Finding, recruiting, onboarding, and retaining the best talent is crucial to maintain a thriving workforce that can help your business succeed. This is true whether you are an established company or a startup.
By developing a recruitment plan and streamlining your hiring process, you will be able to do just that.
So, what is a recruitment plan, why is a recruitment plan important, and how can you build one that will both simplify and up your hiring game!
What is a Recruitment Plan
A recruitment plan is a preplanned strategy a company will follow to hire employees, an SOP for hiring if you will. It serves as a framework or guideline for recruiters hiring for the company. This plan will include goals, budget, principles, basic qualifications, and skills required to fit into the company and the role amongst other things.
Recruitment strategy and plans will vary from company to company based on the role, company size, and industry but if done well, you will notice that you are able to fill vacancies more quickly and avoid turnover. This plan will evolve and require tweaks to remain effective and relevant.
So here are the steps to create a solid recruitment plan for your business:
Know your company
To build a recruitment plan it is necessary to understand the objectives of your organization and the position you need to fill. Don’t worry, you don’t have to know this already. All you have to do is identify the key stakeholders in the company to understand the company and the various position’s goals and objectives.
The HR team, senior management, managers, and even employees can be included in this process. While this sounds like a lot of work, these objectives will act as a guide for the recruiting team in targeting the right people.
Forecast hiring needs
This is definitely easier for more established companies than startups but understanding industry trends can help startups here. The reason you should forecast your hiring needs is to be prepared and make sure the demand for human resources within the company is always met.
This doesn’t have to be accurate but the key is to identify a forecasting strategy that accommodates your organization’s rate of growth.
Define roles and responsibilities
Work with the right stakeholders to draft job descriptions for every role in your company. This will help speed up the process when a requirement comes up.
Be sure to include all the relevant information including certification or education requirements, soft skills, and preferred experience.
Identify the right source
There are many ways to hire top talent for your company. The strategy you employ to source will depend on the company’s objectives, needs, budget, and team size.
Some effective ways of sourcing include recruiting through social media, recruitment or staffing companies, employee referral programs, and skill-specific groups or associations.
Develop a screening process
Your screening process should be effective enough that at the end of it, you have only a few but the best-suited candidates for the role. This way your recruiters and hiring managers are not wasting their time interviewing dozens of candidates to find the right one.
The screening process can vary from department to department or role to role, but an effective initial screening process is crucial to the hiring process.
Establish an effective onboarding process
A good onboarding process is one that is built to include company processes, policies, and culture. Newer companies can get inspiration from the more established companies with low employee turnover.
At its core, onboarding is about familiarizing and settling in. This means it’s important to determine what new employees need to know to be able to get familiar with the company, their team, and their role quickly and get contributing.
Do not just think about hard skills, but include things like company culture and values, team and organization structure, feedback mechanisms, harassment policies, etc.
Keep your plan evolving
Your recruitment plan should evolve as your company grows and industry evolves. Be sure to review and tweak your plan at regular intervals to maintain the quality of your human resource.
Benefits of having a recruitment plan
With good planning, you can not only hire better but also save time, money, and effort and increase revenue for your company.
A good recruitment plan will:
- Ensure you make the best use of your recruitment budget
- Help you make better hiring choices
- Ensure your recruitment goals are aligned with the company’s goals
- Make sure your team’s on the same page.
- Help you focus your efforts on building a talent pipeline
Effective recruitment strategies to follow
Here’s a checklist to get you started on an effective recruitment plan :
Establish and leverage your brand
If you want to attract the best and the brightest talent, you should make your company attractive to such talent. While this might sound expensive and time-consuming, this will pay off on many levels.
A company’s brand is a direct reflection of its mission, vision, and values. Make sure this is reflected on your website, career pages, job listings, and social media. Building a strong company brand plays an important role in an employee’s decision to join you.
So don’t skimp on your branding budget because a popular and established brand is three times more likely to attract the right talent.
Make your job listing interesting
The line first impression is the best impression still goes but gone are the days when employees had to impress the company. You want the best, you need to impress them and you can do this by making your job descriptions unique and interesting.
Make an effort to create job descriptions that are thorough, accurate, and interesting. The job description must be:
- Crisp and to the point
- Organized and professional
- Transparent in terms of requirements and compensation
- Framed to appeal to job seekers
Treat candidates like you would customers
Just as customers look for the best place to buy, the best candidates look for the best place to work. Know this when you are talking to your prospective employees.
Here are a few things you can do to :
- Keep your application and interview process engaging.
- Respect the candidate’s time and qualifications.
- Get the candidates excited about their roles and the company.
- Respond promptly and be transparent in your communications.
- Do not bargain or haggle. This can make anyone uncomfortable.
- Be receptive and encourage honest feedback.
Establish an interview process
It’s important to keep in mind that interviews are two-way processes. The candidates are interviewing you as you are interviewing them. Make the meeting comfortable and stress-free whether it is online or in person.
Interviews must be tailored to the role but remember to reflect on your company’s culture during the interview as well. This will ensure that you select someone who not only has the relevant skills but is also a good fit, culturally.
Use niche job boards and sites
According to LinkedIn, nearly 60% of job seekers use a job or industry-specific boards to search for new jobs, making it one of the best recruitment channels. Posting job vacancies on the role or industry-specific websites are sure to help you attract only the candidates.
Recruiting the best talent requires a mix of creativity and diligence. To connect with qualified candidates and build excitement about your brand and the job, you need to find ways to stand out from the crowd. Let us know if this article inspired you to do that!
Source: https://synergent.net/how-to-build-a-recruitment-plan-to-hire-better-and-faster/
