In high-pay, high-turnover fields like healthcare and technology, it’s easy to think that it’s too expensive to make the move to automated hiring. At the end of the day, all it means is purchasing more technology and spending staff resources on implementing new systems, right?
But the truth is, it’s more expensive not to automate your hiring, especially if you are placing employees in demanding, temporary or project-based positions. Artificial intelligence (AI) has made direct sourcing, or directly engaging with job candidates in a rigorously screened talent marketplace, a cost-effective, impactful way to hire for jobs like travel ICU nurses or specialized web developers. Meanwhile, relying solely on traditional third-party recruiters or entrenched staffing processes makes your hiring process opaque for job-seekers, time-consuming for your team and needlessly inefficient all-around.
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Here is the true cost of not automating your hiring process with a good direct sourcing partner in five numbers.
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The average mid-sized company in the US works with 12 staffing vendors. The majority of recruiting fees run between 15% and 25% of the candidate’s total first-year annual earnings. According to experts with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), this can drive the total cost of hiring a new worker up to three to four times that person’s salary on paper.
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Hospitals and healthcare systems have a lot to lose from staff turnover, especially if they are using more traditional staffing and sourcing methods. According to the 2022 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report, the average cost of turnover for a staff RN is $46,100.
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Furthermore, each percent change in RN turnover will cost or save the average hospital $262,300 per year.
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The RN Recruitment Difficulty Index currently stands at 87 days on average, regardless of specialty, meaning it essentially takes three months to recruit an experienced RN — particularly for those using inefficient third-party recruiting systems that require individual recruiters to reach out to every single candidate in their database and artificial delays for credentialing. CareerBuilder estimates that employers lose more than $14,000 on average for every job that stays vacant for three months or longer. This cost can be upwards of $25,000 for more advanced positions.
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Employers who have partnered with SkillGigs to build a direct sourcing program consistently see a response rate of 55% or more to their openings, compared to traditional job boards, which hover somewhere 2-5%. SkillGigs, which is not a job board or a staffing firm, uses AI to match job candidates with open positions and allows employers to directly submit compensation bids to potential workers, set up interviews and manage credentialing all in one place. This dramatically reduces the amount of time jobs stay vacant and ensures that hires are better matched, contributing to better retention and lower turnover.
It’s expensive not to automate your hiring, but it can be daunting to even figure out where to begin. Getting started, however, is simpler than you may think, and working with a direct sourcing partner will make the journey even easier. The right direct sourcing partner knows how to harness the power of AI to understand your talent pool, match their skills to your needs and give you data that will save money and help you make better, more effective staffing decisions.