Creating the Perfect Recruitment Plan Step-by-Step

In an ideal world, qualified applications would come to you, armed and ready to be model employees. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Today, companies must compete with other businesses in their area and those worldwide that offer remote opportunities—making the talent pool more competitive than ever.

Don’t lose hope yet, though. We’ve created a step-by-step recruitment plan that’ll not only attract candidates but keep them around long after their start date.

Let’s dive in.

Don’t Be Caught Without a Recruitment Plan

Recruitment planning is your strategy for sourcing, attracting and retaining candidates. It’s a detailed approach that outlines the exact steps and methods you’ll need to reach your recruitment goals.

Like any goal, it’s important to put together a list of steps that’ll get you there. The list should include ways to measure this success known as key performance indicators (KPIs). These help mark how well progress is going and can guide you toward staying the course.

However, without a plan, you’re like a ship in the middle of the ocean with no compass on a cloudy night—lost.

Benefits of Having a Recruitment Plan

It’s not uncommon for the average recruiter to rely on posting on a job board, hoping that the right candidate will apply. While this does work, it can get expensive.

Good recruitment relies on a plan your hiring team can stick to. Benefits of developing a recruitment plan include:

• ​Efficiency: A structured recruiting strategy helps streamline the hiring process, reducing the time and resources spent on talent acquisition. Once the job opening is public, recruiters should be working through applications quickly to get the position filled as soon as possible.
• ​Quality of Hire: Well-designed recruitment plans ensure that only qualified candidates who fit the job requirements and company culture are considered, leading to better hires, and reduced turnover. The spray and pray method may seem promising, but it often leads to a slew of downsides such as negative reviews on Indeed, a red flag on LinkedIn and a high cost-per-application (CPA).
• ​Consistency: A standardized recruitment process ensures that all candidates are evaluated fairly and consistently, minimizing the risk of bias and discrimination. Every qualified applicant should have an equal chance of landing the job.
• ​Employee Engagement: A clear recruitment strategy, including effective onboarding processes, can help new hires feel welcomed and supported from the start. This can lead to higher levels of engagement and retention. Depending on the role, each new hire could cost your business thousands of dollars in sourcing, interviewing, hiring, and training. Engaging a job seeker that aligns with your needs and culture can make all of the hours of research worthwhile.
• ​Strategic Alignment: Hiring plans aligned with the organization’s recruitment goal and objectives ensure that hiring decisions contribute to the overall success and growth of the organization. This means approaching each candidate with your company’s culture, morals and needs in mind.
• ​Adaptability: Having a plan in place allows organizations to adapt to changing market conditions, business needs, and talent requirements more effectively. There are many recruitment methods to choose from, adjusting and realigning can mean touching on many hiring styles depending on the needs of the company.

What Makes a Solid Recruitment Plan?

Curious about what steps will lead to a recruitment plan your team can depend on? Here’s what you need to know.

1. Understand Your Needs

The first step to developing an effective recruitment plan is knowing exactly what the hiring manager’s needs are and defining clear objectives. This includes deciding if you’re opening a brand new position, filling in a vacancy or expanding a department.

Be as clear as possible from the get-go so your intentions come across even in the job description.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

As you begin to sketch out why you’re hiring, define what this new person will need to be successful in the role. While remaining within inclusivity laws and hiring policies, paint the picture of the type of new hire you’ll need. This may include:

• ​Experience level
• ​Proximity to the office
• ​Education
• ​Years in the field
• ​Languages they know
• ​Soft and technical skills
• ​Personality type
• ​Organizational habits

Nailing down these stipulations can make the sourcing step a lot more straightforward.

3. Set a Realistic Timeline

There’s a difference between how quickly you’d like to get someone hired and how soon they’ll actually start. Depending on your location and the role, it’s important to be realistic about when you need to have someone hired based on previous data.

If you can plan ahead, taking your time to sift through candidates and applications can help ensure you find the best person for the job. However, setting a deadline will keep the lead warm instead of growing cold because you think you have more time.

4. Decide on a Channel

Strategically targeting the right candidates means advertising your open positions—perhaps even before you post them—in all the right places. Ask yourself these questions before you launch your next recruitment plan:

• ​Where does your ideal applicant spend their time?
• ​Do they read the newspaper?
• ​Do they listen to the radio or watch cable TV?
• ​What social media platforms do they use?
• ​Will this be their first job after high school? College?
• ​Who do they trust when asking for advice?

The point of these questions is to pin down how to reach your audience. Deciding if you need to budget for a radio ad, a paid social media post, or push for a referral program will define what your recruitment plan will look like moving forward.

5. Execute and Measure Your Recruitment Plan

When you and your hiring team feel confident about your plan, it’s time to execute it. With your deadline in mind, set assessment points that reveal how well your plan is performing. KPIs to keep in mind could include your:

• ​Response rate
• ​Cost-per-application
• ​Time-to-hire
• ​Quality of hire

Stay alert for any signs that you may need to adjust your plan. If you’re spending too much on direct messages or your ads aren’t reaching enough people, these may be indications that you need to shift gears.

Keeping track of what is working with certain positions and demographics can help further streamline your hiring process for the future. This can save time, money and frustration when you have to hire typically harder-to-fill roles. By staying the course and keeping your recruiting time focused and efficient, you’ll meet the right candidate sooner—and at a lower cost—than you might expect.

6. Seek Feedback

It may be difficult to understand why a position is left open longer than others—collecting constructive feedback can help.

If a potential candidate decides to accept a position at a different company, send them a questionnaire. It may offer valuable answers to fill the gaps in your recruitment plan. Additionally, at the end of the hiring process, connect with other stakeholders to glean insight from their perspective on what went right and what could be improved.

The recruitment landscape is constantly evolving, expanding, and contracting. Keeping your senses sharp on the needs of your company and the expectations of potential candidates can help boost outcomes.

7. Keep Your Brand in Mind

Employer branding is essential to growing your business. For candidates, the recruiter is their first impression of your brand. Developing an effective, clear, strategic recruitment plan can ensure a positive candidate experience and a boost to your organization’s image.

More often than not, candidates may choose to take the job because of the precedent your interview provided them. Design a seamless and engaging experience for candidates throughout the recruitment process, from initial contact to onboarding, to enhance the employer brand and attract top talent.

Build An Unwavering Recruiting Plan

Executing the right recruitment plan for the needs of your company ensures a positive experience for everyone. Not only do you get to add another hired candidate to your list, but you can help cut the turnover rate at the same time.

An unwavering hiring plan involves knowing your organization, its expectations, and who your ideal candidates are from their experience to their personality. Piecing each part together builds the greater picture of the work environment that will move the business along toward its business goals.

And it’s up to you to find the people to get you there.

The best way to bring this picture to reality is an applicant tracking system (ATS) that’s easy to use and sustainable for your small business. Take your recruitment efforts to the next level and cut confusion with ApplicantStack.