Recruiting Employees - What Recruitment Methods Work Best?

In today's business world, it is more important than ever for companies to find effective ways of recruiting employees. With the cost of labor rising, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to simply hire someone from a pool of applicants. They may want to look at alternative means of recruiting such as hiring outside consultants. By learning what ways other companies are recruiting for your company, you can use these same techniques to your own company.

What you will find to do differently than your competition: describe how companies use various methods to recruit new employees. Recruiting employees through classified ads, posting jobs with local employment agencies, or utilizing social media may sound like common sense, but many companies continue to use these methods even when there are proven methods of recruiting employees that work better. A comprehensive discussion of the best and worst practices regarding recruitment will help you set yourself apart from your competition.

When should you hire an outside consultant? If you have already done the research necessary to understand effective recruiting, you should be able to tell when you are already at a disadvantage. One of the most obvious indicators of a recruiting disadvantage is that you are not hiring the best candidates for the position. Another common method of recruiting employees that is considered a disadvantage is advertising in traditional media. Both of these options may prove to be costly and ineffective, so if you are struggling with finding new employees, it may be time to enlist the aid of an external recruiter.

Who should be recruited? When you identify a competitive advantage, such as strong connections, it is likely that there are a limited number of qualified candidates. The only way to increase your chances of finding qualified candidates is by recruiting employees through a process that maximizes your ability to select only the most desirable candidates for your opening. External recruiters are skilled at putting together a recruiting process that targets candidates with both a desire to work for your company and a skill set that will allow them to succeed.

How do you choose the right recruiting channels? While it is possible to recruit through any existing source, some companies prefer to focus their resources on a few selected recruiting channels. Some companies choose to use only job websites, while others choose to limit their search to job boards, specific industry groups, and/or professional societies. Using one or a combination of these sources will help your recruiting efforts, because each of these recruiting channels will offer you a limited pool of candidates.

Will your company benefit from outside recruitment? Yes. If your company focuses its resources on recruiting well-qualified candidates who are not currently represented within your workplace, it will likely experience recruiting success. Even if you hire several experienced candidates, you can still make your job-board more effective by using outside recruitment. There are many benefits to external recruitment: it can save your company money by not having to pay salary to full-time employees, and it can give you access to candidates who are not located in your immediate geographical area. However, companies should be cautious about using external recruitment for all of their hiring needs: candidates may not have the same level of skill as an existing employee, they may lack your company's culture, and they may not have the same work ethic as your current employees.