12 Effective Recruiting Strategies to Attract Top Talent

It can be a very competitive hiring landscape for many. Fortunately, today’s employers have many options for talent acquisition — and are increasingly able to leverage technology to drive efficiency and better results. However, maximum effectiveness requires a combination of both traditional and technology-driven strategies.

Over the years, I’ve seen first-hand how sound recruiting strategies can help organizations compete for talent in even the most competitive industries.

What is a recruitment strategy?

A recruitment strategy is a company’s plan on how it will attract, interview, hire, and onboard employees. It includes the tactics and approaches the company, its HR staff, and hiring managers will use in its recruitment practices.

Why are hiring strategies important?

Hiring strategies provide direction and set the stage for actions designed to find candidates, interest them in the company and specific open positions, and bring them on board. Hiring strategies ensure that everyone is on the same page and supportive of the organization’s brand, overall goals, and objectives related to hiring. Effective hiring strategies include:

• Improve hiring efficiency: Defined hiring strategies create process workflows to help you recruit and hire talent faster for critical roles.
• Align with the organization’s business objectives: Hiring practices need to support the organization’s direction and goals. New hires will be brought on board to help the organization achieve these goals.
• Position the organization competitively: In a competitive hiring landscape, companies must ensure that they’re setting themselves apart from other job opportunities candidates may have.
• Follow legal and regulatory requirements: Organizations must ensure that they comply with a myriad of laws related to hiring.

There are several recruitment strategies that companies could put into practice — both traditional and those powered by new and continually advancing technology.

Traditional recruitment strategies

As I’ve consulted with various companies, I’ve found that while technology is crucial these days to streamline hiring processes, there are some traditional, tried-and-true measures that still get results.

1. Ensure and communicate a strong employer brand

A strong employer brand, like a strong company or product brand, sets a company apart. The opposite is also true. Some companies have a bad reputation. Your brand must be real — you must be a great place to work! In addition, you also need to take steps to let people know that you’re a great place to work. This can be done through a combination of ongoing and role-specific communications via websites and other channels.

It’s important that these messages be consistent across channels and designed to tell a compelling story about your company and its employees. In addition to content developed by communication professionals, user-generated content, in this case, content created by your employees, can be a great way to convey your organization’s culture in a meaningful and impactful way.

2. Develop a robust employee referral program

As Mercer tells us: “Referral-based hiring is a popular talent acquisition (TA) practice in today’s job market, primarily because it can save businesses time and money when selecting and recruiting new staff.”

The idea behind employee referrals is simple and logical: your current employees aren’t likely to refer someone to work for your organization who they don’t believe will be a good fit and do a good job. After all, the referral reflects on them. In addition, chances are high that good employees will recommend others who are likely to be good employees.

A robust employee referral program can take advantage of these benefits, helping you to build a cohesive, brand-supportive workforce while also cutting recruiting costs and boosting time to hire.

I’ve implemented referral programs while working in corporate settings and have advised clients on how to do so; their results have been consistently positive not just in terms of access to top candidates but also for engaging existing employees in the process and clearly conveying to them the importance of their role in helping to source and hire great employees.

I’ve seen situations where employees are very excited to have their recommendations come on board; they are well-positioned to serve as natural mentors. Referrals can also help to shorten the recruitment process as confidence in these candidates is boosted.

3. Leverage social media

Social media channels can be a great way to connect with and engage potential job candidates. While LinkedIn is the obvious go-to platform for recruitment  — it was originally established as a jobs platform, after all — it’s not the only one. Other social media channels may be appropriate for your recruitment marketing efforts depending on the demographics of the types of candidates you’re recruiting for a specific role. For instance, if you’re recruiting for creative positions, TikTok and YouTube may provide you with a rich landscape for finding talented individuals whose creativity is demonstrated via those platforms.

4. Recruit from within

According to McKinsey’s “The State of Organizations in 2023” report, only 5% of organizations say they have the capabilities needed to achieve a competitive advantage. Many go outside of their organizations to recruit talent to fill those gaps. However, others are discovering the value of developing that talent internally through reskilling and upskilling and, in the process, turning the table to recruit from within.

It’s a win-win. Organizations benefit from readily available talent that is already familiar with the organization and likely a good fit for its culture. Employees benefit, too, from the opportunity to learn and develop new skills — something that many employees point to as a key benefit and a compelling factor in their decision to join and stay with an employer. In fact, 48% of American employees would go to a new job if they were offered skills training opportunities, according to Gallup. I’ve long been a proponent of hiring from within and have seen both the positive impacts on employees given access to these opportunities and the negative impacts on employees not given that type of consideration. Recruiting from within benefits everyone — those who are considered for the roles and others who see that it’s possible to take on new roles and responsibilities within the organization and that top jobs won’t just be given to external candidates.

5. Use niche job boards

Large job boards like ZipRecruiter and Indeed may get a lot of attention, but for employers seeking employees with specific niches or skills, there are several niche job boards to explore. These niche boards can help them focus specifically on certain careers or interests. For instance, AngelList is a great place to find jobs with startups, LawJobs is one of the top sites for legal professionals, and RecruitMilitary is a great place to find military veterans.

In addition to a wide range of niche sites focused on specific professions or types of applicants, candidates often go directly to individual company sites — especially if these companies have a strong employer brand.

Tech-driven recruitment strategies

Clearly, traditional recruitment methods still matter and can still be a great way to find and source top candidates. Today, companies and recruiters also have access to a wide range of technology-driven recruitment apps and opportunities.

6. Use predictive analytics

Predictive analytics allows companies to “clone” the traits and attributes of the high performers they currently have on board to find others with similar traits and attributes — or to evaluate candidates to see how well they exemplify the traits and attributes tied to success with your organization. For instance, tools like Breezy HR can be used to identify top candidates based on analytics.

An AI-powered resume parser can extract relevant candidate experiences, helping recruiters quickly find those candidates best suited for open roles. Recruiters can also use Candidate Match Score settings to prioritize skills, education, and experience. ActivTrak’s productivity insights can be used to identify top performers and replicate their successful work patterns.

Predictive analytics can also be used to predict future staffing needs based on roles or skills, providing strategic insights into when and how many candidates will need to be sourced to ensure a solid pipeline of candidates to meet future needs. Here’s a look at some of the best applicant tracking systems (ATS) available.

7. Create a mobile-first application process

In 2020, mobile job applications surpassed applications submitted via desktop computers for the first time, with 61% of all applications submitted via mobile devices, according to Appcast’s Recruitment Marketing Benchmark Report.

Since then, these numbers have continued to rise. But while applicants are increasingly turning to their mobile devices during job searches, companies haven’t kept pace in terms of providing a seamless experience when applying for jobs on mobile devices. That can represent a major competitive disadvantage.

If employee recruitment is important to your organization, you must provide the opportunity to apply online and do so easily. You want a process that will minimize opt-outs — candidates who start the process but give up because they found it too time-consuming, clunky, or fraught with errors. ATS options like Paylocity, for instance, allow for the creation of QR codes to advertise open positions so candidates can experience a mobile-friendly application process.

8. Use AI-powered candidate matching

AI-powered tech tools have provided a wide range of benefits for HR professionals. One top area where AI has proven effective in saving time and improving outcomes is screening candidates. Companies can now quickly and efficiently screen job candidates against job descriptions and hiring criteria, whether screening 10 or 10,000 incoming applications.

AI-powered candidate matching tools like Zoho Recruit, which was featured on our list of best free applicant tracking systems, can be used to automatically screen and match candidates to specific job requirements.

When using these tools, though, there’s an important caveat: ensure they don’t inadvertently insert bias into the process. There have been horror stories from both candidates and companies about the negative impacts that can result when tools aren’t designed to remove bias. Conscientious companies have stepped up to the plate to remove the potential for bias. Tools like HireVue, for instance, have taken steps to minimize potential bias in their automated recruiting apps.

9. Take advantage of chatbots and AI assistants

AI can also help to streamline the process of interacting with and engaging candidates to keep the process moving and to ensure that nobody gets lost in the process. Chatbots and AI assistants can be used to schedule interviews, respond to common questions, and provide avenues for candidates to explore the company and what it has to offer. These tools can also be used for initial candidate screening.

For instance, platforms like JazzHR incorporate chatbots that can be used to engage candidates and answer common questions throughout the hiring process.

10. Use video-enabled interviewing and assessment technology

Video interviews can be a great way to save time and remove the inconvenience and costs of travel for candidates in other locations — a particular boon when hiring for hybrid or remote roles. Video interviews can be conducted in both real-time (synchronous) and asynchronous modalities, offering convenience across time zones and when faced with scheduling challenges.

Today’s technology also offers the ability to automatically screen and evaluate video interviewees, providing reports that can be used to augment the traditional review process. HireVue, for instance, is a popular tool used for video interviewing in both synchronous and asynchronous settings.

11. Leverage virtual and augmented reality

Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) leverage technology to give candidates a sense of what it might be like to work at an organization or in a particular role. For instance, these tools can be used for pre-employment testing, such as providing candidates with role-playing scenarios or interviewing global candidates. These tools can also be useful when conducting interviews with candidates with various disabilities — allowing them to easily “tour” facilities or receive assistance for hearing or vision impairments.

12. Track recruitment metrics to monitor and improve

In addition to aiding in the actual process of finding, assessing, interviewing, and evaluating candidates, technology also has an important role to play in monitoring and improving the process. Modern ATS can be used to centralize candidate information and generate reports on recruitment performance. AI-powered tools can be used to enhance DEI-related and other outcomes to identify potential areas of bias to drive awareness and continuous improvement.

Zoho Recruit, for instance, offers robust reporting and analytics capabilities for tracking hiring metrics and optimizing the recruitment process.

This article was written by TechRepublic contributing writer Lin Grensing-Pophal.