Best Strategies and Practices for Effective HR Recruiting

Summary: From setting up a talent pipeline to sourcing candidates from multiple channels to following a data-driven approach to recruitment, there are many strategies and practices that organizations can implement and execute to improve their recruitment processes.

Recruitment is hard enough when you use the best practices and strategies at the workplace, but if you do not have them, your recruitment process will go for a toss.

Processes and systems can help you go only so far – for your organization to be successful, you need to have the best talent, and this can only happen when you implement and execute the best practices and strategies at the workplace.

Some of these involve using social recruiting, mobile applications, and company branding, as listed in this published post, and we will discuss others in this article.

Setting up a talent pipeline
It is not always that you have openings nor is it that you will always have profiles ready for consideration when an opening does come up. Instead of having to begin your search afresh every time a new opening comes up, you can build a talent pipeline wherein you mark certain profiles for consideration for that opening.

The best way to do this to give candidates the chance to self-select themselves and send you their profiles voluntarily, which can happen by having a job board on your website which encourages candidates to apply for positions even when they are not open with the stipulation that they will be considered as and when an opening does come up. This talent pipeline saves a lot of time, and gives you many options to choose from.

Sourcing from multiple channels
Sometimes, organizations stick to a particular source for candidates without making an effort to tap other sources. This might reduce their costs, but it will not give them the best chance at landing the best talent in the market, since there is no guarantee that everyone uses the same sources. So, it is a good idea to have a sourcing pipeline that taps from multiple sources. Apart from job boards and the company website listed above, you can also source from referrals, social media, and a variety of other sources, some of which are free, and could be more affordable than the current source you are using.

Referrals have one great advantage in that some sort of shortlisting is already done on them since your employees know best what kind of profiles are suitable for the workplace, and they recommend candidates with this in mind. Also, another source you can try is your former employees – you can look to get them to join again, or to get them to recommend the best candidates they can think of.

Set clear job descriptions, expectations, and preferences

Often, confusion happens in recruitment since job descriptions, expectations, and preferences are lot listed clearly. When this happens, you are likely to attract candidates who might not be the best fit for the workplace, which will create a spiralling adverse effect across the organization.

This ambiguity in descriptions and expectations happen because of the lack of clear and effective communication between line managers and the HR team. Also, sometimes, the HR team is under severe pressure to fill a position – this will also lead them to cut corners and bring in profiles which might not completely match the profile. Therefore, ensure that whatever you are listing is clear and relevant.

Make sure that you also list your preferences, since you don’t want employees to think that you are biased after the fact. It is a good idea to use HR software templates which allow you to complete all these requirements quickly and effectively.

An interesting recruitment process

Recruitment is a process in which both parties get to know each other and develop trust and comfort, which is essential since both parties should help one another grow. Sometimes, this process may take weeks or even months, and it is essential that the recruitment process is interesting or challenging or you run the risk of the candidate losing interest and joining elsewhere.

You also don’t want candidates to think that the process is easy and therefore presents them no challenge – such attitudes will reflect in the way they work once they join.

Also, the recruitment process gives candidates an idea about how the organization works, and an insipid recruitment process will make them think that the job and organizational culture are also insipid. Also, make sure that your assessment tests will bring out the best in the candidates, and measure what is actually supposed to be measured.

Treat them the way you expect them to treat you

This is something that is sorely missing in many organizations. Many times, HR professionals and managers carry with them an attitude during recruitment. They treat candidates poorly since they are looking for a position where they already are. In the lack of information, this might have been ok in the old days, bit now, when there is prevalence of information everywhere, this attitude will just not fly.

How you treat candidates also tells them about you, and you do not want this impression sullied, or you can be sure that everyone will get to know about it on the internet, where some websites are dedicated to such aspects, and you can be sure that potential candidates look at these. Also, when you treat them poorly, this is reciprocated, and lack of respect for them will result in lack of respect for you and your organization.

In fact, this author once walked away from an interview since he was kept waiting for longer than the norm, and did not want to encourage this taking-for-granted attitude.

So, treat candidates fairly and respectfully – these are the people who will create the future of your organization going ahead, and you want them to think the world of you instead of thinking the worst of you.

Data and analytics

In this day and age, we have many systems for easy collection and analysis of data, and this should be implemented at all workplaces to get the benefit of data-driven decisions instead of ad hoc and maverick decisions.

Analytics are not limited to one aspect of recruitment – from the effectiveness of your recruitment process to the performance of your recruiters to a variety of other things, you can understand everything and ensure that you have a handle on the process to make it efficient and smart.

Using analytics, you can also improve your sourcing – you can understand where your best candidates come from, and use more of that source instead of other channels.

You can also run analytics on your shortlisted profiles to see who has the best chance of selection. You can also run analytics to select the best fit candidates for the profile.

In short, you can run analytics on nearly every aspect of recruitment to make the process more effective and efficient for the stakeholders.

Training the recruitment stakeholders

It is not a given that a manager will have effective interviewing skills, nor is it a given that your recruiters are effective at communication with the candidates. If you take this for granted, you will run the risk of attracting talent that is less than optimal.

Also, you will turn away the better ones since your recruiters and hiring managers are the first line of communication with candidates, and if they are not impressed by these stakeholders, there is very little chance that they will take the process forward or not even join at all. So, have a policy of training and polishing your recruiters so that they can paint a good picture of your organization and help attract the best talent.

Outsource/freelance if necessary

In the old days, since there were no reliable means of communication among the freelancers and in-house personnel, freelancing was looked upon as a risk. However, today, connectivity and communication have improved leaps and bounds, and organizations today can opt for this choice without too many negatives.

Outsourcing and freelancing can help reduce costs and keep away unnecessary non-core processes, and therefore, instead of rejecting them out of hand, organizations can try a cost-benefit analysis to see if this is helpful to them in the long run.

Cultural fit

Often, even the most talented employees cannot perform at their best if they do not make for a good cultural fit for the organization. Not all recruiters are smart enough to look for this aspect, and as a result, hire candidates who stick out, and do not be comfortable at the workplace.

However, this intrinsic aspect is one of the most important parameters for recruiters to watch out for, since when people make a good cultural fit, you can be sure that they will become comfortable and perform according to expectations.

The above are some practices and strategies to improve your recruitment. Make sure that you have an effective process that is free from disturbances and inefficiencies to be able to land the best talent for the job.