Designing Your Strategic Game Plan for Recruiting

Often when we think of strategy in the realm of business, the area of recruiting is minimized or left out. Most companies take the time to strategize regarding growth, service, social, and profit but often underestimate the effects of recruiting on all aspects of an organization. Recruiting on its own is attracting, evaluating, and hiring candidates for an organization. At times the hiring is done as quickly as possible. Recruiting with a clear plan or a strategy can positively affect your bottom line.

When it comes to recruiting, creating a clear plan for your business fills the roles you are looking to hire, generally lowers your talent acquisition costs, increases productivity, lowers your turnover costs, adds to the employee experience, and increases morale. When you look at recruiting strategically, with short and long-term goals, you can better plan for other areas of your business, such as employer branding, marketing, retention, company growth, and profitability. 

Taking the time to strategize about recruiting, you begin to look at things like retention, turnover, productivity, morale, and your bottom line. When you intentionally set goals relating to recruiting, your hiring managers and supervisors can plan better when hiring for their departments, leading to better-suited candidates that meet your desired skill sets and company fit. When your precision is sharpened in your recruiting efforts, the positive impacts can be felt through your organization on multiple levels. 

When you’re recruiting is dialed in, your process becomes more efficient. Although the old adage “hire slow, fire fast” is still in play in today’s market, the period of time between when a candidate applies for a position and receives an offer for that position needs to be shorter. CEO, Molley Ricketts, explains in Incipio’s Thought Leadership series that the reason for this is, “on average, a candidate applies for ten positions at any given time.” Creating a sense of urgency on the part of the company looking to fill the position. This spans all levels of candidates, from entry-level to senior leadership, requiring organizations to look at their recruiting needs as a forethought instead of an afterthought. 

For many organizations, recruiting has been reactionary to their current needs, and they have not intentionally strategized about future needs. In Incipio’s Thought Leadership series on Recruiting Strategies, Molley outlines a few places an organization can start. 

History of the Company – What were your hiring needs in the past?

If you have been using applicant tracking software, you can run reports that will show you the ebbs and flows of hiring, turnover, retention, and other data. You can drill data down to review positions, departments, hiring managers, where successful team members were recruited from, how long the application-to-hire time frame was, and more. 

If you are not currently using an applicant tracking software system, you can still go back and review the positions you had available, the number of candidates you hired, the number of candidates that left the organization, the reason for their termination, what areas of the business grew, and what areas of the company had good or bad retention. 

Compiling the Data 

Look at your information, the projections for growth, and map out the next fiscal year, quarter by quarter. How many candidates are you going to need? What is your budget? You can start to see trends in your hiring, such as which candidate sources produce better candidates that are retaining employment within your organization. How much does turnover cost your organization? How many candidates do you generally interview before you find the right fit? Like always, the more information you have, the better you can plan. 

Utilizing the data you have collected will allow you to set your company up for success by creating a recruiting strategy that will generate ripples of success throughout your organization. When your recruiting tasks are running like a well-oiled machine, your team members can focus on their core business tasks, positively impacting all areas. 

Whether you are new to creating a recruiting strategy for your organization or looking to partner with a team that can help you tweak what you are currently doing to obtain better results, Incipio Workforce Solutions is here to assist. 

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Incipio Workforce Solutions is a strategic partner in helping businesses thrive through recruiting, HR solutions, direct hire recruiting, employer branding, team building, and more! Since 2015, Incipio has been on a mission to transform the way companies attract, engage, and delight their team members. Our professional services break down the challenges you face and create manageable goals, obtainable standards, and process improvements to reorganize, revitalize, and redefine what was into what is possible. Comprised of expertise in HR, Recruiting, Employer Branding, and Service, Incipio gives companies the tools they need to successfully manage their employee experience from interview to retirement. For more information on how we can help you and your business, call us at 502-409-4821 or email us at [email protected].