Hiring the right person for the job: Recruitment strategy plan

An effective hiring strategy needs to be both time-efficient and comprehensive.

Recruiting the right person starts with deciding what kind of hire you need to make:

• Multiple hires – if your business is growing quickly, to support your growth you might be looking to make multiple hires
• One-off hires – hiring a fresh graduate means you could train them during their development, catering to your business needs – or you can hire someone with a little more experience
• Graduate placements – if you are entering a busy period, you might be looking to hire graduates on a placement-to-perm basis

Is finding the right staff for your business confined to a certain time frame? Or is placing the right person in the right job more important? If you’re looking for strategic recruitment, you’ll need to devise a hiring plan that is tailored to your hiring goals.

Once you have your end goal in place, decide on your time frame and work out how long the hiring process takes.

Are you expecting rapid growth? A startup hiring plan may be helpful in structuring your hiring around fast growth in your business. A hiring plan for startups is especially vital if your business is fairly new and looking to invest in graduate talent.

Identify how many hires you will need to make, as well as your ideal start date.

Researching the industry standard should clarify how long it takes to hire graduates as well as the industry’s hiring strategy plan template.

The purpose of a recruitment plan is to ensure that you are attracting and hiring the right candidates from the start.

To ensure optimal strategic hiring, you need to define the ideal employee’s remit.

Start by meticulously detailing a list of duties and responsibilities the job required.

A clear job specification ensures that the person you eventually hire has the experience and skill set that your business needs.

This is especially important as writing a generalised job description will be unlikely to find you the right match for the job.

And where very specific skills or experience are required, like when hiring developers and hiring accountants, it’s vital to include these to find the right employee for the job.

Then, make a checklist of must-haves and good-to-haves.

These will relate to both the job role itself and the ideal candidate’s character, working synergistically with the team.

This could include things like ‘Must have – 1 years’ experience in a sales role’, ‘Preferred – experience working in a startup environment.’

Setting these in place will allow you to easily communicate what you are looking for and what will make a standout candidate.

This ensures that you are making the right hire for your business quickly and efficiently.

Once you have thought about what will make the right hire, it’s important to reflect on this when learning how to write job description.

Start by ensuring that the necessary skills and requirements are clear on the job description.

If you are working with a graduate recruitment agency, they will handle all the job posting and advertising on your behalf.

It’s still important to make sure that all the key information you want is on the description you send them.

This will help to streamline the hiring process and ensure that you are able to make the right hire for your business.

In order to hire the right candidate, it is also about making sure your package is competitive.

Specifying a very low salary will limit both the quality and the quantity of applicants.

Equally, offering a salary that is far higher than the industry average is risky.

You risk not finding the right candidate to fit with your company culture.

Research how much you should pay candidates, depending on whether they are a graduate hire or a senior hire.

This is a key part of your hiring strategy and will help you to hire the right people for your business.

Look at the market in order to work out the salary bracket you should be offering. Also, research which other perks will help you stand out from your competitors.

A key part of hiring candidates is considering your company culture.

You’ll have already discussed the qualities that your ideal hire will possess.

But there are ways to measure these throughout the assessment day and interview stages, such as:

• Having several team members interview a candidate, in order to gain a more rounded view of how well they will fit into your team.
• Taking them out for a drink or coffee with members of the team after the interview to gauge their cultural fit.
• Asking the right interview questions, including those pertaining to their life outside of work – What else are they interested in? What other skills can they bring to the table?

If you’re working with a recruitment agency, they will do much of the hiring process for you.

They will sift through the CVs and vet the top candidates.

The CVs you receive will match what you have said you are looking for in terms of skills, experiences, and knowledge.

Alternatively, you could advertise a job on a recruitment agency’s job board, giving you more control over CV selection and shortlisting.

What is ultimately down to you, though, is understanding what else they have done beyond their CV.

In your interview with a candidate, focus on learning about intangible skills and qualities that may not be visible on their CV.

For example, you may find from speaking to a candidate that they show a real sense of drive and ambition that you weren’t aware of from reading their CV.

As important as a CV is, you’ll gauge a real sense of whether they are the right hire through interviewing.

If you’re unsure about whether a candidate fits the bill, a short test or task can be a good way to decide.

This could include a problem-solving simulation, a role-play or a written test.

Challenging potential employees can often reveal aspects of their personality or skill set that will sway your opinion.

It can reveal qualities that you weren’t previously aware of in your hiring process. This helps you to ensure you are hiring the right candidate.

The hiring process doesn’t end once you have made a new hire.

Onboarding is essential to making sure that these hires remain engaged, motivated, and prepared to succeed in their new role.

One of the many advantages of hiring the right person is that they are more likely to stay at your business if you create a thorough graduate onboarding plan.

If you hire graduates who are then left feeling lost and unsupported, you’re likely to lose them just as soon as you hired them.

So, if you’ve spent the time planning how to make the right graduate hire, onboarding and retention should also be a key part of your hiring strategy.