Recruiting Strategy
Planning for Q4. What's your recruiting strategy going to be?
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
Orla Hodnett
HireHive
The first day back to work after a holiday is always a challenge. You have dozens of emails to get through, you learn that you’ve missed out on two pizza Fridays and you’ve been assigned projects while you were away.
Getting back on track after a slow summer can result in a slightly more intense version of this for recruiters. Key decision makers come back from holidays in dribs and drabs, confirming: yes, we do need to hire all those people. And yes: that will be in the next month or two.
Planning for Q4 can seem an impossible task in light of this, but all it needs is a bit of organisation and strategy.
Though you might be overwhelmed by the task at hand, the first sensible step when planning for Q4 is to to sit and think about what you have to do. Make out a rough plan of your hiring requirements, what posts you need to fill, requirements and job descriptions. Setting a good foundation and doing good groundwork will pay off over the duration of a recruiting project.
You should also take this opportunity to work out a timeline of what needs to be achieved and when. Work out your main objectives and when they need to be ready for. The recruiting process has many steps and requirements, which need to be outlined and prepared for.
This is part of our Recruiting Strategy series
After working out the elements outlined above, the first concrete step is posting job ads. Determine which advertising platforms are appropriate for the role. Social media, jobs boards, industry publications and national publications all offer different advantages, but can be cherry picked depending on the role.
With placement goals in mind, you may wish to look beyond just posting jobs through the the usual channels. You may wish to look to alternative advertising resources, previous applicants and diversity agencies.
Looking at your own team and resources, reassessing what you have to hand is important in the planning stages. It may be that you need to hire further recruiters. It may be that you need to enlist the help of an agency. You may need to put together a team specifically for the purposes of hiring in Q4. Which colleagues can contribute the skills you need to hire in Q4?
Record keeping is pretty important to the recruiting process. The data you gather can help you in future recruiting campaigns and let you know if your strategies are working. Also very significant is the gathering of information for compliance reasons. You should record why candidates were not picked for the role and other relevant data, so that there can be no question of bias.
Utilising online recruiting software is very helpful to this aspect of your recruiting strategy. It might not be rock and roll or high glamour, but recording everything that happens along the way is essential to successful recruiting.
There are so many steps along the way to actually making an offer, time management is something you need to constantly keep on top of. Advertising, filtering and shortlisting are just one small part of the recruiting process. Interviewing, running reference checks and making a formal offer take up considerable time.
You don't want to leave a team short staffed. Make sure the interviewing panel and recruiting team are aware what stage you are at, as well as making time to participate in the process.
“HireHive makes the team a lot more productive. We’d be lost without it. Team Leaders can do it all themselves if needed or jump in at the right time and know exactly where everything is and what’s happening.”
Hilary Dempsey Head of HR at Life Credit union
