This will be a short article and by no means is meant to be comprehensive.  However, as I’ve been talking with recruiting organizations, listening to their stories at conferences, and hearing tidbits through the grapevine online and through prospect meetings, there are a number of key insights I hear time and time again that I think can be very helpful.

So what are recruiting organizations doing that enable them to be successful.  Here are a few general habits that they usually exhibit:

Start with a plan:  Every successful recruiting organization I’ve run into has had a set plan and process in place that was well thought out.  They take the time to talk to other organizations and vendors to understand what other companies are doing and match this to their own recruiting goals to set up a process and strategy that fits their organization.  Most importantly, they take the time to re-examine this process in set time periods to bring new ideas into the fold.

Measure and Improve: While they may have a set plan in place, they are flexible enough to make changes to improve their process.  That’s where recruitment metrics come in.  In all cases, they are able measure their activities to help them determine what’s truly working and not working in their process.  They use this information to make real-time strategic decisions that help them improve their overall ROI.

Think strategically about Technology: While they don’t succeed solely based on recruitment technology, they view technology as an important part of their strategy.  They identify tools and platforms that are able to add value to their process and enable them to uniquely accomplish the tasks they need in order to succeed.

Empower their Recruiters: While they work with their executive team to set up their strategy, they rely heavily on their recruiting team to execute and make decisions in their process.  They treat them as independent thinks geared toward improving the overall process.

Intellectually Curious: While their current process is currently helping them reach their goals, they are not satisfied with this success.  They are always on the lookout for new ways to attract better talent.  These are the organizations that were the first to jump into social recruiting, build Talent Networks and are looking at ways to improve their mobile recruiting.  They are always interested in finding and trying the next big thing.

Highly successful organizations are doing a number of things exceptionally outside of this list as well.  However it is this foundation of setting up a plan, process and strategy that is measurable, leveraging both people and technology to drive it and keeping on top of the latest recruitment marketing trends, that really drives innovation and enables the best organizations find the right talent.