Developing a Roadmap
At its core, a hiring plan is a roadmap for all recruiting and employee management that will lead to success in your company. The idea is not to keep hiring new people to take on different roles or be in a constant state of replacement as you experience turnover. With all the right pieces in place, your recruitment plan should help you stay on track and be prepared when issues in staffing do arise.
Your roadmap should have the following stops:
Assessing The Current Landscape
- Creating job descriptions for current roles
- Determining what personality traits make people most successful in your environment
- The ideal professional background of potential employees
Reviewing Recruiting Data
- Analyze the time-to-hire
- Determine causes of turnover
Determining Resources for Hiring
- Your recruiting team
- Employer branding
- Budget
Each of these categories will help you determine when you need to tap into your resources and make it easier to source the candidates who would be the best fit for your open positions. Many companies will use AI-assisted applicant tracking systems to help streamline this process to save money on administrative costs and time.
Creating Goals
Every company will have a different set of goals for hiring. For example, a cyber security company will need to focus on skills and experience for each new hire and always consider new technologies. A manufacturing company may focus more on reliable and trainable workers for labor positions. You'll need to take time to assess your company's hiring goals before you can create your recruitment plan.
Your hiring goals should also consider bottlenecks. Bottlenecks take two forms in terms of employment:
- The roadblocks to finding talent that matches your specs
- Obstacles that keep your team from being effective and efficient
Your goals should incorporate details about the skills you're missing in your organization and where to source candidates who match your needs.
Determining Budget
Your recruitment budget is just a portion of your overall cost of doing business. It will reflect as a part of your human resources spending and is made up of fixed and variable costs, recurring costs, and the time frame in which this money is spent.
For example, a recurring cost could include your annual subscriptions to job boards. But advertising itself can be a variable cost. Your website could be considered a fixed cost, along with recruiter salaries. Calculating these costs based on your intended use of recruitment within the next year will give you an idea of your hiring budget.
Streamlining The Hiring Process
Part of your recruiting plan is also made up of the hiring process. Right now, there is a significant trend toward streamlining this experience to attract more qualified talent to your company. An astounding 92% of people never complete an online job application. The reasons for this vary, but it's most often attributed to the complexity of the process. If a candidate has to upload a resume but then complete fields providing the same information as available on their resume, they will be frustrated.
Beyond the application, too many interviews are a barrier to employment for many people. With the competitive market, candidates are fielding multiple offers, so if one process takes too long, they can accept another position before you're ready to make an offer. To create a recruiting plan, look closely at how you can streamline your hiring process.
It can also be helpful to assign specific points of contact for the recruitment process. For example, in the early stages, many companies currently rely on chatbots to help answer questions from applicants. As candidates progress through stages, assigning a single point of contact can be helpful, so no processes fall through the cracks.
Your recruitment team or an outside staffing provider will often handle this.
Accessing Technology
The final piece of your recruitment plan puzzle is determining the right technology to tie it all together. Most organizations rely on applicant tracking systems that simplify the administrative processes so more time can be spent on recruitment's revenue-generating aspects.
Consider your current systems and determine if there are updates, improvements, or augmentations that can improve your overall effectiveness at executing your recruitment plan.
Conclusion: Creating Your Recruitment Plan
Putting the right plan in place before your next hiring push is essential for success. In the second installment of our series, we will map out the hiring process from sourcing to onboarding to provide a roadmap to developing your recruitment plan.
An applicant tracking system can provide you with additional insights as you search for candidates who match the skills and background of each job.
With more competition for top talent, it pays for companies to consider all their advantages and the use of tools to assist in the quest to find talent. HireHive helps busy people hire great people. You can post jobs, streamline your online application process, improve the candidate experience, and tap into vast global networks by having your entire recruitment process all in one place.
