We’re experiencing the issue of talent scarcity for a few years. And this isn’t contained in one industry or another; it is a ubiquitous issue that each field and organization is facing.  

The repercussions of this are a few; however, the main one being a whopping $302 billion in financial implications of this talent gap. And this already-shocking number will reach $775 billion by 2022 according to a report by IDC. 

With that being said, with the limited amount of pool we have, the real struggle lies in finding the right candidate for your requirements. And the best solution for this is modifying your recruitment strategy. Regardless of the type of organization you are working for, you need to have a structured action plan to effectively and efficiently attract, engage, and get the top talent onboard.   

The purpose of recruitment strategy is not limited to filling job vacancies but avoiding bad recruitment decisions that cost organization in several ways. But, with proactive actions and designing, a future-proof plan, created while factoring in uncertainties, will save you time and money in the long run. 

Develop and maintain your employer brand  

Employer brand has been a long-standing friend of recruiters and hiring managers, because of the simple reason that it helps you stand out. 

Building an employer brand means conveying the business vision, mission, culture, and values. It helps you get answers to questions such as, “why would applicants want to work with your organization?”, “what do your current employees think about your organization?”, and “will they recommend the organization as great place to work?”  

To create a good image of your organization you need to be on toes to check your website pages, social media platforms, and job advertisements aligned with your employer branding strategy. The best way to maintain your employer brand is to treat the applicants like employees even before you hire them.   

Moreover, having good employer branding will help you lessen the work you have as well. Candidates can self-select out themselves if they do not see them matching your employer brand.   

 Identify your recruitment needs and plan well in advance 

The very first and essential way of designing a recruitment strategy is to anticipate the hiring needs and the skills your current talent lacks in. By analyzing a few factors that affects the company’s growth, such as attrition rate, employee turnover, and expected promotions, you will be easily able to identify your hiring needs.  

Next, to plan your recruitment process, you must know how much manpower your internal teams will need and how much time you must fill those anticipated job positions. With this approach, not only will your plan be ready in advance, but you will also have a better clarity on how to identify, assess, and hire talent.  

By doing this internal research, you can design a recruitment strategy for the entire year. You can make a recruitment plan for per quarter as well. But in both situations, make sure that you are aware of the total number of employees each department will need, and when you must start hiring them.  

 Get the plan into action with the right recruitment tools  

Once you are ready with a yearly or quarterly recruitment plan, the next step is to find out suitable recruitment assessment tools to get your plan into action. To make your recruitment process seamless you can easily rely on a few HR tech solutions like online job portals, applicant tracking systems, pre-employment testing and screening tools, video interviewing tools, etc.  

The HR technology solutions are responsible for eliminating mundane tasks and streamlining your recruitment process by reducing time-to-hire and cost-per-hire.  

 Write an effective job description for each position  

With a detailed idea of the roles, you’ll be hiring for, you can begin determining the requirements for each job opening. What are the characteristics and skills that you want job candidates to have? What will their daily responsibilities and long-term goals be?  

To make sure everyone is on the same page and decrease the time to hire, you should meet with hiring managers and talk through this step together. This will help you develop a thorough understanding of each role and what the needs are to fill it effectively. 

 Decide the recruitment budget  

With 2021 coming to a close, it's time to start thinking about a budget for the coming year partially based on what you've learned this past year. Planning a comprehensive recruiting budget involves several detailed steps which may go on toss entirely if you try to hurry. Considering this, it's best to start early by doing your research and thinking about ways you can use your efforts to minimize cost-per-hire, increase retention, and hire the most skilled candidates to drive a business' bottom line. 

Creating a recruiting budget is a big responsibility, but it's an essential task for any well-organized recruiter or talent acquisition specialist. Failing to do means you won't be able to capture crucial metrics and identify areas for development.  

 Avoid hemorrhaging costs and get the most out of your budget by understanding it in detail. Doing so will allow you to control costs and focus on improving your hiring and retention efforts. 

Here are a few common recruiting costs include: 

• Advertising on job boards and social media 
• Job fairs and campus recruiting costs 
• Recruiting technology costs 

• Employer branding expenses 
• In-house salaries and benefits of the involved 
• Background checks and drug tests 
• Recruitment travel expenses 

 Set a candidate screening and selection process 

After preparing a job description, the three S’s of recruitment is your next process pyramid – sourcing, screening, and selection. With the added advantage of multiple job portals and social media, candidate sourcing has become a lot simpler, but that has also led to humongous volumes of applications that most recruiters need to scan through. In a hyper-connected world, sourcing isn’t the biggest hurdle anymore, but getting the right candidate is. And this is the reason why the processes of candidate screening and selection needs to be revisited.