RISMEDIA, Jan. 14, 2008–The fact is recruiting is not something that should be left until the very last minute, leaving you scrambling to fill an opening. Instead, be proactive and prepare your recruiting strategy now for when your hiring needs arise in the future.Recruiting is challenging and stressful, and regardless of how prepared you think you are, somehow it always seems to catch you off guard. Think about it, how often do you hear a hiring manager or a business owner state that their favorite part of the job is recruiting?
The fact is recruiting is not something that should be left until the very last minute, leaving you scrambling to fill an opening. Instead, to avoid headaches and reduce anxiety, be proactive and prepare your recruiting strategy now for when your hiring needs arise in the future.
Having candidates in place now ensures a speedy hiring situation in the future.
What should your periodic recruiting solution entail? It requires that you use a variety of tools that keep the best candidates front and center and ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice. Having candidates in place now ensures a speedy hiring situation in the future.
Below are the most effective tools that, when used in conjunction with online Job Postings once the need does arise, give you the best shot at finding your ideal candidate in no time at all.
Referral Program
With the competition surrounding identifying and attracting outstanding employees in today’s marketplace, employers are often too quick to overlook what can often be a top recruiting source – current employees.
Using an employee referral program, or ERP, as part of a recruitment process offers several distinct benefits including cost effectiveness, quality candidates, reduced time-to-hire, and improved employee morale.
If you do not have an ERP in place, it is extremely easy to establish. Simply stated, an employee referral program is the incentive of current employees to refer candidates to your company for a particular opening, with the understanding that if the candidate is hired, the employee receives a “finder’s fee” of sorts.
The reward is often cash, say $500 to $1000 per hire, and some companies even offer smaller rewards (in the range of $200 – $250) for candidates who are referred but not hired.
The single most important factor contributing to the success of an ERP is communication and promotion of the program. It is not enough to just have an ERP; you must keep employees thinking about prospective candidates. Promote the details of your plan consistently and often, through as many channels as possible, including orientation, the employee handbook, newsletters, and periodic emails.
A successful ERP promotion sends employees back to their desks to review the latest openings to be included the next time around.
Organize incentive events, such as periodic drawings for larger prizes, entering those employees who make multiple referrals over the course of the year. Make these events enjoyable, and publicize the prizes and the winners in order to generate a “buzz” about the ERP. A successful ERP promotion sends employees back to their desks to review the latest openings to be included the next time around.
Networking Sites
A recent phenomenon is the use of networking sites to locate candidates. These sites include the two most popular networking sites including FaceBook and MySpace. Because the demographics of these sites tend to skew young, this is sometimes a good opportunity to locate the college candidate before they hit the job market and your competition catches wind of them.
Networking sites are also good for creating a database of potential intern candidates, if you have an internship program in place, or just keeping a database of potential candidates period.
The other benefit of adding networking sites to your arsenal for recruiting includes the ability to find out more about the candidate than you can learn from a resume. Candidates often include more personal information about themselves on their pages, which either leads to you no longer being interested in the candidate or your interest increasing.
Regardless, these sites are not a recruiting option on their own, but when used in conjunction with more efficient recruiting tools, networking sites have been known to identify future employees.
Passive Resume Database Use
Having a Resume Database subscription is critical to effective periodic recruiting. It enables you to leisurely search for resumes for positions at your company, regardless of whether or not they are currently occupied. Employees quit, change positions, and even get fired, so it’s wise for you to start building your database of potential replacements now.
Be sure to find and save more than one resume for each position at your company. It is advisable to have your first, second, and third choice for each position on hand and contact them in that order should the position open up. Option one and two may be in roles they’re not willing to leave at the moment, but option three may be ready to make a career move when you contact them.
Having your database together now saves you time when every second counts later, following that old line, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can accomplish today.”
College Recruiting
For the most part, college students are available in abundance, and there are several means to reach them. They are obviously the next generation of workers and they are perhaps the most important candidates to concentrate on for future openings.
The best of the best are often recruited heavily, sometimes well before they ever try on the cap and gown, and if you want to be in the running to recruit the best, you need to establish your presence well before you have to fill an opening.
Contact local colleges and universities to see if they have any career days or career fairs planned. If so, sign up and make your presence known regardless of the size of your company. It places your company’s name in the minds of potential candidates and removes the need to have to introduce yourself, which only slows things down, should you contact this candidate for a future opening.
Temp-to-Perm Positions
Temporary to permanent hiring has been employed by recruiting and staffing firms for ages, but is quickly becoming a method small to medium sized businesses are using as a way to “test-drive” potential full-time staff. A temporary worker is brought in when a position becomes available and works for a period of time before they are either offered a full-time position, let go if you are not a fan of their work, or kept in a database if a full-time position is not currently available.
The advantage of temporary to permanent hiring is that the person in charge of hiring makes a more informed decision about offering the candidate a full-time slot, while covering all key functions in the meantime.
Using the temporary to permanent arrangement can be a win-win situation for both the candidate and your company. The advantage of temporary to permanent hiring is that the person in charge of hiring makes a more informed decision about offering the candidate a full-time slot, while covering all key functions in the meantime.
It also provides a potential candidate to be called upon should a permanent need arise. You will already know how the candidate approaches the job, so the only thing you’ll need to do is prepare the paperwork and hope the candidate is still available.
Waiting until the day that a position actually opens, regardless of the cause, results in a loss of profitability each day the seat remains vacant. Periodic recruiting enables you to be proactive with your recruiting and prepare for the inevitable need to hire.
Being prepared to call on candidates already sourced saves you a valuable amount of time spent recruiting, while saving your company money in the process. So stop wasting time and start recruiting for the future.
