What is a Recruiting Strategy?

Problem

Conversations with clients sometimes start with a hiring need, but this is not always the case. Often, our clients have a business problem they are trying to solve and ECA works with them to identify the pain points and propose solutions. Identifying the problem will point toward hiring a consultant, an interim executive, or a permanent employee – if the problem requires hiring at all.

Skills

Once the problem is identified, the skills needed to solve it come to light quickly. If the business problem requires that your company acquire another business, a search firm will point you toward hiring a strategist from a consulting firm with a strong M&A or Private Equity practice like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Kearny, EY-Parthenon, L.E.K., Strategy&, Oliver Wyman or Monitor Deloitte.

Good search firms will also be able to recommend ways to efficiently find candidates with certain soft skills. Often, firms will have a sense of how particular companies train their employees. This will help to quickly identify candidates who likely have servant leadership skills, polish, high EQ, etc.

Price

Understanding the talent pool, availability, and how much the market is paying for the talent is important to conducting an effective recruiting campaign and protecting your companies’ brand (a company can come off as out of touch or even rude if they approach candidates with compensation packages well below market). The number of people with the skills you need, the location you need the candidate to be, and the level and quality of training should all be taken into account when constructing a compensation package or adjusting your talent priorities to your budget.

Execution

How your plan is translated into action is key to success with recruiting strategies. The hiring manager and the recruiters need to be aligned on the profile, and targets should be set for each stage of the recruiting process. It is often helpful to think of execution in terms of a funnel, with the number of candidates you plan to contact at the top of the funnel, and projections for how many people will make it past each stage of the interview process. With its evidence-based approach, ECA Partners can measure these projections against historical and real-time data so that adjustments can be made quickly and accurately.

Closing

The best recruiting strategies will not only help you find your ideal candidate, but they will also have a plan for landing that candidate. To get the candidate across the finish line, timing is important, and a recruiting strategy should include a clear compensation package. It is also important to vet the candidate thoroughly but not make them jump through unnecessary hoops. Key decision-makers should meet and debrief shortly after the final interview so that an offer can be made while the candidate is still excited. The little things make a difference, and it is a good idea to have the official offer come from a senior member of the hiring company and for individuals involved in the interview process to send a note to the candidate expressing their excitement about the possibility of bringing them into the company.

Steven Haug, Ph.D. is a Project Manager of ECA Partners. You can reach him at [email protected].