7 Best Tactics to Smart Recruiting 

Smart recruiting is a great way to get great candidates for your open positions. Are you still collecting a bunch of resumes and hiring candidates based on the paper’s impressive content? If yes, you may be hiring the wrong people and at a great loss.  

Today, hiring high-quality candidates asks for smart strategies. You got to be smarter with your thinking, plans, and actions to recruit better talent. 

But what is actually smart hiring? It is not that complicated. Smart hiring essentially means abandoning conventional, inappropriate, and time-consuming hiring practices and embracing effective, advanced, and intelligent staffing solutions or practices. Furthermore, it also includes recognizing and avoiding common hiring mistakes.  

🧭 Before you start reading about effective strategies to smart recruiting, get our Employee Recognition Calendar and make work more fun. 

1. Focus on Effective Employer Branding  

Employer branding is a proven, smart hiring strategy that has gained momentum in the past few years. It helps employers build a reputation among potential and existing employees. A compelling employer brand boosts the quality of your talent pool and applicants-per-opening rate.  

As per a research report, about 75% of candidates will be researching a company’s reputation when applying for a job. 

So, to attract and hire better candidates, your employer branding game must be on the point. Effective branding of your company as an employer can include: 

• promoting the company’s values and culture 
• promoting a positive image of the company 
• highlighting a transparent employee value proposition. 

You can influence your potential employees’ opinion of your company by: 

• Telling a creative and interesting story about how exciting it is to work at your organization.  
• Showing off your culture and relevant perks you offer. 
• Showing off fun activities and other exciting things happening at the workplace, on social media. 
• Showing off your industry know-how. 

Once you have built a strong, positive reputation as an employer, you will start receiving applications from the right people. 

🧭 Check out how to get started with your digital recruitment strategy.

2. Communicate Your Organization’s Vision

One of the smartest ways to attract candidates is to share your vision and goals. People like to join an organization having some exciting goals. Try to communicate your company’s vision in an exciting way to the prospective employees, and include it in your workplace communication plan. 

Tell your employees and candidates what your company wants to achieve in the most effective way to inspire them and give more clarity about your work. Also, telling stories surrounding your vision would greatly help win the candidate’s attention towards your company.  

However, research shows that 52% of employees in the UK do not know their company’s vision, and 49% do not know their company’s values. Therefore, do not let it just be there on the paper: make sure your employees are also aligned with your company’s mission statement.  

3. Hire on a Trial Basis

Sounds odd? But, this is a smart hiring strategy implemented by many employers. If you are struggling to find the best candidates for your company, consider hiring on a trial or freelance basis.  

What’s the benefit? It is a risk-free way to test candidates for a job position. For instance, you can hire temporary employees or freelancers to complete a specific or small work, with a long-term opportunity in mind. This way, you can better judge their skills and talent. If you think they are doing a great job and doing well with the team, consider extending the offer. Or you can also hire them permanently.  

Hiring temporary employees saves your hiring cost and guarantees that the candidates you’re hiring are the best fit for your culture and company. You can visit freelancing websites to select the right freelancers for the work. You can also seek assistance from one of the renowned recruitment agencies Newcastle or any agency in your region offering temporary staffing solutions.  

However, trial basis recruitment would require you to apply and follow specific rules and boundaries. For example, you must compensate them with the correct amount for the job. Also, don’t expect additional/other work from them than what is actually assigned.  

🧭 Furthermore, recruiting process has somewhat changed during COVID-19 so take that into consideration and learn how to hire remote.

4. Consider Niche Job Sites

Posting job openings on popular job websites like Indeed or LinkedIn definitely help you find the candidates. But how long does it take? Do the candidates meet all requirements? As these job portals are flooded with job openings and applications from different industries, finding the right candidate at the right time is difficult. Standing out on these job sites is not easy, especially if you are a small business, and 83% of HR Professionals are already having recruiting difficulties. 

It is good to search for niche job portals and post the openings. For instance, if you are looking for temporary staffing, find out websites specifically focusing on temporary jobs. Niche job portals generally let employers customize and outline their strengths and requirements better. Also, due to fewer crowds on these sites, your job opening can easily get attention.  

This doesn’t mean you should completely abandon other sites. You can still post openings on these sites for more options. However, if you want to fill the position ASAP or want to save your time, niche job websites are ideal.  

5. Ask for References

If you wish to fill the position with the right candidate as soon as possible, ask your existing employees for referrals. This is the smartest option to smoothen the hiring process and find the best employees for your business. Besides, 88% of employers say that referrals are their best source of hire. 

You can ask your most trusted employees to recommend if they know any previous colleague with the best skills or work experience. If you believe your existing employees, their referrals will give a level of guarantee that the applicant will do a good job. Oppositely, when you hire strangers, there is less guarantee about their capabilities and work ethic.  

The best way to get referrals from current employees is to present a referral bonus program. If anyone suggests a good candidate and he/she gets hired, the current employer will receive a bonus. 

🧭 Check out our other ideas for recognizing your employees’ hard work.

6. Optimize the Hiring Process

Optimizing your hiring strategies can greatly help to hire better candidates. The first step in optimizing your hiring process is to measure key metrics frequently and improve them. From the applicant quality to applicant source, time to offer, fill rates, and interview rounds, you have to assess every aspect and improve them for better outcomes.  

Optimizing these key metrics will increase the chances of identifying positive and negative things that may affect your hiring outcomes and handle them accordingly.  

Moreover, in these challenging times, the role of HR has also changed: find out what are the key HR responsibilities during COVID-19.

7. Make Most of Technology

Keeping up with technology advancements is indispensable for every business to ensure better outcomes and business success. As hiring is one of the essential business processes, it should be technically empowered too. Using advanced technology solutions like recruitment software, digital video interviews, etc. can help you speed up recruiting and stay ahead of the competition.  

Moreover, employees love working at a place where they have advanced technologies to simplify things for them. As per a report, most office employees in the UK, Germany, and the US said they think technology helps them get their job completed. Thus, having cutting-edge technologies, gadgets, tools, or software at the workplace can also be a plus point for attracting candidates.  

🧭 See how you can introduce advance employee recognition technology to your employees and improve their satisfaction and motivation with JobPts. 

If you want to consistently succeed with your hiring decisions, ensure to hire smartly with these tactics. Strive to embrace the latest hiring solutions, advanced technologies, and hiring trends to keep improving your hiring strategies. For more effective outcomes, you can seek assistance from hiring experts. There are many recruitment agencies worldwide that help employers recruit smartly. 

Author: Vatsala Panwar