A quarter of UK businesses spend up to 10 hours a week just scheduling interviews­­

A recent survey by Indeed revealed that time-consuming hiring processes are huge challenge for UK businesses, quickly hoovering up their budget.

The survey reveals that one in four (24%) of businesses in the UK spend up to ten hours on scheduling interviews for potential candidates.

According to LinkedIn, 15% of marketing, digital and communications professionals in the UK’s financial services sectors changed jobs within the last year. Including all seniority levels, their average tenure at a company is just 1.6 years. These figures show that a significant portion of this community have been and are open to changing employer for the right opportunity.

But Indeed’s results show that internal talent acquisition teams and hiring managers are wasting valuable time and costs on lengthy hiring processes and administrative recruitment activities.

Indeed reveals that:

• Employers are spending a third (33%) of their hiring budget on administrative tasks
• Employers are spending an average of 37% of their time on administrative hiring tasks
• Decision makers are spending over six hours a week on this sort of work, including CV screening (56%), candidate sourcing (55%) and candidate assessment (55%)
• Employers believe administrative hiring tasks can be the most challenging, including candidate assessment (23%), candidate sourcing (29%), resume screening (22%) and background checks (21%)

Why use a recruitment agency for hiring within financial services?

“In order to stay competitive, employers need simpler ways to get to hire faster.”

EVP and General Manager at Indeed

It’s no surprise that some financial services firms have reduced their hiring since the post-pandemic recruitment boom.

Overall, we saw more movement in 2023 at the junior and mid-management level, especially in the B2B space across marketing and communications. Towards the later part of the year, we also started to see more senior professionals changing roles.

As firms navigate economic uncertainty and endure heavier scrutiny on their overall spending, it’s no surprise that internal talent acquisition teams are trying to reduce costs by direct hiring. So why use a recruitment agency to hire marketing, communications and digital professionals within financial services?

Save money

It’s a misconception that recruitment agencies are more costly than direct hiring when you consider that employers are spending a third of their hiring budget on administrative recruitment tasks – from social media to job boards to CV databases.

If a business chooses to outsource our services on a contingent basis, they don’t pay anything until a placement is made. Many talent acquisition teams and hiring managers are also unaware of the free benefits of using a recruitment agency.

Access to a unique talent network

Job advertising

According to a recent survey by Carter Murray, two thirds (66%) of marketing professionals in the UK are considering changes roles in the next 12 months. Despite this, the survey revealed that the second largest recruitment challenge for businesses is a shortage of candidates – only behind budget or sign off.

Recruitment agencies like Carter Murray are ultimately in a much stronger position to connect you (quickly) with top talent that’s right for your business through their extensive and unique candidate networks. These networks include passive and active candidates, ranging from generalists to specialists across all roles and sectors within financial services.

The direct-hiring approach limits reach for talent acquisition teams and hiring managers as they must rely on typical channels like social media, job boards and CV databases. Employee referrals can often support hiring, but it can also prohibit diversity in your business.

As a recruitment agency, we give you access to a diverse and unique range of candidates that will help your company innovate and grow. It’s not always about “culture fit”, but “culture add”.

Employer branding

Recruiters also become advocates for your employer brand and the experience that candidates are provided. The most important thing we do is to listen to your needs, understand your business and promote the benefits of working with you.

This can be particularly useful for those businesses who don’t already have a strong employer brand that clearly highlights their culture and values.

Skills-based recruitment

We can also help you find the best talent for your vacancy using skill-based recruitment techniques, expanding the talent pool available to you.

According to LinkedIn, 73% of recruitment professionals say hiring based on skills is a priority. Skills-based recruitment also helps to:

• Increase quality of hires
• Reduce bias and increase diversity
• Retain existing employees

Recruitment admin

Carter Murray’s recent survey reveals that two of the main recruitment challenges faced by UK businesses are lack of time and resources for recruitment and internal recruitment processes.

According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce are passive candidates who aren’t actively seeking a new job but 94% of passive candidates are open to new job opportunities. It’s therefore important to promote jobs in the most compelling and engaging way possible if businesses want to attract and excite these candidates. Agencies can write job descriptions with a persuasive narrative that highlights the benefits of working for your business.

As revealed by Indeed, employers are spending an average of 37% of their time on administrative and challenging hiring tasks – which may include writing job ads. Not only will recruitment agencies give this time back, but they’ll also write job ads that really work (because it’s what they do).

When companies go down the direct-hiring route, they can be inundated with CVs – many of which aren’t relevant for the role. As revealed by Indeed, 56% of decision makers say CV screening takes up a significant part of their time.

Recruitment agencies reduce this burden by undertaking these time-consuming tasks, then shortlist the best candidates for the role so you can interview them.

Market experience and expertise

Remember that you can connect with us even if you haven’t started your hiring process yet. We can give you free hiring expertise based on our own day-to-day conversations with candidates and other businesses or our access to data and resources.

While we can support your hiring processes, we can also guide you on how to maintain your existing team. As recruiters, we have a unique insight into candidate insights, trends and in-demand skills to help your business grow whether you’re a start-up, scale-up or established brand within financial services.

Complete our form if you’d like to discuss your hiring needs, career or anything else. You can also submit a vacancy to us.