The Real Cost of Hiring in Greece (It's Not the Job Ad)

When most business owners think about the cost of hiring, they think of the job ad. But the ad is only a small fraction of what recruitment really costs a company.

Recruitment consumes money — advertising, sourcing, screening, interviews and HR administration. It consumes time — HR, managers and executives spend hours until the right person is found. And it consumes energy, as the existing team covers a gap that shouldn't exist.

The Greek benchmark

Research from KPMG Greece indicates that a business spends roughly one fifth of an employee's salary on recruiting-related costs. For a role paying €24,000 gross per year, that's indicatively around €4,800 — before you count the cost of the position sitting empty.

And if a hire turns out to be the wrong one, the financial risk multiplies: the cost of a bad hire can reach a multiple of the annual salary.

The cost of delay

An open position doesn't just cost recruitment fees. It costs lost productivity, extra workload for the team, management time, delayed projects and — critically — the risk that the best candidates accept another offer while you're still screening CVs.

The cost of hiring isn't only the cost of hiring. It's also the cost of hiring late.

A different approach

This is why forward-thinking companies are moving from reactive recruitment (start searching when the position opens) to proactive talent acquisition: building a talent pool before they need it, so that when a role opens, they move in days — not months.

Talent-On-Board gives companies in Greece, Cyprus and South Africa exactly that: a proactive talent pool with VideoCVs, AI-assisted matching and direct communication — available every day of the year.