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When recruiting, it’s easy to write it off as just the cost of the job ad. Sadly, it’s not that simple and indeed much more expensive than most people think.

Let’s look at the real cost in terms of your time and ultimately money.

• Advertising cost to place job advert on Trademe or Seek: $275-400
• Writing a compelling job ad so it is appealing to good candidates and conversely screens out undesirable candidates: not everybody is William Shakespeare…
• Developing a job description to give to candidates: Priceless. A well-written job description that meets industry standards will appeal to quality candidates.
• Sifting through the applications and picking the decent ones: Hours.
• Emailing the unsuccessful candidates to let them know – “It’s a no from me I’m afraid”: Painful.
• Ringing the initial shortlist to establish if they are still interested, available and screen them in or out: Count on having to call some more than once or have them call you back at an inopportune moment. And in an environment where it is getting harder to find skilled staff and offshore applicants are unlikely to be able to get to NZ, you have to move fast with this before another employer contacts them first.
• Organising a face to face in-person or Zoom interview, often with at least two people on the panel: Finding a suitable time for everyone can be a mission.
• Maybe you’ll need the candidate to undergo hands-on testing: Count on having staff spend time testing them and providing raw materials.
• Reference checking at least two referees: you’ll need to ensure the referees have not been jacked up (and you won’t believe how often we see this!)
• Verifying those quals and trade certificates to ensure they are legitimate. Not to mention driving licences to ensure they are clean, visas to ensure they have the right to work and criminal history to ensure they are not hiding anything sinister: Hours.
• Writing employment agreements, job offer letters and job descriptions to email to the successful candidate etc who may still at this point choose to work somewhere else: Hours.

Of course, all of this is based on you getting good candidates first time around.

If you get none, your time will double.

And, if you recruit the wrong person, then you’re potentially up for big bucks in performance management, loss of productivity, lower staff morale when people have to shoulder the burden of extra work, legal fees, union involvement…  in short, one big mess.