During times of uncertainty, HR teams are deciding how to proceed with their recruitment plans. Should you hire an in-house recruiter if you don't know how much you’ll be hiring? Should you outsource recruitment completely? Can you reduce risk when hiring during uncertain times?

If you’re in Talent Acquisition or HR, hats off to you for facing the turbulent job market in the past few years. We’ve had workplace changes, hiring freezes, increased demand for talent, layoffs, and hiring during a crisis. After so many (un)expected challenges, 2023 brings upon the HR community a question. Is there a crisis-proof recruitment strategy?

We believe the answer lies in the people. Yes, tools and systems can help, but what makes or breaks your recruiting strategy are the people. That’s why having a flexible recruiting team may be the way to overcome any obstacle and thrive, even in a crisis.

What is a flexible recruiting team?

Adapting to all the challenges we’ve faced in the past few years, we’ve transformed the way we work. We switched from spending every day in the office to remote and hybrid workplaces. Some companies shifted to asynchronous working or adopted 4-day work weeks. Has the time come to adapt to uncertain market conditions and start building flexible teams?

A flexible team involves a mix of full-time in-house employees and specialized on-demand experts. We can even call them hybrid teams - combining the in-house and the outsourced approach. Building flexible teams helps businesses of all sizes become more efficient and adapt to any change in the market (good or bad). Flexible recruiting teams have the power to reach the top 5% talent for any role and in any location.

How to build a flexible recruiting team?

How does it work in practice? Let’s unwrap a few examples. Here’s how companies in different stages benefit from flexible recruiting teams and how those teams might look in each case.

Companies without HR - Save Time and Money

Your flexible recruiting team: Founders + Freelance Recruiter or Agency

If you’re an early-stage startup or a small company, you and your team might be hiring on your own. You start with your own network and your team’s network. You rely on referrals, and maybe even post on a few job boards. At this stage of the company, there’s no need for an internal HR or talent team, so founders rely on themselves. This approach will help you find your first employees.

At one point, you’ll start looking for new employees and won’t find anyone suitable in your network. Maybe you’re looking for a niche role. Maybe job boards aren’t bringing in enough qualified candidates. Since you’re not hiring many employees, it doesn’t make sense to hire a full-time HR Manager, but you need support.

This is the first use-case of hiring an agency or a freelance recruiter. They can help you with a number of tasks: developing your recruitment strategy, creating a shortlist of potential candidates, initial screening of candidates or interviews. At this point, the biggest benefit you get is cost-efficiency. On-demand work is a more affordable option compared to hiring a full-time employee.

Companies with HR - Support Your Team

Your flexible recruiting team: Hiring Managers + HR + Agency or Freelance Recruiter(s)

In-house HR teams often need to juggle various HR and recruitment tasks. They already take care of any HR-related questions in the company. When there is a new role to be filled or many roles at the same time, dozens of recruitment tasks get put on their to-do list.

Recruitment processes take a long time, especially when you have to fill a difficult role. You might be hiring for a specific engineering role. You may be looking for talent in unfamiliar markets. Hiring challenges like these are a huge time commitment. Chances are your HR team doesn’t have enough time. They don’t have time to dive deep into recruiting while taking care of day-to-day tasks.

It’s 2023 and we’ve all seen that a burnt-out team isn’t an effective one. By opening up the possibility to delegate part of the work, you're supporting your in-house HR team. That’s why many companies choose to hire on-demand recruiters. External recruiters can help HR teams with any task such as sourcing, screening or full-cycle recruitment.

Companies with a Talent Acquisition Team - Grow Your Team Fast or Expand to New Markets

Your flexible recruiting team: Hiring Managers + In-House Recruiters + Embedded Recruiters

If you’re growing in this economy, that’s great news! When you need to fill dozens of roles quickly, it’s the perfect time to embed external recruiters into your team. Using embedded recruiters adds control, speed and value compared to traditional recruitment outsourcing. You get to build your employer brand, have control over the candidate experience, and own the talent pool they are building. As a bonus, this approach typically costs less.

Embedded recruiters are an extension of your in-house team. Even though they’re external partners, they use company tools and processes. They work under the company name helping you grow your employer brand. Embedded recruiters work together with your in-house talent team, and bring their expertise to the table. They have the know-how to fill challenging executive roles or niche tech and marketing roles. They’ll do everything to help your team grow fast without sacrificing the quality of the candidates.

It also makes sense to embed recruiters into your team when you’re building a team in a new market. Expanding to a new location involves research, building up an employer brand in the new market, and looking for local talent. This can take a lot of resources. Local recruiters can let you in on their knowledge of the local job market. They’ll know where to find and how to approach local talent. In the long run, working with a local expert makes the expansion faster and cost-effective.

When to grow your in-house recruiting team and when to use external help?

We’ve covered flexible teams and what they may look like for different companies. If you’re still wondering whether your next recruiter should be a full-time employee or an external partner, let’s sum it up.

It makes sense to get external help when:

You’re hiring for niche or hard-to-fill roles
You need to hire a lot of people in a short period of time
You’re expanding to a new market or hiring abroad

Your in-house team needs support

Hiring an (additional) in-house recruiter isn’t cost-effective*

* You might be wondering when it’s cost-effective to hire an in-house recruiter and when an external one. Although the numbers vary depending on the difficulty of roles and your employer brand, here’s an average estimate of the Estonian market.

Total cost for an in-house recruiter (Annual salary & benefits + equipment & training): €45 000
Average cost per hire when working with an external partner:
€5000 (with a recruitment agency)
€3000 (with a freelance recruiter)

You can easily calculate after how many outsourced roles it makes sense to hire an in-house recruiter. Just use this formula to compare the costs:
Total cost for an in-house recruiter / Average cost per hire when working with an external partner = X roles

Take into account that it takes around 3 months to hire and onboard an in-house employee. So, on-demand recruiters can also be of support until you've onboarded your in-house recruiter.