Free Recruitment Tools & Smart Hiring Calculators
Unlock full visibility into your technical hiring spend with Bernoullis interactive recruitment tools. Designed for engineering leaders, founders and talent teams, our calculators compare agency fees with a flat monthly subscription, calculate the true cost of an unfilled vacancy and show your contractor savings.
Four Free Recruitment Tools for Engineering Teams
Every recruitment tool below is free, takes under a minute and needs no sign-up. Pick the question you want answered and get a clear, data-driven result you can share with your finance team.
New: what should employers pay for a role? Our free fair pay checker compares your salary offer with similar live job adverts near you.
New: which regions, job types and employers show pay in their adverts? See our pay transparency league table, updated daily from live UK job adverts.
New: see where hiring is heating up or cooling down with our UK hiring heat map, by region and job type.
Our Recruitment Tools
Agency Savings Calculator
Compare standard 15% agency contingency fees against Bernoullis flat monthly subscription.
Calculate your net financial savings across 3, 6, and 12-month terms based on average engineer salaries and hiring volumes.
Launch Savings CalculatorCost of Vacancy Calculator
Quantify lost revenue and team productivity for every day an engineering role stays open.
Uses standard 1.5x–2.0x salary multipliers to calculate daily revenue drag and engineering delivery delays.
Calculate Vacancy CostContractor vs. Perm Evaluator
Evaluate long-term contractor rates vs. converting talent under your monthly subscription.
Compare total day-rate spend with zero agency margin markups against direct permanent hires.
Compare Hiring CostsIn-House vs. Outsourced ROI
Compare internal recruiter overhead vs. Bernoulli.
Provides a full breakdown of fixed internal talent acquisition costs versus on-demand subscription scale.
Evaluate Recruiter ROIWe built these recruitment tools because the same questions came up in almost every client conversation. How much are agency fees really costing us? Is it worth hiring a contractor? What does it cost to leave a role open for another month? Rather than guess, you can now model each scenario with your own salaries and hiring volumes, then decide with confidence. The tools are free to use as often as you like, and our consultants are happy to talk through the results.
Choose the Right Recruitment Cost Calculator
Not sure where to start? Match your question to the right recruitment tool below. Each one links straight to the calculator.
“Are agency fees costing us too much?”
Use the Agency Savings Calculator – a recruitment cost calculator that compares standard 15% contingency fees with our flat monthly subscription over 3, 6 and 12 months.
“What is this empty role costing us?”
Use the cost of vacancy calculator to quantify lost revenue and productivity for every day an engineering role stays open.
“Should we hire a contractor or go permanent?”
Use the Contractor vs Perm Evaluator to compare total day-rate spend with the full cost of a permanent hire.
“Should we build an in-house team?”
Use the In-House vs Outsourced ROI calculator to compare internal recruiter overheads with on-demand subscription recruitment.
Who Uses Our Recruitment Tools?
Our recruitment tools were designed with the people who sign off engineering hires in mind. Each one answers the questions we hear most often in client meetings.
Founders and MDs
Use the recruitment cost calculator to see whether agency fees or a subscription will protect your cash flow as you build your first engineering team.
Engineering managers
Use the cost of vacancy calculator to show leadership exactly what an unfilled role is costing your projects each day and make the case for hiring faster.
Finance directors
Compare agency fees, fixed fees, subscriptions and in-house recruiters on a like-for-like basis before approving next year’s hiring budget.
HR and talent teams
Model contractor vs permanent options and cost per hire for workforce plans, then share clear results with hiring managers and the board.
The Hiring Metrics Our Recruitment Tools Help You Measure
Great hiring decisions start with the right numbers. These are the metrics engineering leaders use most – and the recruitment tools that help you track them.
Cost per hire
The total you spend to fill a role – agency fees, advertising, interview time and onboarding – divided by the number of hires. Our cost per hire calculator tools show how a subscription lowers it as your hiring volume grows.
Cost of vacancy
The daily value an open role is not delivering. Many teams estimate it at 1.5 to 2 times salary, spread across the working year, which is exactly what our cost of vacancy calculator uses.
Time to hire
The days between opening a role and an offer being accepted. Every extra week increases your cost of vacancy, which is why speed matters as much as price.
Contractor vs permanent cost
Day rates look expensive, but permanent hires carry salary, pension, benefits and recruitment fees. Comparing both side by side is the only way to see the true cost.
Quality and retention
A cheap hire who leaves in three months is the most expensive hire of all. Replacement guarantees and technical screening protect this number.
Recruiter ROI
An in-house recruiter costs a salary whether you are hiring or not. Our ROI calculator compares that fixed overhead with flexible subscription capacity.
How to Use Recruitment Tools to Build a Hiring Budget
Start with the cost of vacancy calculator. It gives you a daily figure for what each open engineering role is costing, which helps you decide how urgently to hire and how much a faster process is worth.
Next, use the agency savings calculator or recruitment cost calculator to compare how you pay for recruitment. If you hire more than a handful of engineers a year, a fixed monthly subscription usually beats paying recruitment agency fees on every placement.
Finally, run the contractor vs permanent calculator for project-based roles, and the recruiter ROI calculator if you are weighing up an in-house hire. Together, these recruitment tools give you a complete, defensible hiring budget to take to your board or finance director.
Revisit the numbers every quarter. Salaries, hiring volumes and project deadlines change, and a quick refresh of your recruitment tools results keeps your plan realistic and helps you spot when a different pricing model would save money.
Measure the cost of waiting
Put a daily value on every open engineering role.
Compare how you pay
Agency fees, fixed fees or a monthly subscription.
Choose the right hire type
Contractor, permanent or in-house recruiter.
What Does an Empty Engineering Role Really Cost?
Take a design engineer on a £60,000 salary. Using the 1.5x value multiplier in our cost of vacancy calculator, that role is worth around £90,000 a year to the business. Spread across roughly 230 working days, every day the seat stays empty costs about £390 in lost output.
If the role takes 60 working days to fill, that is over £23,000 – often more than the recruitment agency fee itself. Using the higher 2x multiplier for project-critical roles, the figure rises to more than £31,000. That is why speed to hire matters as much as the fee you pay.
Engineering Specialists. We Solve Your Equations.
Having spent more than 20 years embedded within the planet’s most advanced engineering sectors, we don’t just recruit for your industry – we truly understand it. Our recruitment tools are built on the same numbers we use with clients every day.
We Offer a Free of Charge Online Session & Site Visit
At Bernoullis we truly believe meeting the hiring manager, experiencing the workplace, meeting other team members and getting a feel for the work environment gives us all we need to find the perfect candidate.
How we work, works. We get you results.
Discover Smart Hiring With a Free Consultation
Talk through your next engineering hire with a specialist – no obligation.
Looking for Your Next Role? Try Our Free CV Tools
These recruitment tools are for employers. Looking for work yourself? Our job seeker tools are built for you. The AI Job Matcher scores 150,000+ live UK jobs against your CV and shows you the best fits first. The free CV checker gives you an instant ATS score, and the CV rewriter tailors your CV to every job.
Recruitment Tools: Your Questions Answered
Are your recruitment tools free to use?
Yes. All four recruitment tools are completely free, need no sign-up and give you an instant result in your browser.
What is a recruitment cost calculator?
A recruitment cost calculator estimates what you will spend to hire, based on salary, agency fee percentage and the number of hires. Our Agency Savings Calculator compares that with a flat monthly subscription.
How does the cost of vacancy calculator work?
It multiplies the role’s salary by a value multiplier (typically 1.5 to 2 times) and spreads it across the working year to give a daily cost. That shows how much revenue and productivity you lose for each day a role stays open.
How do I calculate cost per hire?
Add up every cost of recruiting – agency fees, advertising, assessment, interview time and onboarding – and divide it by the number of hires in the same period. Our cost per hire comparisons show how a subscription reduces that figure as your hiring volume increases.
Is it cheaper to hire a contractor or a permanent engineer?
It depends on how long you need the skills. Contractors are often better value for short, specialist projects, while permanent hires usually win over the long term. The contractor vs permanent calculator shows the break-even point for your role.
Should we hire an in-house recruiter?
An in-house recruiter makes sense when you hire steadily all year. If your hiring comes in waves, subscription recruitment usually gives better value. The recruiter ROI calculator compares both.
How accurate are the calculators?
They use standard industry assumptions and your own inputs, so they are a reliable guide for budgeting. For a detailed plan based on your exact roles, book a free consultation with our team.
Which recruitment tool should I start with?
Start with the cost of vacancy calculator. Knowing what an open role costs you each day makes every other hiring decision – budget, speed and pricing model – much easier.
Can Bernoullis help me act on the results?
Yes. Our engineering recruitment consultants can turn your results into a hiring plan, whether that is a single placement or a recruitment subscription.
Can I use the recruitment tools for non-engineering roles?
Yes. The calculators work for any salaried role, although the default assumptions are designed around technical and engineering hiring, where vacancies tend to stay open longer and cost more.
What multiplier should I use for cost of vacancy?
Many businesses use 1.5 times salary for standard roles and up to 2 times for revenue-generating or project-critical positions. If a delayed hire holds up a whole project, the true figure can be higher still.
How often should I review my hiring costs?
At least once a year when you set your budget, and whenever your hiring plan changes. Re-running the recruitment tools with up-to-date salaries and hiring volumes keeps your decisions grounded in real numbers.
Do I need to share my results with Bernoullis?
No. The tools are there to help you plan, with no obligation. If you would like a second opinion, you can book a free consultation and one of our consultants will review your numbers with you and suggest the most cost-effective way to hire.
Turn Your Numbers Into a Hiring Plan
Follow Bernoullis for engineering news, hiring insight and new vacancies.
Submit Your CV
Let us find the perfect role for you.
Not sure which jobs to apply for? Our AI Job Matcher scores 150,000+ live UK jobs against your CV and shows you the best fits first. Find my matching jobs →
Want a stronger CV first? Try our free CV checker.