Remember the old phrase “out with the old, in with the new.”  Many organizations live and die by this phrase, always looking for that new initiative that will drive performance even farther.

For recruiting, you are seeing a lot of this as well. There are so many new and innovative recruiting tools out there that recruiting departments are looking at and implementing into their recruitment marketing strategies.  And rightfully so.

Companies are looking to supplement the job boards they use in job distribution campaigns with other recruiting initiatives such as social recruiting, mobile recruiting and internal referral programs.  Some companies are even fully replacing job boards with these tools and having success.

But does that mean that these initiatives will work for your organization and that you should replace your current recruiting initiatives with these new initiatives this minute?  Not at all.

When looking at new recruiting initiatives such as social recruiting, here are a few things you should do:

Research and Set Strategy: The first thing you should do with any new initiative is take a look at other companies that have had success with it.  Once you have a good background on a few things that work, set a strategy that you think will optimize the return of the new initiative.

Implement and Measure: Once you have a strategy in place for the initiative, take the training wheels off and put it into action alongside the recruiting initiatives you already do.  Most importantly, measure the performance of this new initiative next to the initiatives you already use in your recruiting.  Is this new initiative performing better or performing the same at less cost? (Please note, that social recruiting will probably not produce results right away and expectations should be tempered for the first few months)

Evaluate: At this point you should have enough recruitment metrics to help you make a decision on your recruitment marketing mix going forward.  Make sure to look at the metrics of all your initiatives side by side and make an informed decision on the mix that will provide the most value for your recruiting dollar.

It is important to try new initiatives and channels in your recruiting.  The key is to measure and analyze if these new initatives are worth the time and money that you are spending on them.

Don’t decide to replace your old initiatives with shiny new ones just on a hunch.  Instead test it out and make an informed decision at what is best for your recruiting organization.