We’ve heard so much talk about Proactive Recruiting but where are all the Proactive Recruiters hiding? Have they conveniently decided to make a no show or are they playing hide and go seek? Well that’s a tricky question and one only Employers may have the answers too or is there some other reason, that’s interesting?

I think the later holds true since, they might not be aware of what goes into making a perfect hire. So the obvious question is what are the 5 simple steps to Recruiting Proactively? Now let’s find out what these steps include.

Step 1 when hiring remember to hire “Hunters” rather than “Farmers”

You need only remember that “Hunters are in and Farmers are out”, the reason being that you want to hire Recruiters that are hunters and not farmers.  These individuals usually have the skills of a hunter to catch the talent you’re looking for. They are the Recruiters who –

• Proactively seek out perfect candidates
• Live and thrive on challenges
• Are well aware of where to find the skills they are looking for
• Know how to get the ball rolling to make that perfect hire
• Can identify hard-to-find candidates
• Message them effectively to get their attention
• Close them on an opportunity

Farmers on the other hand are better at weeding out candidates for regular hires that are conducted as they are thorough with the role expectations and can easily filter candidates without the skills required. 

Step 2 be thorough with the entire process right from start to end

To help your Recruiters or Managers to be proactive you need to let them in on the entire Recruiting process that your organisation follows from start to end. This will give them an idea about the opportunities where they can be proactive. A typical hiring process comprises of these stages -

• Applicants profiles received
• Phone Screening
• Personal Interviews
• Team Interviews
• Project, Test or Homework stage
• Offer Stage
• Hiring
• On – boarding
• Performance Reviews

Step 3 Source candidates by channels

Before you get down to contacting candidates you need to consider all the options through which you can gather potential candidates. The key to this is by exhausting the pools of candidates available to you. A typical set of pools of talent to harvest from comprises of –

• Previous database of applicants
• Sourced candidates
• Pipeline of candidates created along individual levels
• Inbound candidates from job portals
• Through Referrals
• Social Media Channels

Step 4 Build Pipelines Systematically

Make sure you build your pipelines systematically and in order to achieve this you need to have a plan in place along with a layout of how you’re going to proceed. This will help you pin point exactly where you’re going wrong so you can rectify it at once. When creating a pipe line layout remember to –

• Determine your requirements clearly
• Have a process in place before going onto selecting the technology that will best serve you 
• Devote days to creating only pipelines
• Record everything that you’re company does and showcase it for candidates to consider in their decision making process
• Don’t hesitate to share the tactics that are working for you, as everyone is trying to get best results and in turn improve the hiring quality and rates

Step 5 Hold everyone who’s been assigned this task accountable

If you think that you cannot be responsible then you too are accountable including your team if the task has been assigned to each one of you. The success lies in everyone working together with the same objective to reaching the same goal.

Well these are the steps that you should take in to account when starting on your talent hunt but if the process seems boring at times just remember that, “Time spent on hiring is time well spent.” – Robert Half and you’re sure to achieve results that you can certainly count on for future hires and strategies.