If your organization has an HR department, chances are they can handle hiring in a lot of situations, and on the surface, using your team for recruiting seems less expensive. But according to Jörgen Sundberg, CEO of Link Humans, the cost of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a new employee can be as high as $240,000 – a pretty steep cost if that person ends up not working out, not to mention the cost of finding a replacement for them.

Of course, that’s not to say you should never do your own recruiting. But how do you know when it’s time to call in backup? These are some hints that you might need to hire a recruiter.

The Position is Difficult to Fill

Maybe you’re looking for a skilled position with a narrow pool of potential candidates. Maybe you’re searching for someone highly specialized in a particular area and you don’t know where to find them or how to tell if they’re good. If you’re in a similar situation, you might want to contact a recruiter; they spend a lot of time cultivating networks of job seekers, doing passive searches, and finding out the best places to advertise for certain positions.

It’s a Key Position

If your job opening is especially critical to your organization’s success, you need a top performer, and the position’s too important to spend time hiring people who end up not being the right fit, it might be a job for a recruiter. Recruiters are pros at screening resumes, identifying high performers, and narrowing it down for you to a handful of great candidates.

You’re Short on Time

We know you’ve got a lot on your plate – and the average time to fill a position is 36 days, according to SHRM’s 2016 Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report. A recruiter can help speed up the process with their existing candidate pool and efficient processes. Even if they can’t make it go faster, they can free up your time for other priorities, plus they can make sure your candidates are aware of where the process is and aren’t being ignored.

You Haven’t Found Someone Yet

Even when it’s an uncomplicated search and you have an amazing hiring team, sometimes it just doesn’t go to plan. If you’re struggling to find candidates you’re happy with, had a lot of candidates withdraw, had a great candidate that turned down your offer, etc., call in a recruiter. They can use their candidate networks, passive search strategies, and other tricks of their trade to help you take it over the finish line.

Convinced that you need to hire a recruiter, but don’t know any? You’re in luck! Purple Ink offers affordable recruiting services tailored to what your business needs. Contact us to learn more!