The goal of recruitment is to attract a qualified pool of candidates from which to choose a new employee or employees. Employers not only want to find and hire the right people, but they also want to get the most “bang for their buck,” or the best qualified candidates without spending a great deal of money to find them.
Generally, the higher level a position the company is hiring for, the wider area the employer should target for the search. For positions such as a laborer, administrative assistant, hourly positions and some exempt positions, it may be sufficient to recruit locally. For a mid-level professional position such as a supervisor, manager, or technical position, the company may have to look regionally. For an executive-level position, a national search may be needed.
Recruitment strategy variables
When a company has already determined that it needs to fill a position, the recruitment strategy will depend on a number of variables:
Where to look. If the employer is looking for someone for a hard-to-fill position, one that requires a certain set of particular technical skills, for example, it might have to look farther and wider than average for that type of position. The employer may also have to offer incentives to attract the right person.
How wide the company casts its net also depends on whether or not the job can be done remotely. If a job can be done from anywhere, the company has the ability to hire the most qualified person for the job regardless of where they live.
Location, location, location. The target recruitment area needs to take into account the business’s location, or the location where the individual will be working, if that differs. If the business is in a relatively remote location, it may be difficult even to get local workers to make the drive out there, and recruiting strategies will have to reflect that. For example, one large Wisconsin business is located ten miles from the nearest city, but arranges to shuttle employees to work from nearby cities where they gather at park-and-ride lots.If the business is in a remote location, it may have to provide more incentives to attract the right people. It may also want to target certain recruiting markets. For example, a business located in a remote location of a state that offers a lot of fishing and hunting and outdoors opportunities may want to recruit by targeting ads to people interested in that lifestyle. This type of business could run ads in outdoors-oriented magazines, or during outdoors-related shows or events.
Go to where the workers are. Several county economic development councils and companies in Wyoming, which is job-rich but labor-poor, began advertising job opportunities to laid off workers in Michigan and holding job fairs there as well. The response was overwhelming, and the campaign worked: Michigan workers began moving their families to Wyoming, then telling their friends back home about the opportunities there, and before long, a whole community of Michigan natives were settling in Wyoming, making money, earning a living, and learning to appreciate a different way of life.
While every company doesn’t have to do anything as drastic as Wyoming did, on a lesser scale, companies can target recruiting efforts in the same way — by finding out who is laying off, perhaps regionally, and targeting those workers for your recruitment efforts.
Get creative. Effective recruiting may mean getting creative, especially for hard-to-fill or hard-to-keep positions. For over-the-road drivers, the turnover rate can be as high as 150 percent. Employers have had to get very creative and proactive to try and keep new drivers. Their efforts include ride-alongs with a mentor or coach, meeting and talking to the family about life on the road, and proactively counseling and working with drivers to solve problems they encounter in the job. It’s cheaper to keep the workers you have than to replace them, even if retention efforts cost time and money.
Companies may need to offer signing bonuses or extra incentives to recruit qualified candidates, either because of location or the difficulty in finding an individual with the necessary skill sets, or because the demand for a particular position is high and the market is competitive. Some years back, computer positions were highly sought after, and the market was extremely competitive, leading employers to offer very high salaries and incentives to attract workers.
Relocation considerations. Companies will have an easier time recruiting someone from a distance if there is also some type of relocation package. These can vary from one extreme to another. Some larger companies offer a guaranty to buy the new employee’s current home if the employee isn’t able to sell it within a certain period of time. That way, the new employee isn’t stuck trying to sell a home and obtain a new home, which is often contingent on the sale of the current home.
Other relocation packages simply give an allowance of a certain amount of money (say, $2,000), and the new employee can spend it however needed. This could cover the moving company, airline tickets, temporary housing, and other expenses involved with the move. Other packages agree to pay for the moving company and certain incidental expenses involved with the move, such as a few nights’ hotel stay while house hunting, and a set limit for mileage, meals, and other relocation expenses.
Some employers may offer to pay for temporary housing for a set period of time before the new employee is responsible to pay for his or her own housing. This could be a matter of weeks, or a month, whatever seems appropriate for the situation and your budget.
There are some tax implications involved in relocation packages, so be aware of those when offering some type of package. Be creative with a relocation assistance program to find what will work to attract the right candidates, without breaking the budget.
Affirmative action obligations/ promoting diversity. Certain federal contractors and subcontractors are obligated to have an affirmative action plan and take certain actions to promote diversity in hiring. They may target their recruitment efforts at women or minorities.
They may also need to give preference to veterans under the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), or give preference to individuals with disabilities under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Taken together, these laws ban discrimination and require federal contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action to ensure that all individuals have an equal opportunity for employment, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. For more on this aspect of recruiting, see the topic Affirmative Action.
A company doesn’t have to be an affirmative action employer to promote diversity in the organization. It can target minorities in your recruitment efforts to try to diversify the labor pool. The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures offer guidance on avoiding adverse employment actions that may affect minorities during the selection procedures.
The hiring process. It’s important to keep candidates informed of developments throughout the hiring process. Anyone who has ever interviewed with a company and never heard a word back one way or the other, oranyone who couldn’t get a response f on the status of the hiring process, was likely left with a bad impression of that company. Part of recruiting is public relations.
For the one person the company chooses to hire, there may be 50 more who weren’t, but they will be carrying around an impression of that company nonetheless. If they have a bad experience, they will tell others, and before long, there could be a negative impression of the company in the community and beyond. So, it’s very important from a public relations standpoint, and because it’s the right thing to do, to keep candidates informed as they move through the process (or not). This means acknowledging receipt of their application or resume, their status if they will be interviewing, when they might hear something after an interview, and a prompt rejection letter if they are no longer being considered.
Remember, recruiting isn’t just a process for finding employees; it also has public relations ramifications. Getting a brand out there, name recognition, and positive public relations are all a part of the process.