Recruiting rarely is based on any sort of strategic plan. For most organizations, recruiting is a tactical operation ó a series of things that take place that result in qualified people getting hired. It is mostly reactive, and few recruiters have the time or charter to look forward more than a few weeks. To ensure that your organization has a chance at hiring the best people ó and to successfully operate in a global, competitive environment, organizations ó you will need a strategic plan coupled to appropriate resources and tactics. Here’s a quick overview of the five essential first steps needed to put this plan together and to begin making it operational:
The five key steps in strategic talent planning
Step 1: Talent Plan Workforce or talent planning is the first and hardest step. It means deeply understanding the organization’s business goals and the competitive environment the organization functions in. It is a combination of understanding and predicating demand, while at the same time being educated and aware of the talent supply situation from all the sources that are available. This step needs to be far more than simply listing the jobs projected in the annual budgeting process and factoring in turnover. It is an evolving process, as opposed to an annual event, and is the most dynamic and critical stage of any strategic process. Step 2: Image and Brand It is not true that if you build a great strategy or a great organization, people will necessarily flock to your doors. Getting people aware of your organization is a tough job. It requires having a consistent communication process as well as a plan to raise general awareness through advertisements, promotions, or by getting listed as a “best place to work.” You have to be able to answer questions like, “What makes your company different or unique?” or “Why would I want to come work for you?” Not only should you have answers to these questions, but you should also make sure your advertising, web presence (which is essential), and overall corporate advertising support this image. This has to be an organization-wide effort. It takes time and an accumulation of messages to be effective. One or two advertisements or a handful of posters won’t do it. Step 3: Sourcing Methods Develop a multi-faceted sourcing strategy. Embrace active candidates who are responding to your brand and image-building messages, but maintain the capacity and skills to tap passive candidates. Decide based on past experience what works best for you in locating candidates, and then build those sourcing channels to the max. Make sure you are using referrals from current employees, your network of professionals, web-based search, your own web site and also develop methods to keep in touch with potential candidates that you have no current position for but might have at some later time. Step 4: Screening and Assessing Candidates Are you going to invest heavily in educating managers in behavioral interviewing? Are the recruiters going to be the main screeners, or will you use testing and other tools? What role will the Internet play, if any? Are you going to look into using web-based tests? How much will you rely on candidates screening themselves out or in? What role does the hiring managers play in screening and assessing, and what are the differences between what you do and they do? This is an area where there can be great improvement with reasonable effort, but where things are still done mostly the way they have always been done. A focus on automating screening to some degree reduces the volume of candidates and actually raises candidate satisfaction. Step 5: Market and Communicate! Candidates want to be in the know about their status and prospects. They seek out feedback and information. Your organization’s website is an invaluable tool, but you will also need to develop systems to communicate with candidates personally and to send out newsletters and emails. Probably all the people you need at one time or another sent a resume or expressed interest. They were most likely told that there were no current openings. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could actually stay in touch with those people and let them know when there is an open position? That’s what CRM (candidate relationship management) systems can do. Unfortunately, they are not yet generally available or optimized for recruiting. But ask your ATS vendor what they doing about this and urge them to provide you the tools you need to effectively keep qualified candidates interested in you. Make sure that whatever systems you choose fit your strategy and make economic sense A few other things to keep in mind:
- Make sure all managers and recruiters have a simple system for deciding on a candidate. As you know, speed is the real differentiator today, and the recruiter/manager who moves the most quickly will usually get the candidate. Eliminate unnecessary approvals, and make sure your selection criteria are clear to avoid slowing down the process.
- If you are a decentralized firm, work out a system for who owns what. If you all agree together then the areas of dispute will be limited. The rule I use is that the central or corporate function should set standards and establish corporate-wide systems. Local offices should participate in that process and have great autonomy on the day-to-day stuff. They can supplement broad image and branding activities with local advertising within the bounds of an agreement you all make with one another.
These initial steps and processes are what enable the back-end activities of scheduling, interviewing, making offers, and on-boarding.