We all know recruiting budgets have been slashed again and again, yet companies will always need to source top talent. Unfortunately, talent is not always in an ideal geographic location for interviews. Just go back in the last 3 months and see how many times you flew a candidate in or a hiring manager out to a career event where they conducted interviews. The cost of travel is not going down anytime soon. In fact, it continues to increase as cities use travel-related taxes as a way of boosting revenue according to a recent WSJ article: The Best and Worst U.S. Cities for Travel Taxes.
“Travel is one of the most heavily taxed activities in the U.S., even though most cities and towns try hard to encourage visitors and tourism. Travelers don’t vote where they travel, so cash-strapped cities and states continue to push fees and taxes onto hotel rooms, rental cars and airports.”
Now, recruiting departments will often take the cost of a candidate’s flight out of the business unit, but it still requires a significant expense to the unit and all banking on the candidate being the right fit. And if they’re not a fit, start the process over again and tack on another trip’s expenses. These expenses add up especially with the taxes being tacked in some key cities.
“Among major destinations, the tax on a day’s travel spending can range from as little as $22.21 in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and West Palm Beach, Fla., to as much as $40.31 in Chicago, GBTA found.”
Companies are trying to find ways to reduce these travel expenses by implementing solution such as
- Virtual career fairs to better source candidates across the country;
- video interviewing to have a look at candidates prior to that trip onsite;
- additional phone screens to make sure all decision makers have spoken to the candidate.
Whatever solution you find, I think it is pretty clear that we should try to mitigate travel until we’re sure we’re flying in the top one or two candidates.
What are some ways you’ve reduced travel expenses within recruiting?
