Recession-Proof Your Talent Acquisition With A Flexible Partner

Many companies that want to survive the recession will have to cut costs. And investing in an external talent partner might seem like one of those extra expenses you should be cutting. However, it could actually help you to save money when compared to increasing your in-house team. 

The expertise that an external partner will bring to your organization can help you to reduce cost-per-hire. That means you’ll get more value for every recruitment dollar you spend.

Plus, the pricing models that flexible partners such as Talentful offer mean you’ll only pay for what you use. That means no more wasting money on resources you no longer need when hiring slows down.

In the current economic climate, you might not know right now what your hiring needs will look like in six months or a year. That makes it difficult to effectively plan resources and shape your internal talent acquisition team. After all, you don’t want to hire, onboard, and train a ton of recruiters only to have to lay them off down the line. 

With a flexible recruitment partner such as Talentful, you can simply scale your recruitment resources up and down in line with your changing hiring needs. You won’t waste money on resources you don’t need in slower periods, and you’ll be able to quickly scale back up once the economy recovers.

Understandably, recruitment is not always top of mind during a recession. But continuing to recruit for strategic roles could be key to surviving and even thriving once the economy returns to normal. 

Working with an external recruitment partner gives you access to a dedicated team of talent acquisition professionals who will work solely on your business, wherever you need the support, from sourcing to recruiting to talent operations. This will free up your internal teams to focus on other strategic initiatives.

Opting for a solution like Talentful also means you’ll benefit from a data-driven approach to talent acquisition. Our expert recruitment partners will closely track and monitor market data, using this to inform your strategy. In a situation where conditions can change rapidly, this could be crucial to success. 

The rise in remote work over the past two years has broken down borders when it comes to accessing top talent. The perfect candidate’s location is no longer (necessarily) a deciding factor in your hiring decisions. 

However, sourcing global talent isn’t easy — especially without expert support. Talent acquisition experts can tap into unexpected talent pools that you may not be able to access on your own. And this doesn’t just help you to find top talent: you may even be able to cut costs by targeting geographical areas where demand is lower for hard-to-fill or high-value roles.

Talent acquisition technology is constantly evolving. But in times of economic difficulty, companies need to be sure they’ll see a big ROI before they invest in a new tool. 

When you work with a talent partner, they’ll bring the deep knowledge and expertise needed to help you optimize your existing technologies. They can also help you to make strategic decisions and put your money in the right places when you’re investing in new tools. Even better: at Talentful, all of the recruitment tools that our experts use to source you top talent are included in our pricing — with no hidden costs.

In normal circumstances, there are some advantages to keeping your recruitment in-house. For one thing, your internal team is automatically closer to your company’s culture, mission, and values, and better placed to make hires based on these factors. Keeping everything internal also allows you to maintain control of your employer branding, communications, and candidate experience — which isn’t always possible with an external agency. 

Here’s the thing, though: when you opt for an embedded solution like Talentful, you keep all of those benefits. Our experts act as a fully integrated part of your team, which gives them inside access to your company culture. They’ll also work with you to hone your sourcing, recruitment, and selection processes, so you won’t lose control of your branding or CX. 

And in an economic downturn, there’s another advantage to using a subscription-based partner instead of increasing your internal team: you don’t need to try and predict the future and end up having to make painful layoffs down the road. The whole point of a flexible solution is that it’s flexible — it can expand and contract as you need it to. 

According to data from after the Great Recession of 2007–2009, companies that rely solely on cutting down their workforce during a downturn have only an 11% chance of achieving breakaway performance once the crisis is over. 

While a looming recession feels scary, it will be over one day. And companies that remained calm, planned ahead, and continued to drive growth will be at a huge advantage over those who didn’t. It might be tempting to freeze hiring and focus entirely on cost-cutting measures. But the recession could actually be the perfect time to optimize your recruitment processes by onboarding a strategic partner. That way, you’ll be ready to ramp up hiring as soon as the storm passes.