Choose your channels wisely

Now that you have your goals and metrics in place, you need to choose your channels wisely. This means selecting the channels that match your target audience, your employer brand, your budget, and your goals. There are many types of recruiting channels, such as job boards, social media, referrals, events, career sites, email campaigns, and more. Each channel has its own advantages and disadvantages, such as the reach, the cost, the quality, the speed, and the competition. You need to research and compare different channels and find the ones that suit your needs and preferences.

4 Allocate your budget proportionally

After you have chosen your channels, you need to allocate your budget proportionally. This means distributing your budget according to the importance, performance, and potential of each channel. You can use different methods to allocate your budget, such as the historical method, the objective method, the competitive method, or the experimental method. You can also use a combination of these methods to balance your budget. The key is to allocate your budget in a way that maximizes your results and minimizes your costs.

5 Monitor and adjust your budget regularly

Finally, you need to monitor and adjust your budget regularly. This means reviewing your data and feedback, comparing your actual results with your goals and metrics, and identifying what is working well or not for each channel. You also need to be flexible and adaptable, and make changes to your budget when necessary, such as increasing or decreasing your spending, adding or removing channels, or shifting your focus. This will help you optimize your budget and improve your recruiting performance.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?