My recruitment tactics

It can be challenging to know how and where to recruit great candidates, or even know what a great candidate looks like. Not only that, but recruiting trends and tactics are always changing as employers get craftier with their sourcing techniques.

Wants to maximize your recruitment efforts. To help you determine where to focus your energy, here are some tips: 

Set recruitment goals and implement strategy:

The first thing you need to do when creating a recruitment strategy is to determine your goals along with metrics to track your efforts and measure your success. There are several recruitment metrics you should identify and measure so your team can improve at every stage of the recruitment life cycle but it’s especially important to understand the true cost-per-hire of new employees.

There are a number of factors that contribute to hiring costs, and you can't waste time, money or resources. By figuring out how much a new hire should cost on average and how much your team is spending on different aspects of the recruitment process, you’ll be better able to tailor your recruitment strategy.

Create a compelling employer brand:

In order to get candidates in the door, they need to think of your company as an employer of choice. Startups are smaller in size and not as well-known as big-name brands, so it’s harder to get on candidates’ radar. For that reason, it is critical that startups create a stellar employer brand to gain the trust of job seekers and encourage them to apply. 

Start by drafting your mission statement, which should summarize your purpose, goals and core values. Your mission statement and core values will help you define your employer brand and the reputation you want to have with employees, job seekers and key stakeholders.

Your employer brand will help candidates get excited about working for your company because they'll have a better understanding of what it's like to work there. 

Know who you are looking for:

Sourcing candidates is one of the biggest challenges any company faces in its recruitment efforts. However, there are a number of tactics which can be used to improve the quality and quantity of candidates they bring in the door.

Long before you start engaging with job seekers, it’s important to create candidate personas for each role that opens up. These personas will help you determine everything about the role, including skill requirements, preferred experience level, geographical location as well as where and how you will find the individual.

In addition to candidate personas, create an employee value proposition (EVP). This will define both the attributes of your ideal candidate as well as the attributes your company has to offer the candidate. By defining what you are looking for as well as what you have to offer, you will be better prepared to sell your company while assessing a candidate's fit.

With your role and EVP defined, you can create clearer job descriptions with all of the information candidates need to evaluate the opportunity. Make sure to include additional information on job descriptions beyond requirements and responsibilities, like perks, benefits and compensation, to make your company stand out from all the other mundane job descriptions candidates review during their search.

Also, be mindful of any unconscious biases that may affect your teams’ decision for selecting great candidates. Just because you are a smaller and emerging company does not mean that you are exempt from prioritizing diversity, inclusion and equity as part of your hiring and retention process. Aside from it being a reflection of moral high ground, two out of three candidates actively look for companies that not only value diversity and inclusion but actively make an effort to create a workplace that welcomes and values all.

Leverage unique sourcing strategy:

As you continue to grow and hire new people, know that you don’t always have to source candidates from scratch. Instead, you should always start by looking within your company to identify employees who would be suitable for an internal promotion. By providing professional growth opportunities and showing your best employees you value their work, you’ll reduce recruiting costs as well as boost employee engagement. 

Even if you don’t have any suitable employees for the role, you can still ask employees for help filling roles. Create an employee referral program that encourages employees to refer qualified people within their networks, and if their referrals are hired, reward employees with prizes or monetary bonuses. 

It’s also beneficial to host regular recruitment events to get to know people within your community and build your employer branding awareness. You don’t have to spend a ton to make a successful event. Learn more about different recruitment event ideas to determine which is most suitable for your budget and will vibe with your ideal candidate personas.

And for the people within each of these different networks, it’s important to create a meaningful talent community. These are the people who have engaged with your brand as a prospective employer, but aren’t right for your current open roles. Continue to stay in contact with these people on a regular basis and make sure they’re the first ones to know about open roles. This will save you time and resources connecting with candidates who have already shown an interest in your employer brand. 

Build a top talent pipeline that yields top candidates:

It is more important to create a memorable candidate experience. Top candidates are going to apply to all the best jobs, so to keep candidates interested in your opportunities, you need to stand out through every interaction you have with them.

As you start attracting candidates, you’ll want to have a plan in place for how you intend to move prospects through your talent pipeline. From initially identifying candidates to screening and interviewing them, it’s important to have a clear path in place for who and how your team will continue to nurture candidates throughout your recruiting life cycle.

Keep in mind that since you are just getting started, you may not always need to hire full-time employees. Instead, it may be in your best interest to hire part-time, short-term or freelance employees to determine which roles are critical for your company’s success. You should also look for candidates who have experience working with startups and the ability to wear multiple hats within the company, that way you can hire a full-time employee who can balance multiple duties.

Have a recruitment marketing strategy:

it can be difficult to connect with top candidates amidst the noise of better-known employers. Job seekers likely don’t know how to find your company and even if they do, there is a lack of trust with an unknown company? That’s why it's absolutely necessary for startups to create a robust recruitment marketing strategy that shows off their unique employer brand. 

While there are a number of recruitment strategies you can use to market your company, your candidate personas, mission, values and employee value proposition will help you identify the most pertinent information to share with candidates.

No matter your strategy, the one platform candidates will always land on and go to for information is your career page. This should hold all of the information you include in your recruitment marketing content and more. From job descriptions to perks and benefits, company culture, recruitment process FAQs and employee testimonials, your career page should be the one stop shop for candidates to learn everything about your company.

Identify third-party platforms to connect with specific candidate personas on the platforms they use most. Social media recruiting should be a significant part of your strategy as the vast majority of candidates find jobs on social media. Additionally, creating social media content for employer branding is a great way to show off your unique startup culture in a more natural and candid way.

Creating employee spotlights helps employees share their favorite parts of working for your company and allows job seekers to gain insight from reliable sources. Ask employees questions about their work experiences and share their responses as social posts, or create recruitment videos with several employees to provide a broader showcase of your teams.

Another part of your employer branding strategy should include highlighting information about your company culture. Promote team outings, celebrations, events and anything that provides insight on a day in the life of your employees. Company culture videos can be repurposed across platforms, making them well worth the investment.