Do you plan your Recruitment?

Being more strategic in your recruitment planning is one of those things that everyone knows they should be doing, few people do, and even fewer do well. But what exactly does it mean and does it really make a difference?

To put it simply, it is taking a high-level view of what your recruitment plans look like, both now and in the future, allowing you to more hire more effectively. Despite the best intentions, there are always going to be reactive and unplanned pieces of recruitment, such as if someone moves on unexpectedly. However, the majority ot the time, especially in the project world, you know what the roadmap for the next 12-18 months looks like, which means you can predict what resources will be needed over that period.

Once you’ve identified your high-level resource plan, you can really start to look schedule your recruitment plan to and allocate the roles you need to hire to when you’ll need them to make an impact.

So, what are the benefits to you in taking this approach to your recruitment? There are so many pro’s to being ahead of the curve and here’s just a few;

Sticking to the budget

The less time you give yourself to recruit, the more challenges you’ll come across, and budget is a big one. As the urgency of the problem becomes more critical, the budget can often go out of the window with the risk of over-stretching to find a quick solution.

Whilst it might only be a small increase, you need to think about the impact that this might have on your existing team. Currently one of the biggest pay gaps is between new hires and existing employees, so unless you have the capability to review your entire team’s salary in-line with a new hire or want to risk losing your current team, you’ll want to avoid offering over and above under pressure. Giving yourself enough time to find what you are looking for will really help avoid this mistake.

Avoid making bad hiring decisions

Good recruitment is about finding the right person for the role and not having to compromise on values or experience but recruiting under the pressure of a deadline can put this to the back of the queue. Whether you have a project kicking off, a replacement hire or an overworked team, if the need to recruit is urgent, that’s when mistakes happen.

In your rush to solve the problem, you can find yourself compromising a little too much on the person you bring onboard and feeling pressured to solve the problem can lead to costly mistakes. We’ve all seen the impact of hiring someone who hasn’t worked out, wasted time and money on onboarding and training, frustrated colleagues and not to mention the business impact of unaligned stakeholder engagement.

By taking a more strategic approach to your recruitment plan you can eliminate the majority of rushed recruitment processes and avoid those bad hires.

Have realistic timeframes

If you’ve ever written a project plan then you’ll know how important it is to have realistic timeframes to avoid missing your deadline. By approaching your recruitment as a project, you can apply some basic principles to really help define what those timeframes need to look like, so rather than trying to achieve the impossible in just a couple of weeks, you can be a little more strategic.

Firstly, start early and take the time to plan. No one ever had an idea for a project and started it on the same day. You need to outline the objectives, gather the requirements and engage stakeholders. Recruitment is no different and if you jump in with both feet without a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll find very quickly that you don’t find what you’re looking for!

Secondly, you’d never create a project plan without talking to the SME’s, they are the ones that understand the complexities of the project and the time that they will need to deliver. In this case, your recruitment partner is your SME so before you plan how long you think you need to allocate to your recruitment, talk to the experts!

Finally, plan some contingency time. Every project needs some wiggle room and recruitment is no exception. So, whether it’s a three month notice period you weren’t expecting, a holiday mid interview process which slows things down or a counter-offer which pops up, allowing extra time to recruit will help keep things moving and still allow you to onboard someone on time.

Find better candidates

Knowing what you need in the future means that you can consider fantastic people before you need them. Just because their schedule to find a new role doesn’t align exactly with yours, doesn’t mean that they aren’t a great option.

If you give yourself a narrow window for recruitment, you’ll only be able to consider those candidates who are looking for a new role within that time but by scheduling your recruitment requirements over the year, you’ll have visibility of what upcoming needs you have. This will allow you to not only consider the best candidates on the market at the time you’re actively hiring, but also those candidates that are considering a move in the months running up to your process.

So how can you achieve all these benefits and what can you do to be more strategic in your recruitment?

1. Identify what roles you’re going to need to hire.

Include as much detail as you can about what you need, the projects they will work on and the inter-dependencies on other projects.

2. Identify when you need your new hires to make an impact in your team.

You might not need them all now but predicting when in the next 12 months you want them onboarded gives a starting point

3. Identify a recruiter, internal or external, to talk to about the above.

This is the crucial piece and it’s about discussing your plans and long-term requirements with a trusted recruitment partner, not asking people to actively go to market with roles. It’s important to have clarity about the timeframes, when budgets will be signed off and the processes that need to happen. But this is where forward-planning can really make a difference, helping you to reap the benefits of taking a more strategic approach.

If you would like to talk about how you can take a more strategic approach to your recruitment, we offer a consultancy call, no matter what stage you are at on the journey, to discuss what steps you can take to make it work for you.

Reach out to us at nicola@thesearchproject.co.uk