People Power – The Essential Role of Strategic Recruitment

December 15, 2020

It’s interesting that most organizations don’t realise the strategic importance of their recruitment function until it is well and truly broken!

When you find candidates that match your needs and culture, it harmonises your goals, helps you to set new objectives and defines the future direction of your organization. It also supports the roadmap to success.

Introducing strategic recruitment

Companies need to employ people who will contribute to the objectives set out for the business. Strategic recruitment is an approach that aims to attract the best talent. It is based on three components:

  • Employer branding
  • Recruitment-directed marketing
  • Skilled selling

Aligning the recruitment and selection process with the company’s objectives is a significant factor that drives business success.

An effective recruitment and selection policy not only fulfil the requirements of a job, but it also ensures that an organization will maintain its commitment to providing equal opportunities for all employees. Adherence to such a policy will let you hire the best possible candidates.

What are the advantages of strategic recruitment?

Finding the right people then training and developing them is a vital feature of any business. Yet recruitment and selection is time-consuming and costly. As such, it is crucial to start the process as soon as possible. It is also considered to be a key contributor to a firm’s competitive advantage.

A well thought-out and innovative recruitment strategy not only streamlines your hiring process but also consistently and effortlessly attracts top-tier candidates. With this in mind, organizations should promote their employer brand clearly and concisely, as it allows potential candidates to understand the company’s goals. It also reduces turnover because successful candidates will have the right skills and personality for your business. An effective recruitment approach cuts down the hiring time and, in turn, lowers costs. Poor hiring practices can lead to a whole host of issues, including a failure to assess the competency of candidates.

Here are six steps to help you create a strategic recruitment plan

  1. Define your recruitment goals: These might include growing headcount, improving diversity, reducing hiring time and costs, streamlining the recruitment process, empowering hiring managers, improving employee retention, and building a more substantial talent pipeline.
  2. Forecast future hiring needs: Budget for the next 12 months to demonstrate the return on investment of your new strategic recruitment plan.
  3. Focus: Fully understand the type of candidate you want to attract, and be realistic.
  4. Create an employee-value proposition: This will help you to attract, hire, and retain the right people.
  5. Introduce digital solutions: Examples include applicant-tracking software, employee-engagement programs, automated interview scheduling, and candidate scorecards.
  6. Onboarding: Design a process that sets candidates up for success.

The importance of HR policies

HR policies within an organization need to complement each other to ensure that the company’s strategies are being successfully implemented. Recruitment and selection programs have strong links with HR planning and employment conditions. If there is a lack of fit, enthusiastic individuals will not be provided with proper training and development facilities. Also, successful team players will not be utilised to the fullest. If you want your hiring policies to harmonize productively, planning needs to be carried out to attract a resourceful pool of candidates.

Launch a Digital Recruitment Strategy

In the rapidly changing world of talent acquisition, digital recruitment is not just about having a career site with job listings or posting new positions on social media. It is a holistic approach that leverages technology to help recruiters complete the recruitment cycle.

Organizations should create a responsive website with a careers page that features a mobile-friendly UX design. In addition, if you plan to utilize social sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, then post job adverts that have attractive, accurate, and creative descriptions. Analyse the recruitment data and examine your competitors’ recruitment processes to identify the best candidate sources.

Employee referrals are valuable too, as they allow you to interact and build relationships with people operating in similar fields. Digital recruitment strategies can also help you to reach your target audience before the competition does!

An effective recruitment strategy allows you to focus on both the major and minor details. Create a robust plan and refine your goals. A transformed organization with quality people that are a perfect fit will help to ensure that your business will flourish.

Learn more about TSS, the award-winning Recruitment Firm at https://www.tss.com.hk/.

Topics: HR & Payroll Services, Strategic Recruitment

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