In today’s job market, planning out your recruitment strategies and best practices for hiring top talent is an absolute must. With a clearly defined approach to your recruiting process, you’ll likely build a large pool of high-quality applicants from which you can choose.
Use the following recruitment strategies and best practices for hiring to help you make the correct hiring decision!
Recruiting strategy #1: Planning
A successful recruiting strategy requires a significant amount of initial planning. The planning phase lays the foundation for finding the best prospects – make sure you spend as much time as you can on this step!
Assess the position
Before you rush to fill an open position, work with the internal decision-makers on your team to determine whether or not you actually need to fill it. Once you know the position needs to be filled, lay out its scope, including any changes that need to be made or gaps that need to be filled.
Create a compelling job description
More often than not, a candidate’s first experience with your organization is a job posting – so make it clear, compelling, and persuasive. Along with listing the required core competencies and other key requirements, take the time to build up your employer brand within the job posting.
Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Establish KPIs to measure results and to evaluate the success of your recruiting efforts. The recruiting process is commonly measured by Time to Fill (TTF), Cost Per Hire (CPH), and Quality of Hire (QOH) metrics. Be sure to continuously re-evaluate KPIs to make sure they are in line with any corporate and economic changes.
Recruiting strategy #2: Sourcing
Once you and your team have determined the need to fill the position, your next strategic move should be building a plan for sourcing candidates. This process breaks down into two tactics: internal sourcing and external sourcing.
Internal Sourcing
Why look outward for a new hire when a member of the internal team might be the best option? Here are three things to keep in mind when sourcing internally.
Retention: Employee retention should be one of your top priorities. Keeping your current employees challenged by moving them into new roles is one of the best ways to retain them.
Time to Productivity: A brand new employee has a much higher learning curve than a seasoned associate. Time-to-productivity metrics are drastically reduced when you promote someone who already knows your organization.
Culture Fit: Employees who have already proven themselves to be a great fit within the company have valuable intellectual capital you don’t want to lose.
External Sourcing
Sometimes, however, you’ll need to evaluate external prospects to fill the open job role. Here are three tactics you can use to attract top-quality candidates.
Target passive applicants: Sometimes the best candidate for the open position isn’t even actively looking. In order to recruit these passive applicants, try to entice their interest through channels where you know they can be reached.
Be creative with your applicant outreach and engagement: More and more applicants are looking for ways to engage with their future employers in creative ways. Use creative tactics – like referral bonuses, different types of job postings, and social media – to promote open positions.
Use data to drive your recruiting process: Keep track of key metrics (location and cost of job postings, time between job posting and hire, etc.) to identify the critical patterns behind your recruiting process that will enable you to make better hiring decisions.
Recruiting strategy #3: Assessing
Many employers are starting to recognize the value in assessing the culture-fit value of their candidates Before beginning the formal interview process, consider adding these assessment tools into your recruiting strategy:
Psychometric profiling
Psychometric profiling tests assess details about core character traits, allowing recruiters and hiring teams to predict whether or not someone will be a good long-term fit. Companies like PDPglobal make it easy to determine the likelihood of a candidate excelling within the company culture.
Simulation assessments
One of the best ways to know how someone will perform on the job is to see them in action. Ask your candidates to participate in a mock-up scenario similar to those they would actually encounter on the job. This is an excellent way to test for skills and personality characteristics crucial to the job role.
Recruiting strategy #4: ATS technology
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) streamline the recruiting and hiring process by automating many time-consuming tasks. Robust ATS like Top Echelon Software help free up your time so you can focus on executing your recruitment strategies and best practices for hiring top talent.
Book a demo with us to learn more about how we can help your organization attract the best candidates.