Employee Life Cycle: Recruitment

Ahhh, recruitment. Recruitment may be the number one challenge companies are facing today. With so many companies competing for good employees, how is your company standing out from the rest? 

As we continue our six-part Employee Life Cycle journey this month, the second phase of the Employee Life Cycle is recruitment. Recruitment is a strategy and process that includes all the steps in hiring a new employee or filling a vacancy from within the organization. 

Growth and turnover are inevitable in business. When a job opening becomes vacant or is created, developing a plan is crucial to success. Within recruitment, there are five main strategic elements needed to have a successful recruiting approach. 

The first step is accurately identifying the need and description of the position by asking a few questions: how many spots are we filling, what is the job description, and what qualifications does the position require. Many times, due to work overload or growth, companies recognize the need for additional positions, but have a difficult time describing exactly what the need is or how the new role would fit in. If companies do not understand the position in which they are hiring for, there is a small chance the right candidate will be hired. 

Next, where are we going to look? All companies have a wealth of talent currently in their hands which may require less training than a traditional new hire. Where to look includes not only internal or external candidates, but also the method of advertising jobs (colleges, online, social media, internal job boards, military recruitment), geography, and demographics. In my opinion, the number one driver of recruitment is audience platform. According to LinkedIn, 60% of candidates use online job boards and 56% use professional networks.   

For successful recruiting, companies need to target ads specific to the generation of all applicants. If companies are not utilizing applications by phone, you may be missing out on up to 80% of potential candidates. 

Now that you have identified the job and developed a plan devised to recruit candidates, let the searching begin! Searching for candidates means reaching them exactly where they are. It is the recruiter’s job to draw the candidate in whether by the job posting, pictures, or video. Capturing the candidate’s attention is vital for a successful recruitment. Internally, companies can fill the job position through promotions and lateral transfers. Also, employee referrals are an excellent treasure chest of candidates. When searching for a cultural fit into an organization, current employees are your best resource in finding the next super star. People interact with like-minded people…which reduces your searching dramatically. 

• 48% of companies say their number one source for hiring is referrals from current employees. 
• 67% of recruiters say their recruiting time was shortened and cut recruiting costs by 51% when recruiting by referrals. 

Disclaimer: All referrals are not good referrals. I urge all companies to continue to properly vet all applicants regardless of source. The hiring manager is the best in determining cultural fit of a company.