Recently we hired someone to take over a maternity period with our sister company The Training Collective.

As we have many business clients who also look to hire, and many people who want to work for us, I thought I’d share our experience of different mediums for seeking candidates in case you find it helpful.

We placed an ad about 1 month out from the date of the person departing on Linkedin ($200) + Seek ($280) + our website (free) + did social network shouts outs (status updates, in groups, on our pages).

We had 19 applicants via Linkedin, 15 via Seek, around 15 randomly via email (as specified on application instructions) and around 10 via our careers form (as not specified on application instructions).

Whilst we had more applicants on Linkedin than Seek, about 75% were overseas applicants including the following countries/locations: Uzbekistan, Nigeria, India, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Greater Nashville area; Fiji; Pune, India; Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; Singapore; Hungary; Jordan; Lisbon, Portugal.

Of course I’m not against hiring from overseas, but some logistics and time frames do come into play. Many of the applicants via Seek had no relevant industry experience so were not what I would call high quality candidates. … The successful candidate we selected had applied via Seek.

My thoughts on the whole affair? It’s expensive to advertise on both Linkedin and Seek – almost a $500 exercise but if you want to cast your net wide you really have to (subject to the role).

From my point of view, it’s a shame more employers and employees don’t use Linkedin. It’s cheaper to place an ad, and you can do more due diligence as an employer.

It’s always worth posting a job on your own website AND pushing it through social networks – that’s free.