As a disclaimer, I have nothing in particular against recruitment agencies it’s just good to know the alternatives available – and of course everyone likes to know how to do things on the cheap!
- Twitter - If you have a following for your company or personal brand on Twitter, it makes sense to reach out to these contacts in order to help find potential candidates. In 2008 PubCon spent $75,000 marketing the conference via email maketing. In 2009 they marketed using Twitter for $0, attendance was up 30% and income 40% – in a recession! That shows Twitter can be an incredible marketing tool if you have the right audience.
- Blogging – Similarly to Twitter, make sure you reach out to your subscribers and let them know you’re recruiting. Did I mention we’re recruiting? ;)
- Industry leading website’s – This is probably the most expensive recommendation, but rather than paying a recruitment agency commission, it may be more beneficial to reach out to industry leading website’s to advertise directly via a one-off fee. Econsultancy is one of the top digital website’s out there, especially in the UK – so the quality of responses for listings on their job board is likely to be very high. Also there are normally many industry-specific job boards which are either free or charge one-off listing fees which are worth checking out.
- LinkedIn – Of course LinkedIn is a huge social media site for professionals, so it’s an obvious choice for advertising jobs. LinkedIn charge $199 for a job listing fee, but as a first (free) step, try sending out a LinkedIn status update to tell your contacts you’re recruiting. Make sure you optimise your LinkedIn profile too, helping to improve its reach.
- Local job boards – Outside of the big cities it can be more difficult to find people with the relevant experience. Make sure you find the best people in your region by targeting them via local advertising or job boards.
- SEO – try targeting industry specific career/job terms, for example if you can rank for “search engine marketing jobs“, then you’re likely to start receiving a steady stream of applications.
- PPC – PPC is far more successful than you may think for recruitment, just watch this very clever idea in action from Alec Brownstein. Alec specifically targeted vanity name searches on top Google execs with the aim of getting a job interview, slightly crazy idea, but it worked! Maybe you could think of something just as creative as a recruiter – although geo-targeting ads specifically based on job-based keywords would be a good start too.
- Business parks, Universities & Colleges – if your company is located on a business park, this can be a great way of drumming up some local interest via direct advertising – plus in some cases it’s a nice way of building some quality links too. Perhaps your local University or College has a job board too, hopefully externally available online and containing those little things called hyperlinks…
- Facebook Marketplace – If you have professional contacts on Facebook, this can be a great way of making people aware that you are recruiting. Plus it’s very easy to create a quick job listing which can be found via the marketplace by users outside of your network.
- Facebook advertising – this is where you can stalk, I mean target individuals based upon profile criteria. Those options include interests and employer – so if you’re selective you can stalk target the right people very cheaply!
So there’s a few ideas to get you started, if all else fails then it’s probably time to turn to your recruitment agent. If you have any more to add to the list please let us know in the comments.
