Numerous individuals expressed immense support for our article, 5 Ways to Be a More Proactive Recruiter. It was crafted by my close friend Jason Webster, a specialist in proactive recruitment strategies.
I thought you might appreciate a follow-up!
Congratulations! Since you’re engaging with this, I realize you are already a more proactive recruiter compared to the standard bear! You’re busy, yet you’re dedicating time to enhance your proactiveness!
Let’s elevate your game even more, shall we!?
To start, what exactly is proactive recruiting?
My interpretation of proactive recruiting is to connect with candidates prior to when recruitment needs become urgent.
It doesn’t imply you’re flawless. Rather, you’re on the offensive rather than defensive.
A proactive recruiter tackles the issue of vacancies before they arise. Additionally, if new staffing challenges emerge for which youlack a strategy, you will proactively devise a new plan. Therefore, the forthcoming issue is resolved in advance.
The primary advantages of proactive recruiting include:
- A more efficient pipeline
- Superior quality candidates
- Faster time-to-fill
- Reduced cost-per-hire
- Enhanced visibility (better employer branding!)
- Lower anxiety (you feel more in command!)
- Generating more recruitment value than ever!
- You earn significantly more
- You experience greater happiness
The most unfortunate situation for a recruiter is to be the antithesis: a reactive recruiter.
A reactive recruiter waits for issues to transpire. They also fail to establish long-term solutions for those new challenges.
The distinction between proactive and reactive recruiting is tantamount to the contrast between succeeding and failing.
Simply put.
Here are some proactive recruiting methods I recommend (the initial suggestions are foundational before I delve into multiple tactics). An actionable “Proactive Recruiting Tip” is included at the conclusion of each approach.
Enjoy!
A proactive hiring strategy commences with a target. You need at least one objective to steer yourself or your team.
This might be as straightforward as “increase hires by 20% by XYZ date” or ensure that 50% of hires are women this quarter.
Many personal development enthusiasts like myself also state the goal in the positive:
“I have 48 new hires by December 31st.”
What should be the timeframe for your goal? I find that 6 months works best. It’s sufficient to make an impact yet not so long that it feels too far off. However, choose the timeframe that suits you best.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Validate your one or two recruiting goals or, if you lack any, create one or two new ones. Consider a 6-month timeframe for your objectives. Additionally, think about writing your goal(s) down in your journal daily (this will engrain the goal in your mind — a proven method to promote execution of your goal!).
The metric you want to monitor daily isn’t your goal.
What?
The more vital aspect to review every day is what 4DX (the 4 Disciplines of Execution by Stephen Covey) refers to as a “Lead Measure.” A lead measure is a signal of your progress towards your objective.
For example, suppose your goal is to achieve 48 new hires by December 31st, which is 20% higher than the 40 hires you made in the previous cycle.
Your lead measures could be:
- Boost outbound team calls from 1,000 (in the last 6 months) to 1,200 (a 20% uplift) within the next 6 months.
- Increase outbound emails from 5,000 in the past 6 months to 6,000 by [6 months from now].
The essence is that your lead measure is controllable by you and your team.
And it should always be articulated in the format
“Get something from X to Y by [date].
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Establish at least 2 or 3 lead measures that you can oversee. If crafting a lead measure proves challenging, consider: what could you do to ensure you achieve your goal?
Consider tracking your lead measures weekly in a meeting with your team. Display your lead measures on a scoreboard (for example, a spreadsheet that logs your lead measure statistics). You’ll feel more empowered whether you accomplish them or not.
Remember: Your focus is on achieving your lead measure figure…meeting your goal will follow.
4DX (as mentioned earlier) is a methodology I employ for accomplishing tasks.
If you aspire to be a proactive recruiting leader, you should encourage yourself and your team to adopt at least one methodology.
This way, you have a framework/plan to determine how to achieve your goals and lead measures.
For proactive hiring, I utilize Topgrading.
This provides me with a robust formula that considers candidates’ tenure and prior managers’ assessments.
You might explore Performance-Based Hiring from the Lou Adler Group.
If you lack a specific recruiting methodology, consider a style such as:
“Ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
A TA leader acquaintance of mine has a straightforward method:
“Done is better than perfect.”
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Experiment with just one new methodology. One will most likely be superior to none.
You can even utilize Proactive Recruiting itself as your recruiting methodology — that’s an excellent choice!
Your recruiting team requires at least a basic tech stack.
If you don’t yet have one, refer to My Candid Chat with Tim Sackett About His “Talent Acquisition Stack”.
As a TA leader, your tech stack could include at least one solution in the following categories as listed by Tim:
- ATS — This is to “track” candidates
- Recruitment marketing — This is to “attract” candidates
- Operations — This encompasses everything else. It might consist of data, analytics, interviewing technology, etc.
For an individual recruiter, your tech stack may be as uncomplicated as:
- ATS
- CRM
- Job Boards
- Sourcing Tools
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Determine your stack and begin referring to it as “my stack.” Compare your stack with your goals and lead measures and identify what’s lacking.
Recruiters are akin to salespeople selling job opportunities.
If you lack some form of CRM to manage your pipeline (even if it’s Salesforce or merely spreadsheets), it will be exceedingly challenging to be a proactive recruiter.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Begin with a spreadsheet. If you’re already utilizing one, consider a basic CRM (there are numerous affordable options and here are 8 open source and free CRMs).
If you are dissatisfied with your ATS, advocate for a new one that enables you to be more proactive. For example, there are several contemporary ATSs like Greenhouse, Lever, and SmartRecruiter that feature open APIs allowing for the development of new free recruiting tools. That open API would enable developers (whether internal or a software partner like Ongig) to create proactive recruiting functionalities personalized for you!
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Visit The Top 100 Applicant Tracking Systems in…
2018— it’s a complimentary report Nick Misa and I compiled that illustrates who’s gaining traction in ATS market share. I understand that transitioning ATSs is significant. As an initial step, why not inquire with your ATS about the availability of an open API or when they might implement one.
If your ATS necessitates numerous clicks (possibly registration) to apply, you could miss out on top-tier candidates.
Therefore, a workaround is essential.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Consult your ATS on how to personalize a single-click application process through custom integration. If they lack a suitable response, check if they have an open API that you (or a recruitment software partner) could utilize.
You could also consider capturing candidates on a Talent Community capture page to bypass your application process.
For example, Ongig enables you to capture candidates through Social Sign-In via LinkedIn or Facebook. You could then engage with those candidates directly!
A proactive recruiting strategy involves sharing your recruiters’ contact information. This allows candidates to research you and your recruiters.
We’ve previously discussed Microsoft and Geico implementing this. A proactive recruitment expert friend of mine in Chester, England is about to persuade her employer client to display the name, phone number, email address, and picture of every recruiter they employ!
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Feature your recruiters on your careers homepage (or at least link to a new page that contains your recruiters’ basic contact details). SmartRecruiters allows you to showcase the name and picture of the recruiter with each job description.
Ongig permits you to display the name, picture, and LinkedIn link of each recruiter on every job description.
You should be able to effortlessly create, locate, and modify job descriptions.
This can aid in accelerating the process from requisition to first candidate!
Proactive Recruiting Tip: I recommend utilizing a Job Description Management Software solution— you might ask your development team to create one, or there are affordable solutions available (just search “Job Description Management Software”).
Is your EEO/diversity statement current? Is it aligned with candidates’ expectations to perceive you as inclusive?
Don’t allow your Legal team to dictate your statements. Provide them with a few options to approve that fulfill YOUR recruiting requirements.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Explore the 10+ Best EEO Statements for inspiration.
Are your job descriptions outdated?
Do they focus inwardly and not on the candidate?
Consider revising the most crucial ones or potentially all of them.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: See if you have individuals in-house with copywriting experience. If not, check out The 8 Stakeholders in a Job Description Rewriting Project and the 12 or so bullet points to consider from Job Description Writing.
You are aware of the importance of search engine optimization.
I’ve observed clients’ traffic from Google spike by 40% overnight once we optimized all of their job pages for SEO.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: You don’t have to outsource this — check out our complimentary SEO Recruitment page or read the fantastic article my teammate Nick wrote on How to Get Your Job Postings to Rank Higher on Google.
You also recognize the significance of having mobile-optimized job pages. Not only are mobile-friendly pages advantageous for candidates, but Google also rewards you with enhanced SEO traffic if your pages are optimized for mobile.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Try assessing your career/job pages using Google’s free Mobile Optimization Test and see how you score. If you require additional budget for mobile optimization and received a “fail” on the Google test, don’t worry. Present the failing results to leadership. Would your CEO and head of talent really accept that candidates are perceiving your company in such a negative light!?
You never want to rely solely on 3rd party staffing agencies/search firms to fill all your critical positions.
This could set you back $10K to $50K per placement!
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Take your most challenging positions to fill and attempt the following. Create a video about the job (if you don’t have one, I can produce one for you for $800). Then, try a test by purchasing $500 worth of targeted social media advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn — the video you created will be the central media asset for the ad.
If you want me to handle this entire process for you, check out Custom Recruiting Videos. We can complete the video within 5 days and also manage the 30-day targeted ad.
The all-inclusive investment: $2K (USD). Isn’t that a worthwhile test compared to a $30K staffing/search fee!?
If you offer virtual or remote positions, you should highlight this. Many top candidates would adore the chance to work from home.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Create a fresh landing page on your career site that links to all of your remote jobs. This can be relatively straightforward. You could hashtag (e.g. #WorkfromHome) each remote job you post in your ATS. A competent developer will be able to compile all of those jobs and create a new page that updates whenever a new remote job is available.
If you recruit interns, having an Intern page listing the positions they can fill or the program they can join will be beneficial.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Similar to the Work from Home page tip above, you could hashtag the job descriptions that interns are eligible for. If you don’t have specific intern jobs, at least simplify the process for them to submit their resume through a talent community capture form.
If you are collaborating with a recruitment advertising agency, they should have a proactive recruiting strategy.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Inquire what proactive recruiting solutions they provide. If they lack a clear response, terminate their services. You can find better.
If you don’t have an email job alert system, it’s not too late to initiate it!
The advantage of an email job alert is that candidates will subscribe, and you can automatically send relevant jobs to them. You can recruit while you rest!
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Ask your ATS if they offer this feature. If they don’t, consider implementing a recruitment marketing platform (any good one will include email job alerts).
You might possess a collection of old resumes.
What if you could align those with your current job descriptions? Some refer to this as CV parsing or CV/Job matching.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Consider searching the Web for keywords like Resume/Job Description, CV Parsing, CV/Job Matching. One significant client of mine is closely examining TextKernel. Ongig is contemplating incorporating this feature.
Only 11% of candidates apply for a position after viewing a job description.
For the remaining 89%, you could offer other “Recommended Jobs.”
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Ask your ATS if they offer this. If they don’t, inquire with your recruitment marketing partner if available (any competent one should have this). Ongig now provides an A.I.-based Recommended Jobs feature for free as part of our Branded Candidate Experience solution. It becomes more intelligent with each click.
Are you aware of how many unique page views and applications each job board is generating for you? Do you know how many of those are free versus paid?
Do you monitor how many applications your career site is attracting? What about Google? My top clients see 2% of their applications originating from Google (however, I observe other employers obtaining only .1% of applications from Google!).
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Any proficient ATS will provide “source-tracking” for all your job page traffic. If they don’t, you should insist your ATS coordinates with your internal development team to implement it. If they resist, try a recruitment marketing solution.
You want candidates to spend as much time as possible considering your opportunity. One way to achieve this is to enhance your JDs to make them sticky.
Proactive Recruiting Tip: Consider adding any of the following:
- Video
- Images
- Name of recruiter along with a link to their Web profile
- Map of your location
- Names of nearby restaurants, gyms, attractions, etc.
- LinkedIn Widget (the one showing how the candidate is connected to your company!)
- Recommended Jobs
- Glassdoor ratings and reviews
- Employer of Choice accolades
Proactive Recruiting Tip: You might ask your internal developers to assist in adding sticky content features to your JDs. You may wonder if Ongig provides sticky job description content through our software. 🙂 Yes, we do! We offer the above and much more.
The recruiting agency TMP also offers remarkable sticky content on their advanced job descriptions via their Talent Brew product.
What Proactive Recruitment Techniques Are Working For You?
If you implement one of the above suggestions or have others I might have overlooked, please comment below. I’d love to learn what’s working for you (or even what isn’t).