Top 10 Employee Recruitment Strategies For 2020 To Hire The Best ...

As the moving parts within the talent puzzle keep increasing in number and complexity, the need of the hour is to design an employee recruitment strategy that is innovative, relevant, people-focused and driven by business needs. In an ecosystem where the conversation between the organization and the candidate is changing quickly by becoming more transparent, strategic and individualized, recruitment strategies must evolve.

Table of Contents:

• What is an employee recruitment strategy?
• Why do you need a hiring strategy?
• 10 employee recruitment strategies for hiring the right talent in 2020

What is an Employee Recruitment Strategy?

An employee recruitment strategy is defined as a structured action plan to effectively and efficiently identify talent pools, attract candidates and get the best-fit talent onboard.

Also referred to as a hiring strategy, it is not just a static, one-time plan for a specific process or instance. It is a dynamic, fluid blueprint for every stage and phase of the full recruitment cycle an innovative framework that involves understanding the deficits in present talent as well as the growth plans for the future. Recruitment is essentially a sales-driven job and similar to the need for a sales strategy to attract the target audience, recruitment also needs to strategize a plan of action to attract the right talent. Instead of selling process and services, as is the case with a sales strategy, the recruitment strategy needs to be able to sell the employer brand.

The scope of hiring is a little different for consultants and for internal recruiters. For example, consultants usually work on retainers or part-time projects for a few roles across their client organizations. Their strategies need to change based on the client and the role. For internal recruiters, on the other hand, the broader strategy pieces remain the same although they need to be tweaked for specific roles. For instance, the strategies for hunting for a warehouse manager, a structural engineer, a web developer or an SEO expert all need to be relevant to the job roles while still catering to the broader branding of the organization.

The Hire Purpose: Why do you need a hiring strategy?

If your aim is to build inroads into quality talent pools, encourage applications and to reduce the cost and time to hire, having the right hiring strategy in place is a prerequisite. Having the right recruitment strategies provide the following advantages in todays competitive talent battle:

• Lower cost with regard to time and money since you already have the first steps chalked out
• Objective decisions that are business-focused because having a guiding strategy leaves little room for bias
• Data-backed expertise for every stage of the recruitment process based on the strategic knowledge of the ecosystem
• An acumen for agility with the basic groundwork in place along with the allowance to fine-tune where necessary on-demand
• A competitive advantage based on studying the market, the upcoming trends and action plans to stay ahead of the curve

10 employee recruitment strategies for hiring the right talent

Over the last couple of years, the work ecosystem has changed considerably with increased generational diversity, a more pronounced amalgamation of working styles and models and a stronger infiltration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). With these changes demanding quick adaptation, the recruitment strategies have evolved as well.

Heres our top ten employee recruitment strategies to enable hiring the best talent.

1. Brand it right

72 percent of global leaders in recruiting today believe that building an employer brand to reckon with has a positive impact on hiring. Employer branding has grown out of its garb of being a mere buzzword and into a key element of people strategy. With organization review sites becoming a natural stop for most candidates early on in the recruitment journey, Glassdoors claim that companies on average spend about $129,000 on employer branding does not come as a surprise.

Companies today are taking the trouble to treat candidates as customers and investing resources in advertising the brand in a way that builds a connection with prospective applicants. Employer branding is thus one of the initial strategies you need to get right before embarking on a recruitment drive. You need to know what you, as an organization stand for, what you wish to sell you the talent pool and how you can guide their perception of your brand to encourage organic interest and motivation to apply.

2. Prefer a refer

Having an effective employee referral policy and system helps you unlock many rewards. This converts your employees to talent sourcingOpens a new window touch points. This leads to considerably less time taken to hire, an improvement in the quality of talent, easier onboarding and cost savings. Companies often pay a referral bonus to employees whose referrals get onboard and even with that, they end up saving on the cost of a tedious talent hunt with internal recruiters or commissions to consultants.

The core thought behind employee referrals seems to be Jim Rohn idea that we are the average of the five people that we interact the most with. That assumes that capable employees would have at least two highly capable professionals in their inner circle. Referrals thus as act as a pre-process background check. This strategy is especially helpful when it comes to hiring individuals who would be high on person-organization fit since the referring employee would have already thought about that. Moreover, employees also help further the employer brand in motivating their contact to apply for a certain job.

3. Choose insights over data

We live in a world of data abundance. That, however, does not presuppose that we always have access right information in order to make wise decisions. Being able to dig out insights from the data dump is thus important. This is possible through intelligent analysis of relevant metrics. Most Application Tracking Systems (ATS)Opens a new window offer the possibility of a wealth of insights. The first step to managing well is to measure well. Metrics that have an important bearing on your recruitment strategy include the hiring source, time and cost per hire, job-post to application ratio, retention rates, email response rates, application to offer time and ratios and the quality of hire based on their performance.

Gaining insights into and effectively interpreting these metrics is an essential aspect of getting the recruitment strategy right. An insight-focused approach helps you make sense of retrospective and real-time data to prepare better for the future. Even apparently simple things like the percentage of candidates who complete the application allow the organization an opportunity to understand what aspects of the process to improve.

Learn More: How to Become a Smart Recruitment Specialist in 2020Opens a new window

4. Be change-ready

Innovating the recruitment process continually is a necessity today. Being able to adapt quickly is not limited only to the kind of technology employed but also includes the systems and processes engaged in. For example, there are companies that are replacing the CV with tests. This ends up saving time and a whole step in the full cycle recruitment process by cutting out the need to read, analyze and judge a candidate by the CV and jumping straight to a skill-based, person-focused perspective.

Being in the disruptive, change-hungry, trend-driven environment that we operate in, as complex and volatile as it may be, comes with the opportunity to engage in trial and error, to learn and to change for the better. Organizations should thus focus not only on finding the right strategies but also on being able to reinvent their approach.

5. Know your niche

Tapping into niche job portals helps with taking your brand to specific talent pools that are most relevant. Choosing between LinkedIn, Behance or StackOverflow, for example, needs to be a decision keeping in mind what role you’re looking to fill and where the best talent for that role would be in concentration.

Moreover, niche job boards enable your access to better candidates by narrowing down your search. Your recruitment strategy should thus focus on identifying the right candidate pools across online and offline sources.

6. Be active with the passive

Actively engaging with passive candidates is important especially for building a robust talent pipeline. These are candidates who might not be looking for jobs at present but have all the necessary traits, skills and experience that you’re looking for. You need to be able to engage with prospective candidates whether they are actively looking for jobs, casually browsing or satisfied at their present jobs. Even if this group may not be motivated to apply or have an updated CV to share, they could be a part of the workforce plan for the future.

7. Communicate with a purpose

The job description is usually the first piece of information that most candidates are given access to. Complicated, vague JDs lead to disengagement. The strategy should be to provide the candidate with as much relevant information as possible. When it comes to communicating with candidates, three points need to be kept in mind – ease, reach and quality. The communication also needs to resonate with the employer brand. The key is thus to find the right kind of communication style that would engage the candidate and pique their interest while providing just the right amount of information without overburdening them.

8. Improve interviews

Interviews are one of the most important aspects of the recruitment process and should get enough attention in your hiring strategy as well. Better interviewing processes can improve the whole candidate experience. This is often the first direct contact a candidate has with the organization one that is an opportunity for both parties to gain as much information about each other. A recent LinkedIn research discovered that for 83 percent of candidates, even if they liked the role and the company, a negative experience at the interview stage could change how they felt about continuing with the recruitment process.

In times where all our opinions have multiple platforms to find expression in, organizations need to be careful of the interview experience they provide. Candidate reviews could affect the collective perception of the organization for individuals who could be potential candidates in the future and a bad review has a much longer memory shelf-life than a good one. Interviewers need to be adequately trained to avoid cookie-cutter questions, to be more open and conversational in their approach and to be able to draw out all that they need to without making the interviewee uncomfortable.

9. Reach for the top shelf

The only way to get better talent onboard is to aim for better talent to focus on the best-fit individuals and not compromise on quality just to save time and money. The right candidate, although expensive, would be an investment whereas a bad hire would cost the company a lot more. It also helps to segregate all your applicants and rank them in order of how well they match your requirements.

Your focus should be on the best-suited handful. Various job portals and ATS allow recruiters to qualify and classify candidates based on their job-fit with regard to skills needed, the experience level desired and the kind of educational platform preferred. Behavioral aspects need to be kept in mind as well. Quite a few organizations today focus on hiring for attitude and training for skills. In a job market where there is ample overlap and fluidity with regard to educational disciplines and industry experience, that is an outlook that makes sense.

10. Remember ex-employees

Never burn bridges. Ex-employees take the least amount of time when it comes to onboarding and orientation. They are already aware of the culture, values, processes, and functioning of the organization. Moreover, if they have gained experience in industries similar to yours after separating from the organization, they would come back with upgraded skills, learning and often a fresher perspective. When you factor in the time it takes the average new hire to become truly productive (about three to six months), the time you save in rehiring an ex-employee and getting them back in the groove becomes all the more apparent.

Learn more: 10 Employee Onboarding Checklist Items You Can’t Afford to MissOpens a new window

Conclusion

While building your recruitment strategy, it is important to bear in mind the following questions What is the end goal? Do we have the right recruitment tools to achieve that goal? What additional research do we need to engage in? How do we measure the performance of our recruitment strategy? How can we improve the strategic framework to hire better? Knowing the answers would help you in creating your hiring strategy with more clarity and in weaving the strategy into the talent tapestry of the organization.

What are the best practices that you have included in your employee recruitment strategy? Tell us all about it on FacebookOpens a new window , LinkedInOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window . Were always listening.