The new recruiting paradigm: 6 tactics for winning great talent

For more strategies for optimizing your recruitment plan, watch Kathleen Quinn Votaw’s webinar on-demand.

Talent scarcity is putting more pressure on human resources to become smarter, faster and more strategic — reaching a tipping point in recruiting imperatives. Now that there are more job openings than people to fill them, it’s time to get serious about being the best company you can possibly be. You must put significant resources into winning great people, in order to grow.

The new paradigm involves treating candidates like customers and using technology to get better insight and make informed decisions.

Get smarter, faster and more strategic

Recruiters must become adept marketers and reach well beyond traditional practices to meet diverse candidates where they are. The candidate experience is the top priority at every step, from initial outreach to hire.

We’ve identified 6 surefire practices to building a proactive recruitment plan that focuses on candidates and puts your organization’s strengths in full view.

1. Use data. The best recruitment processes are based heavily on data and technology, which improve screening, increase decision-making speed, cut costs, and more. It gives you the ability to do market research on your ideal recruiting targets and then customize marketing and communication. Making decisions based on objective data rather than on emotion or intuition helps eliminate bias and produces more consistent, high-quality hires.

2. Treat candidates as individuals. Get laser-focused on creating a positive end-to-end experience for diverse candidates. A significant part of recruiting is “selling” candidates on why they should apply for and accept a position with you. Another part is building trusted relationships. Communication should be clear and frequent; processes smooth and easy; and interactions personal and respectful. Treat every candidate as you would your best prospect or customer.

3. Develop an efficient, effective process. Strategic sourcing is critical. If your sourcing doesn’t attract top performers, you can’t make a quality hire. You should use various sourcing tactics depending on the individual, locale and other factors, targeting both “passives” who may be happily employed and candidates who are actively looking

4. Aim for speed, offer flexibility. Candidates in high demand have choices. When the right people decide to change jobs, you need to be ready to hire them, even if you don’t have quite the right role defined. Build flexibility into your hiring decision process so that you can hire on their decision timetable, not yours.

5. Treat talent recruitment as a sales process. Establish an ongoing, strategic and proactive recruitment process. Strategic recruiting is an approach to wining the best talent based on three components: employer branding, recruitment-directed marketing and skilled selling. Combined, these components create effective responses to dynamic market conditions in support of an organization’s strategic objectives.

6. Give HR a seat at the table. Increasingly, companies recognize that effective HR strategies are what attract and retain the best people, and they are pivotal in achieving sustainable strategic success. Holding on to outdated views of HR can make your company less effective, less competitive and less profitable.

Stay on top of recruitment trends

Make it a priority to understand the major trends affecting recruitment and retention and resolve to make the changes you need to become the top pick for employees. We see 6 key areas of focus in 2019: strategic HR, culture and brand, engagement, technology, recruiting imperatives and social enterprise. It’s helpful to evaluate where you are in each area. Try answering the 6 questions to ask yourself when competing for talent to deepen your insight.

Related articles and resources

9 Guidelines for Recruitment Strategies in 2019 (on-demand webinar)

Guide to Talent Planning for the Middle Market CEO (report PDF)

TalenTrust’s 2019 Hiring Guide (request a download)

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