Employee Recruiting Strategy

"The Secret Weapon"

A good employee recruiting strategy is the best way to avoid having recruiting turn into a time-draining, money-sucking activity. We have all run an ad and been inundated with unqualified people who eat up time and resources.

It doesn't have to be this way.

The key to effective employee recruiting is having a recruitment strategy that fits your time, budget and company. You certainly wouldn't run off and try to sell without having a plan. The same goes for recruiting new employees.

There are 4 key components to a good recruiting strategy:

• Budget
  
• Timing
  
• Resources
  
• Availability

Let's talk about each one in turn.

Budget

Much of the recruiting activity is dictated by budget. It is always possible to throw money at recruiting problems but, it is probably not your first choice. Instead, start by determining how much money is available to spend on recruiting. The more you are willing to spend, the more options are available.

You cannot use an outside recruiting firm (headhunter) if there is no budget. It is only possible to advertise in certain places if the budget is small.

I am not suggesting it is necessary to spend a lot of money on recruiting. But, there is a cost associated with recruiting good employees and you have to plan for the expenditures as part of the recruiting strategy.

Timing

Did one of the top employees recently resign? Or are you out in front of an expansion or new project? Is the position a replacement or an addition? The answers to these questions weigh heavily on the recruiting strategy.

A replacement opening immediately puts everything in react mode and eliminates some recruiting options that take longer, think advertising in a trade journal. The choices of candidate sources may be limited by how long it takes to get a response.

When adding someone new to the staff, recruiting can start much earlier in the process. The number and types of recruiting sources are not limited by time.

Resources

Who is going to do the recruiting? Too often recruiting gets shuffled to the back of the to-do list and then you wonder why it takes too long and costs too much. Recruiting takes resources. Candidates don't miraculously appear on the doorstep.

Who has the time to spend on recruiting? Is there someone on the staff who can and will do the recruiting? Are there outside recruiting services (headhunters, consultants) who can do the work if you can't? These are some of the questions that need to be asked when building a recruitment strategy.

Availability

How many people are there that have the skills to do the job? What is the current employment situation? Are there geographical concentrations of the people with the required skills? How much competition is there for the available people?

In addition to the answers to these questions, the compensation plan needs to be factored into the strategy. How well a company pays affects the ability to recruit top performing employees.

And finally, what is your company's reputation? The better the reputation, the easier it is to recruit. Candidate's will beat a path to your door when the company is viewed as a great place to work.

Start your employee recruiting by developing a recruitment strategy. Without a great recruiting strategy, you won't know the best recruiting sources  or recruiting services to pursue.  Answer the questions raised in this article and the odds of attracting the best employees, in a reasonable time and without breaking the bank, go up tremendously.