Recruiting Strategy: Add Structure To Your Recruiting Team

October 2, 2012

recruiting strategyFrom my previous post, you learned how to build a recruiting team and what an asset it can be to your company (at a bargain!). But when developing your recruiting strategy, it’s important to remember that recruiting, and HR in general, is extremely process-oriented. Without the proper processes in place, even the best recruiter can find his or herself less than ideally productive.

First, you need organization: I highly recommend purchasing an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) in order to organize all the candidates, resumes, applications, and job postings you’ll be working with. An ATS can also deliver data-driven reports so you can see exactly how the recruiting team is performing. At OpenView Labs, the recruiting team uses Linkedin Recruiter. Other popular ATS’s include TalentBin, and Taleo.

Next, you need to develop a process: When it comes to recruiting, processes are basically repeatable steps to ensure that each recruiter is being compliant and working in an expected, efficient manner. Specific processes will also create expectations for hiring managers, such as number of candidates they can expect to see weekly or amount of time to hire for a role.

An example of a (very high-level) recruiting process for your team would be something like:

  • Set up a “kickoff” call with the hiring manager to gather details around the role, set expectations, and determine a fair compensation plan
  • Deliver at least X amount of candidate profiles weekly
  • Write a summary of each candidate including skills, pros/cons, salary, and overall thoughts to send to hiring manager along with a candidate’s resume
  • Agree to receive hiring manager feedback within 48 hours
  • Set up a weekly call with the hiring manager to review the progress of the search

This should be a repeatable process that every recruiter can use for each search.

Lastly, to make sure your recruiting team is a humming engine of productivity, set metrics. Anyone with experience can do their job, and most likely do it well, but setting (fair) metrics will push recruiters even more. A set of reasonable metrics for your recruiting team will create a standardized expectation that every team member is reaching.

Metrics can vary depending on the types of positions that are being recruiter for, as well as other factors.

Here is an example of metrics for a typical recruiter (this could be for each role, or overall):

  • Source a minimum of 30 candidates weekly
  • Phone screen a minimum of 8 candidates weekly
  • Send 3 qualified candidates to the hiring manager weekly

If you’re just starting your recruiting team, it may take some trial and error here. Once you determine proper and reasonable metrics for your recruiting team, everything will fall into place. Of course, it always takes time for a team to ramp up and find their rhythm – it’s okay to give some leeway at first.

Overall, you will find that the metrics and processes of the team go hand in hand with finding newly hired employees happily walking through the door.

Recruiting Lead - Software

<strong>Katy Smigowski</strong> is the Recruiting Lead-Software at <a href="https://www.fitbit.com/">Fitbit</a>, where she is directly managing sourcing team, recruiting process and recruiting strategy dedicated to driving software hiring in our Boston office. Prior to Fitbit, she was a Talent Specialist at OpenView responsible for recruiting initiatives for both the firm and its portfolio companies.