Voluntary turnover and misemployment cost the U.S. economy a trillion dollars every year. Targeted recruitment is one of the most effective ways to hire qualified talent for your business. This guide will teach you how to choose an effective strategy for targeted recruitment and what its advantages are.
How do you define targeted recruitment?
The term targeted recruitment can also be used to describe selective recruitment. The process involves finding applicants with specific skills or characteristics through proactive recruitment strategies. By identifying certain characteristics of potential candidates, HR professionals and hiring managers can cut down their advertising efforts.
How has recruitment changed from non-targeted to targeted?
Over the years, there have been more niche job boards. They are ideal for targeting specific groups of candidates.
The following are four reasons why companies now adopt targeted recruitment strategies:
- Productivity improvements for the team
- Led to higher company revenues
- Lower turnover
- The commitment of employees increased
How can targeted recruitment be accomplished?
- Recruitment that pays for performance
By using pay-for-performance, organizations target specific candidates who meet their recruitment criteria. A targeted recruitment campaign can increase employee retention and engagement. A lack of proper compensation can lead to contention and jealousy between employees. The fear of a salary cut could also lead employees to provide less feedback on policies.
- College campuses as a source of recruiting
Targeted recruitment strategies are also used by companies that recruit on college campuses. You can find students with entry-level experience by entering into internship and cooperative agreements with college campuses. In addition to saving your company’s recruiters’ time and money, candidates are also eager to learn.
In addition to candidates’ busy schedules, they may have fewer years of experience and they may not be able to work full time.
- Using industry magazines and trade journals
It is still effective to post a job ad in trade journals and industry magazines. The following are some of the main benefits of using trade journals for your recruitment efforts:
- An online version of the journal
- Makes your brand more visible
- Recruitment agencies can negotiate fixed rates when advertising in trade journals
On the other hand, you cannot always control where your job ad appears in a journal and it is hard to track applicant response rates.
Pros of targeted recruitment
Here are six benefits that make targeted recruitment so beneficial:
- Improve the quality of applicants
- Increase diversity in the workplace
- Lower hiring costs
- Reducing hiring time
- Lower turnover
- Bring passive candidates
Cons of targeted recruitment
Based on how you implement your targeted recruitment strategy, you may have fewer diverse candidate pools and different gender responses to your strategy.
Six steps for creating a targeted recruiting strategy
- Research correctly
- Develop personas for candidates
- Define your goals and recruitment strategy
- Use messages to attract prospective candidates
- Write job descriptions with specific details
- Promote your jobs on niche job boards
How does open and targeted recruitment differ?
Open recruitment and targeted recruitment are distinguished primarily by the candidates they target and the fact that each of them focuses on specific positions that are difficult to fill.
There are several compelling reasons why they’re both useful, even if it can be difficult to determine which is best for you. It’s all about knowing how to pick the right one for your needs.
When you need to fill multiple positions and qualifications are not the main focus, open recruiting is ideal. When you’re looking for candidates with specific skills and hiring for positions with specific responsibilities or involving high-level duties, targeted recruiting is the smart choice.
After sourcing candidates, follow these five targeted recruiting steps:
- Define the selection criteria
- Evaluate the application materials
- Test the skills
- Schedule interview
- Onboarding process
In some fields, such as IT, retention may be problematic, and it can be difficult to hire high-quality applicants, but a targeted recruitment strategy is a winning strategy.
Using the steps above, you can increase diversity in your team, hire the right candidate for your vacancy, and reduce your time- and cost-per-hire.
