Developing a New Recruitment Strategy

The development of the recruitment strategy is similar to the preparation of any other HR Strategy. The recruitment strategy sets the unique position of the company on the job market. The development of the strategy is a long process. It asks several iterations and the wide consensus on the recruitment topics.

The recruitment strategy is not a document produced by the recruitment function. It is a document prepared by Human Resources, which drives the whole business.

The recruitment strategy development is an ambitious task for HR. The decision about the development of the strategy cannot be made in the recruitment team. The whole HR Management Team has to agree with the idea. The other HR professionals are involved in the development effort. They need to allocate time. They need to be committed.

It is always beneficial to involve the business leaders and line managers to the process of the recruitment strategy design. The line managers believe they would recruit better people. They would recruit talents quicker, and they should run the recruitment process without any costs. Line managers have to see the real situation on the job market and the tough competition among different companies.

The usual recruitment strategy development approach is the following:

  • Set up broad team
  • Analyze HR Strategy
  • Collect available data
  • Analyze collected data
  • Find recruitment approaches best practice
  • Set recruitment strategy
  • Change recruitment processes

The recruitment strategy development team should be broad. It should include HR Professionals, line managers and employees recently hired to the company. The recent hires have experience with the job search and they can bring many innovative ideas. The team consisting just from HR employees leads to the refusal of the recruitment strategy. The HR team needs advocates in the organization to make the strategy a real living document.

The team should focus on the analysis of the HR Strategy. The recruitment strategy supports the overall strategy, and it has to be aligned with the main HR Strategy. The team should set the limits for the recruitment strategy as it fits the needs of the company.

Each strategy has to be based on statistical data. The recruitment strategy is not an exception. The team has to identify the sources of information about the recruitment process in the organization. It has to analyze collected data. The right outcomes have to be approved by the whole team. The recruitment process produces an enormous amount of data and the team can bring positive and innovative ideas. The top management does not like to approve the philosophical documents missing data behind. The recruitment strategy with collected data behind offers better position in discussions.

The team has to collect the best practice in the recruitment area. The new hires can help. They know the job market. The company and competitors attracted them. They can describe the recruitment approaches. They identify approaches, which certainly worked. The consulting companies collect many data about the recruitment practices, and they publish free reports. Recruitment practice reports provide the basic guidelines for the design of the recruitment strategy. The recruitment best practice always brings inspiration. The team should include several best practices to make the recruitment strategy innovative.

The setting of the recruitment strategy is about connecting the results of the recruitment analysis with the best practices available on the job market. Using the boundaries from the HR Strategy, the team can set the real state-of-the-art recruitment strategy, which can contribute to the organization. The recruitment strategy should always support building the competitive advantage.