What is recruitment?
Recruitment is the process of finding, interviewing, and hiring people. From beginning to end, recruitment can involve:
- Identifying staffing needs
- Advertising new roles
- Attracting potential candidates
- Reviewing applications
- Carrying out job interviews
- Hiring successful applicants
- Getting new employees settled in (known as onboarding)
Organizations can recruit in many ways, including using in-house HR recruitment expertise or outsourcing to an external recruitment service.
Why do employers and organizations need recruiting solutions?
Recruitment can be a costly, time-intensive process, which is why many employers rely on HR or recruitment specialists to get the job done.
Recruitment solutions (like outsourcing to agencies or using specialist HR software) are in high demand, especially as more companies are looking to hire.
In fact, a recent survey reveals that 57% of US companies are planning to create new permanent positions soon.
Those roles are going to need to be filled somehow!
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What is remote recruitment?
Remote recruiting – or work-from-home recruiting – is when employers recruit new talent remotely, usually placing successful candidates into roles that can be performed remotely from home.
Remote recruitment (or remote hiring) allows recruiters and HR staff to connect with, interview, and on-board new hires remotely.
Being able to apply to and work in a role remotely is also a popular option for applicants, who want to enjoy a better work-life balance.
How to maximize your success in talent recruitment
When recruiting talent (AKA the people who are best suited to the role), different approaches work for different organizations.
But whatever your recruitment mission, you’ll likely benefit from some or all of the strategies shared here.
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Define clear job descriptions
Creating accurate job descriptions (JD) is key to attracting qualified and well-suited candidates.
As part of the JD, you may want to include:
- The main responsibilities expected within the role
- Any skills, experience, or qualifications required
- Information on any company benefits (e.g. healthcare)
- Insight into company culture and what makes it a great place to work
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Stay flexible when it comes to requirements
While you’re fleshing out your ideal candidate through the job description, try to remain somewhat flexible in your requirements.
Setting too high a standard may put off applicants – even ones that would be a great fit for your organization. Include caveats on requirements and make it clear you accept applications that may not meet all the criteria.
For example, if you’re asking for 5 years of experience in a certain field, consider whether that’s truly required. You could also include a caveat, encouraging applications from candidates who may not have 5 years of experience but who have equivalent experience in a similar field.
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Don’t just sell the role – sell the organization
Ads should go beyond explaining the job and criteria. Within any job description or recruitment material, highlight what makes your business a great place to work.
You might include:
- What your business stands for, including any Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) measures in place
- Who else works for you (including bios or interviews with current staff is a great start)
- What your company culture is like, and how you support your people
- What your organization has achieved and how the role fits into that mission
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Embrace the need for speed
In recruitment, things move fast – if you want to secure the best talent, you need to make sure your recruitment process is efficient and streamlined.
This means:
- Responding quickly to applications
- Bringing promising candidates in to interview as quickly as possible
- If there’s a delay (e.g. hiring manager is sick), provide updates
- Making hiring decisions quickly, including coming back quickly during contract negotiation
- If a candidate declines the role, get in touch with your second choice as soon as possible
Using efficient HR processes can help keep things moving, and a good, centralized applicant tracking system can help cut down on delays.
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Use employee referral schemes
Set up (or encourage your clients to set up) employee referral schemes or programs.
A referral scheme allows current staff members to formally suggest candidates who they believe would be ideally suited for a new role.
This approach can yield candidates who are a great fit for the company culture, as employees tend to refer individuals who share similar values and work ethics.
Plus, if you offer employee referral incentives, you’re also rewarding your current staff and boosting morale across the board.
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Explore ways to make candidate screening more efficient
You needn’t rely solely on the classic job interview to help you decide who’s best for the role.
To screen candidates more effectively, you might try some of the following methods:
- Use software tools to filter out unsuitable CVs
- Conduct short, preliminary phone or video interviews to save on organizing formal in-person interviews
- Conduct assessment tests (online or in-person) to evaluate skills relevant to the job
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Focus on candidate experience
Focusing on candidate experience is all about remembering that just because you’re sitting behind the desk during the interview, doesn’t mean you’re not being assessed too.
The recruitment process serves as a candidate’s first impression of a company, so make it a positive, streamlined experience.
This includes clear communication about the recruitment timeline, offering support or accessibility accommodation, and offering feedback.
Taking the opportunity to impress your candidates can make them feel valued – that could be the deciding factor for a candidate choosing you over an offer from a competitor.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Check out our FAQs to learn more about recruitment tools, solutions, and strategies.
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‘Recruiting solutions’ is a catch-all term used to describe the different processes, tools, and strategies a company might use to recruit new talent.
You might use the term ‘recruitment solution’ to describe any of the following:
- An in-house recruitment team or specialist
- Software-based recruitment tools, like an applicant tracking system
- A recruitment management strategy
- A third-party recruitment agency
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The role of human resource (HR) recruitment in an organization is to help recruit new talent.
Recruitment is one of the core responsibilities of HR management; but for HR recruitment, it’s the be-all-and-end-all. HR recruitment not only identifies and brings on board new talent, but they’re also often involved in developing and improving an organization’s talent acquisition strategy.
Not all organizations have HR recruitment; some may be too small to justify having in-house HR recruitment, and others might prefer to outsource their recruitment needs to an agency or similar.
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Talent acquisition and recruitment are sometimes used interchangeably, but they do differ in some ways.
Talent acquisition tends to involve a strategic approach to identifying and connecting with new talent. This does involve recruiting people; however, talent acquisition usually seeks to improve how an organization attracts and onboards new talent.
In comparison, recruitment refers to the process of identifying, interviewing, and hiring new employees for a specific role/s, usually over a short space of time.
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Internal recruitment is when you recruit someone who already works for your organization into a new role. Recruiting internally can look like:
- Promoting an employee into a new role
- Transferring an employee into a similar role but in a different department
- Making a temporary worker (e.g. an intern or subcontractor) permanent
- Referrals, when a staff member formally suggests a suitable candidate for a new role
- Hiring an existing staff member after they applied for a new role
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Sometimes referred to as a career fair, career expo, or job fair, a recruitment fair is a recruiting event where employers and recruitment agencies meet with potential employees and job seekers.
Typically, employers and recruitment agencies will set up stands, encouraging visitors and those seeking new roles to stop by and strike up a conversation.
A recruitment fair is a great opportunity for potential employees to explore their options, chat with prospective employers and recruitment agencies, and network.
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At a recruitment fair, employers can meet and network with prospective employees. This can help with identifying and recruiting great new talent.
But more than that, recruitment fairs are a chance for employers to:
- Share what makes their organization a great place to work (which helps build reputation)
- Meet and network with recruitment agencies or explore new recruitment solutions
- Get a “boots on the ground” impression of what job seekers are looking for
- Assess how competitors are recruiting and connecting with new talent
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In the world of recruitment and talent acquisition, the role of social media is becoming more important.
Advertising roles on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have become a popular method to attract and secure new talent.
Social media can give employers and recruitment agencies a way to:
- Stand out from the crowd and reach new audiences
- Provide insights into company culture and values
- Directly engage jobseekers and establish a connection
Because they’re more accessible than traditional job advertisement methods, they can even tempt people who aren’t looking for a job to apply.
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Remote working describes how some employees perform their role remotely, usually by working from home or a remote office location. This tends to apply to traditionally office-based roles, where staff don’t need to be physically present to fulfil their roles.
Thanks to technology like video conference software and cloud-based applications, employees can work just as effectively from home. This means staff don’t necessarily need to commute to and work from the office, and can enjoy a better work/life balance.
As more and more candidates are on the lookout for roles that offer the freedom to work flexibly, remote recruiting can be a great way for employers to stand out from the competition.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the figure is 27% for people working from home at least part-time, post-COVID.
However, there is concern this figure underreports the facts.
Actually, it’s thought the number of remote workers could be around 50%, or, in other research, slightly more.
To confirm the popularity of remote and hybrid work, all you need to do is look for yourself.
A cursory glance at LinkedIn shows nearly 200,000 remote jobs listed for the U.S. at any one time.
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