5 Steps to Creating a Fail Proof Corporate Recruiting Strategy

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Recruiting just like Marketing and Operations is about striking a balance between conservative and risky. Your boss or hiring manager wants a guarantee of success in hiring to fill the seats in a new location or building a candidate pipeline of those hard to fill positions. As a recruiter you are asked not only to meet deadlines, but bring the best quality talent at the littlest cost and time to the organization.

Executing a strategy like this takes time, research and effort and that’s likely not something your hiring manager or boss really wants to hear. We agonize over what seem to be simple decisions like job board distribution, job seeker email marketing, banner ads, and other traditional advertising options. Finding the perfect candidate could take months, but once you find that candidate their ROI will make it all worth it. Albert Einstein once said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.”

We’ll walk you through 5 steps in creating a fail proof corporate recruiting strategy.

1) Research – Whether it’s the industry, location market or specifics of the position. This is the first place in which to start. Arming yourself with information lends to making better recruiting and hiring decisions in the long term.

2) SWOT Analysis – What strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats exist in the current marketplace? Performing a SWOT Analysis will assist the company’s recruiting team with valuable insight and information that will enhance your recruiting strategy, making it easier to improve candidate sourcing efforts. By knowing the answers to these important questions your recruiting team is able to recruit more competitively with direct competitors.

3) Develop a plan of action. There are several intricate parts of the recruiting process from writing the actual job description to knowing where to post and advertise. With a plethora of job boards out there and LinkedIn groups which area will give you the best ROI and which is worth the continuous effort of monitoring. Developing a plan beforehand for open requisitions will not only save you time, but the cost of being everywhere at once. When a two-week notice is issued be able to pick up and instantly have candidates in mind for critical positions in your office.

4) Define goals, milestones and what success looks like. One of the pitfalls in the hiring process is not knowing what your ideal candidate looks like. Without knowing what you want will make it difficult to find whom you want. Find an employee in the company who exemplifies the characteristics you want in your next hire. Once you’ve set that expectation, set benchmarks and goals 3-5 weeks out and commit to finding 3-4 candidates who fit within your guidelines.

If you define success in the beginning of your search you’re more likely to worth towards the goal. It can be finding, interviewing, hiring, and training a candidate within a two-month period. This will also help you from searching for months and months without finding the perfect fit.

5) Create pivot points. Being nimble and flexible keeps the competition on their toes. Develop a plan to present and quickly execute on opportunities for change using the market research to guide you.

Developing a fail proof recruiting strategy takes time and involves several parts. Being able to pull this off successfully will take effort from not only your Human Resources department, but the organization as a whole.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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