5 Ways Recruitment Leaders Can Cut Costs in '25

How High Performing Agencies Use BD to Reduce Overheads

Is your '25 Budget finalised?

As Recruitment Leaders 'sign off the numbers' it's time to consider how to drive efficiency in 2025.

Today I'm sharing the surprising ways elite recruitment businesses are using a shrewd investment to cut costs.

Inspired by a recent conversation with Paul Glynn , I'm offering up some insights and inspiration that might help you make the most of your cash flow and protect your P&L heading into '25.

The number one goal for recruitment leaders right now is suring up their revenue generating activity. 2024 was a gruelling year, and winning new business has been a struggle. They say they need their team to be more confident and consistent at BD to boost revenue - and may recognise the need for a better plan.

However, growing the bottom line is not the only concern. They are also very worried about how they spend what little reserves they have left. So they listen with interest when we discuss the that come from adopting a strategic approach to BD.

Sales Is a Cost

Your team get paid for making placements. Anything does not directly lead to placing candidates pulls resources from delivery. Of course, the catch, of course, is that without BD there are no roles to work. It makes sense then that you’d want to make your sales activity as efficient as possible and maximise the amount of time you have for delivery.

Is your BD process as efficient as can be?

As a CRO and Sales Advisor to some of the worlds highest performing and fastest growing recruitment agencies my clients increase efficiency and reduce costs in five areas. I urge you to consider how these would affect your bottom line.

One Founder who has been on the journey is Reiss McNall from Molecular. Reiss shared his experience with me for the Recruiting Better podcast which you can find on your favourite podcast platform.

The 5 Biggest Savings for Recruiters

Skill Deployment vs Skill Development

Competent Recruiters are great sales people. Selling roles to candidates, screening therm, qualifying them and nurturing them through a decision making process requires complex skills most sellers never develop. Why then do consultants struggle, to turn these abilities into tangible results. It’s simple; they lack process. Businesses who worry less about trying to enhance skill, and more on deploying the skills their team have more effectively can halve their training budget.

Tame That Tech Stack

given the armament of tools recruiters have at their fingertips you’d think revenue generation would be getting easier. In fact, so often the tools are getting in the way. on the one hand they are acting as a distraction creating more things to procrastinate over. On the other the tools themselves promote spammy behaviour that takes us away from the core fundamentals of sales: right person, right message, right time. Clear sales strategy enables a much better selection of tech tools - and a much better usage of the ones you’re already shelling out on.

The Proven Biller Trap

There is no such thing as a proven biller in this market. The best we can do is establish a proven process. Most recruiters - even top billers have no process. Those who do rely on a legacy approach that isn’t cutting through sufficiently in this market. A process however is built on data, experimentation and consistent improvement. With a process you trust your rookies can bill just as well as your experienced players - only with lower salaries.

Numbers Game

I work with a number of businesses who’s consultants bill £200k on average. Those businesses have small teams (5 or so heads) executing an efficient process that can be scaled up to help them bill as much as one-million-pounds per-year. They don’t need extra headcount to scale. They just reap compound gains from consistent activity. It’s boring, I grant you, billing so consistently, but the work gets easier each month while their billings steadily increase; without the need or desire to hire.

Failing to Deliver

By far the biggest issue for recruitment productivity is fill rate. If your team fill 30% of the jobs they fill, it’s like burning 70% of your revenue. Of course, in reality effort spent on roles you don’t fill helps you fill the ones you do (providing the delivery team is set up right). But still, the true cost of your fill rate is a significant factor - as you well know. Question is; if you doubled your fill rate, how small could your delivery team get. And your sales strategy is the primary reason your fill rate is not higher.

The Recruiters Sales Playbook ‘25

Since 2022, I've been helping recruitment businesses turn BD into a competitive advantage, enabling them to grow even in challenging markets. I provide their consultants with the proven "£90k in 90 days" blueprint.

I recently sat down with John Phillips, Founder at Outstation to discuss the big changes we've made and how a BD strategy trusted by million-dollar-billers is being adapted for what comes next.

Keep Winning,

Ben

P.S. If balancing cost savings with revenue generation is a prioirity let's talk. DM me or head to 90k-in-90days.com and request a call. I'll be in touch to set something up.