When a key role opens up in a small business, most owners do the sensible, thrifty thing. They write a job ad, post it on a few sites, and get on with it themselves. After all, why pay a recruiter when you can do it for free?
Here is the thing: DIY hiring is a bit like DIY plumbing. It looks free right up until the moment it is not. The job ad is the cheapest part of the whole process. The real costs are hidden in places that never show up on an invoice. Let us shine a light on them.
As the owner or MD, your hours are worth more than anyone else’s in the business. Every hour spent reading CVs, chasing references and scheduling interviews is an hour not spent on clients, sales or strategy.
And hiring is never “just an hour”. It is an hour here, an evening there, and a Saturday morning you will never get back. (We break down exactly how many hours in next week’s blog. Brace yourself.)
Post a management role on a big job board and you will probably be buried. Many applicants will not meet the basic requirements, some will have applied for every job on the site that day, and a few will have attached their matric certificate instead of a CV.
Someone has to sort through all of it. If that someone is you, see point 1.
Without proper screening, you end up interviewing people who looked good on paper but were never right for the role. Every first interview costs you, and often a senior team member, an hour or more. Multiply that by six or eight candidates and the bill grows quickly.
While the role stays open, the work does not disappear. It lands on everyone else. Your team stretches, overtime creeps up, service slips and your best people start to wonder whether it is time for them to move on too.
The longer a DIY search drags on, the more an empty chair costs you.
This is the cost that keeps SME owners up at night. A rushed or poorly screened hire can mean months of underperformance, damaged client relationships, a team that is unsettled, and then the whole process all over again.
In a business of 15 people, one wrong manager is not a small problem. It is a big one.
We are not saying you should never hire on your own. For some roles, it works perfectly well. But for the positions that really matter, your managers, team leaders and specialists, it pays to have a partner who does this every day.
At Proactive Recruitment, we take the heavy lifting off your plate:
1. We write and advertise the role in a way that attracts the right people.
2. We screen every applicant, so you only meet a short, considered shortlist.
3. We check references and fit, not only skills.
4. You deal with Gemma directly, not a call centre, from brief to placement.
You run the business. We will find the people.
