Here’s what you need to do to supercharge your recruitment strategy

For folks involved in recruiting and hiring, the work is never done. There is constant pressure to find the best possible candidates, faster. To find better ways of working, to produce better results. We know the pressure, because we work for and with the people who work under that pressure every day.

We’ve got a birds-eye view of the market, and that gives us the chance to see some of the best approaches and tactics in action. So here, we’d like to offer a few of the ways to supercharge your recruitment strategy, at each step of the candidate journey.

Supercharge Your Sourcing

Job postings are a necessary part of sourcing. And of course, there’s the old standby LinkedIn. But your competition is there, too. To find the people you need, go beyond. Source in some unconventional places … where candidates are, and your competition isn’t.

Uncommon Niches

For every profession that exists, there is a community of people in that profession. Those communities are linked by specialty industry publications and websites, events, and online groups. Moving past LinkedIn, recruiters working in those niches should identify where those communities are, and engage with them. This can be as simple as redirecting advertising dollars to post recruitment ads in publications and on websites. In some cases, though, recruiters might go further, using these platforms to engage directly, making connections and building relationships over time with the members of the community.

Unconventional Sources

Technical recruiters have been using GitHub to find talented developers for some time. Progressive recruiters are increasingly using Slack communities to find candidates with niche skill sets as well. Want something even further off the beaten path? Find knowledgeable candidates answering questions on Quora, and participating in online or IRL groups on Meetup.

Untapped Pools

Too often, we return to the same talent pools again and again, wondering why the pool isn’t getting deeper. New and different pools may be closer than you think. Many companies have been successful building pipelines of emerging talent through campus engagement - offering internships, participating in job fairs, presenting to classes, hosting hackathons, and more. Need more experienced employees? There are many who find barriers to returning to the workforce. Veterans, for example, and mid-career professionals returning to the workforce after time away for any number of reasons. ‘Returnship’ programs can provide a welcoming open door, and a smoother reentry. Finally, with the right incentives and a concerted referral drive, your existing employees can be a rich source potential employees in their networks.

Supercharge Your Outreach

Reddit, Glassdoor, and other sites are full of posts by jobseekers frustrated with copy-and-paste messages from recruiters. Especially when they’re off-target, directed to a candidate who isn’t really a great fit for the job. Boilerplate messages don’t cut it anymore. Best case, they’re ignored. Worst case, they turn off the very candidates you’re trying to attract.

Personalise and customise your outreach. When you approach a candidate, make sure they’re truly a good fit. Find the reasons why, then call out those reasons in your message. Make it clear that this isn’t just the 438th time the text was copied and pasted.

Won’t this take longer? Yes, it will. But you could send 100 poorly-crafted messages that receive a 5% qualified response, or send 50 great messages that attract a 50% response. Which makes more sense?

Supercharge Your Assessment

When done well, interviewing doesn’t just evaluate a candidate’s fit for a job and the company. It creates interest and attachment, and begins to form the relationship you’ll have as employer and employee. This tends to be a function of two simple things: good interviewers asking good questions.

Good Interviewers

Interviewers of the past have been ‘gatekeepers’, with a focus on filtering out lesser candidates and only allowing the best candidates through. While this is technically still true, good interviewers should be ambassadors: just as focused on selling the company, talking about it in a compelling way, and fostering a relationship with the candidate. In addition to recruiters, consider adding people from the team you’re recruiting for (i.e. prospective future colleagues) who have these attributes, to join later-stage interviews. Good interviewers also take interview jitters into account, taking host-like responsibility for putting the candidate at ease.

Good Questions

Good interview questions are ones that are relevant to the job and the company. They draw out the candidate’s experience and accomplishments, giving them the opportunity to shine. ‘Gotcha’ questions, designed to trick or trap candidates, aren’t good questions. If you’re using unconventional questions (like logic puzzles, for example), have a good reason for it, and share that reason with the candidate. Lastly, remember that an interview should be a two-way street. Always make sure to give the candidate the opportunity to ask a few questions of their own.

Supercharge Your Hiring

There’s a reason why the term ‘candidate experience’ has become common in the lexicon of talent. Candidates today want - even expect - a smooth, seamless, and swift hiring process, with consistent engagement and communication throughout. Here are some places ‘bumps in the road’ are commonly found, and how to smooth them out.

Efficiency

The hiring process should be as fast, with as few steps, as practically possible. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that it should be rushed, it just means it should be efficient. Why have four interviews when three - or even two - would do? Does the candidate really need to meet ten people, or perhaps only six of them? If they really do need to meet all ten, could that be accomplished with a panel rather than individual interviews? Different interviewers asking mostly the same questions is a waste of everyone’s time. Strategise ahead of time, so that each person comes at the interview from a different angle.

Transparency

A candidate should never feel left in the dark. Once you’ve determined the structure of the hiring process, be open with the candidate about that process. Tell them how many steps there’ll be, the purpose of each stage, and who they’ll meet along the way. If the process changes, tell them how and why. Perhaps most importantly, if you’ve determined that a candidate isn’t a good fit, tell them. It’s not fair to leave a candidate thinking they’re still in the running, when they’re not.

Communication and Engagement

To a candidate, the hiring process should always feel as if it’s in motion. Moving forward, with momentum towards a potential offer. Naturally, this can’t always be precisely the case; when other candidates are interviewing, and when decision makers are making decisions, there are lulls in the activity. The key during those lulls is communication - keeping in touch, keeping the candidates engaged in the process. There are any number of reasons to touch base: interesting pieces of company news, developments in the process, feedback from interviewers, requests for references. This kind of communication could be a full-time job, of course, but it doesn’t have to be. Automation tools allow even small teams to be efficient and consistent in their communication to numerous candidates, without sacrificing what feels to those candidates like the personalised human touch.

Supercharge Your Onboarding

Retention is the flip side of the recruitment coin. A great employee experience is essential to retain your best employees. That, in turn, is critical to attract the best new employees. Here are a few key areas where small changes produce big rewards.

First impressions count

It should go without saying, but if you’re recruiting for a new hire, you know you’re going to have a new employee. That being the case, there's really no excuse for being unprepared on day one. Have all the tools, materials, work space, and information your new employee needs ready on their first day with you.

Connections matter

Early in your new employee’s time with you, match them up with a few other people across the organisation. They can be peers or more senior, working in the same area of the company or not. This creates a welcoming social connection. It also gives the employee a sounding board - a few people to go to with questions that come up during their orientation. The result? A more informed employee who feels more at home more quickly.

Growth is good

For new employees and others, don’t overlook the value of learning, development and career progression. Besides compensation, these are swiftly becoming the most valuable - and valued - things a company can offer their people. For any employee you want to retain, think about career pathing and communicate it to them: where can they go, how will they get there, and how will the company support them along the way?

Flexibility has value

The last several years have been marked by a rapid increase in the number of companies hiring remote and hybrid employees, and more employees are seeking out employers who provide this type of flexibility. But that’s not the only kind. Flextime, more fluid time-off policies, compressed workweeks … these are all creative ways that companies are offering their employees the chance to find the kind of work-life balance and integration they’re looking for, and to perform at their best.

Time to Get Charged Up

The best candidates will always be difficult to find, and the process that brings them through your front door will always be a challenging one. If recruiting was easy, everyone would do it, right? Old tactics get tired, though, and they don’t work as well anymore. It’s time to amp it up. Put a few of these strategies in motion, and supercharge your recruitment strategy today.