Are you wasting time and money during the hiring process?

This post was written by our Co-Founder JuIiet Eccleston

Any manager that has looked at using recruitment agencies to find the right candidate has probably balked at the typical fees that are charged. Some are asking for as much as £15,000 for a senior level hire, and that figure jumps to around £20,000 for C-Suite professionals – sometimes even more. If a placed candidate earns six or seven figures, it’s not uncommon for recruiters to ask for 30% of that as a finder’s fee. And, if businesses are looking at the contingent workforce, using overly-expensive third parties to source contractors can cost thousands of pounds more than is necessary.

So, if we can agree that this is ridiculous, why are so many organisations wasting money by hiring in this way? Put simply, I think most just don’t realise that there is a more efficient, up-to-date and cost-effective way of doing it: a peer-recommendation recruitment process.

Peer recommendation: the perfect way to recruit

Nowadays, professionals are so well connected that our own networks are filled with opportunities to easily reach people who would be perfect for roles in our organisations. Over the years, I have found that the most successful hires I’ve made have been those where skilled individuals were recommended to me by people in my network. They understood what I was looking for and could also vouch for the skills and abilities of a professional that they’d worked with. It’s a perfect way to recruit.

After spending years in programme management, I’ve learnt to identify wastage in processes and procedures, and so it’s impossible for me to see how much time and money is being lost during the recruitment process and not feel frustrated. It was this that drove me to create a better way for businesses to find talent: the AnyGood? platform. It draws on the power of our networks and the value of professional recommendations by creating a place for individuals to recommend people in their networks for advertised roles.

The advantages of using AnyGood?

So, what are the benefits? Instead of handing over large sums of money to a recruiter who may or may not fully understand your requirements, there is no intermediary acting on your behalf. Instead, you are able to directly contact interested professionals to discuss the role, with the distinct advantage of them already coming recommended by someone who knows them. Given that the wrong hire can potentially cost your firm somewhere in the region of £132,000, this personal endorsement is something that is priceless. What’s more, the AnyGood? network acts quickly. In our digital age, we have come to expect near- instantaneous information and communication. While the traditional recruitment process can be laborious – the average time to hire is 27.59 days – users of the AnyGood? platform have seen the hiring process take only two weeks from the initial recommendation to the job offer, and that’s including multiple interviews! And, as if that wasn’t enough, you won’t ever be sent an invoice that makes your eyes water. There’s simply a flat fee which is only payable after you hire someone that was recommended to you through the platform. There’s no other cost.

So, there’s simply no need for any business to waste more time and money than necessary on hiring candidates, particularly when peer-to-peer recruitment puts you in contact with people that are personally recommended by other professionals. In the same way that Uber and Airbnb have shown individuals that there’s real value in their cars and spare rooms, AnyGood? is showing employers that their wide professional networks are a fantastic asset that can be tapped into to create a truly efficient hiring process.

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