We’re all looking for new and innovative ways to find candidates in what is a increasingly competitive market for talent but wouldn’t it be nice if you could find that next perfect candidate for free…

The old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ typically always rains true but let me tell you, when looking to find talented candidates you don’t always have to throw the cheque book at paid media or specialist head hunters to find what who you are looking for.

So, lets dive into it with my top ways to find candidates for free.

Social media

Using social media to reach candidates is an excellent way to find active and passive talent and whilst paid media is typically the go to choice for many, there are a few free angles you can take advantage of, let’s take a look.

Yes, Facebook doesn’t necessarily scream job hunting but let me shock you…83% of candidates are active on Facebook in comparison to a mere 36% on LinkedIn! What does this mean? You’ve got a huge captive audience waiting to be impressed with what you have to offer.

So, how do you get their attention and for free? Providing you have a company Facebook page you can set up and list jobs in a matter of minutes. The best part (apart from being free)? Facebook will actually actively promote your job for you in their Jobs bookmark and across Facebook marketplace.

If I were to say to you ‘where should I look for a job online?’ you’d probably tell me to have a look on LinkedIn and you wouldn’t be wrong. In fact nearly 40 million people used LinkedIn each week in Q4 last year to find their next job.

In a similar vain to Facebook you can actually use LinkedIn to find candidates for free via your company page. LinkedIn’s popular job poster feature is of course one way to go but remember we’re looking at free features here. You’d be surprised at the traction an attractive post from your company account could achieve.

Once you’ve designed a fantastic looking image to accompany your listing (try Canva for free) get it up and live on your company page and watch those engagement stats begin to creep up! Still struggling with interaction? Ask your team to share with their networks to increase your reach to an even wider network.

Job Listing Sites

I bet you didn’t know that a lot of the top recruitment websites offer a free job listing? Well if you did, kudos to you but for those that hadn’t caught wind of this freebie let’s take a closer look.

Indeed, who has a staggering 250million unique monthly visitors, allows you to create your first job for free. Without the need of a credit card or committing to any long term contracts you could have your role out there and advertised to what many will say is the largest talent pool in the world.

So why not start exploring what sites like Indeed have on offer and get your jobs out there!

Candidate referrals

This will hardly shock you but candidates that are referred by your existing team will be more likely to stay with your company for the long term and they also represent a huge opportunity for a massive return on recruitment investment.

‘Hey! Hang on a minute you said these are free tips!’ yes, yes, I know and this tip is still free…to an extent.

Lets tackle the free element to start with. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking your teams to share job adverts with their friends and social networks. As I mentioned above you should absolutely be doing this with your social job postings.

I’ll start to dip into the paid for element here but ‘clutches at straws’ I will start with this mind blowing statistic that employee referrals can save companies over £5,000 per hire! So we’re already in the black!

Now that I have a bit of creative wiggle room to play with let me hit you with some other incredible stats around referral schemes. It takes on average 20 days to fill a position via employee referrals vs up to 60 days via traditional recruitment methods. In terms of long term value to your business referred candidates also have a much longer shelf life with 45% staying longer than 4 years vs the mere 25% that stay for just 2 years or more that come via job boards.

How much is this going to cost me? Well in the UK the average referral bonus is around £700. But this is where you can get creative, why not look at other ways of rewarding your team such as extra holiday days, vouchers and luxury goods that whilst not blowing the budget will be appealing nonetheless to your team.

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