According to Gallup, US businesses lose a trillion dollars each year owing to voluntary turnover and mis-hires, implying that these losses are self-inflicted.
Employee replacement can be costly and have a negative impact on team morale. However, targeted recruitment is one strategy to hire quality people that suits your organization and lowers attrition rates.
Below, we discuss how focused recruiting will show you instances of targeted staffing solutions as well as their benefits. It will also cover the legality and ethics of targeted recruitment and how to put together a focused recruitment strategy quickly.
Targeted Staffing Solutions in a Nutshell
Targeted recruitment, also known as selective recruiting, entails employing proactive recruitment tactics to locate candidates with specific talents or qualities or dwell in a particular place.
Targeted recruitment helps HR experts and hiring managers to narrow down their advertising efforts by finding critical qualities related to a job description.
When you choose this technique, you will need to prepare more before setting up interviews with prospects, and there will be more procedures involved.
The following are the four main goals of targeted recruitment:
- Acquire organizational expertise in a specific field.
- Increase the number and quality of candidates, particularly for positions that are difficult to fill.
- Ascertain that the organization represents a diverse range of people.
- Reduce the per-hire cost.
A targeted recruitment strategy is a preset plan to publicize job openings in specific locations and ways to attract candidates with particular experience, abilities, or traits.
The aim and goals of a well-targeted recruitment plan are highly defined, and data is used to track ROIs. The program must effectively market to the type of individual an employer is looking for. It must be deployed in the areas where the target candidates live, work, and go online. A targeted plan must include frequently posting and publicizing current opportunities and including possible candidates in the process from the beginning.
Some businesses prefer to engage a recruitment agency or utilize recruiting software specializing in targeted marketing to save time and money (and ensure that it is done lawfully).
Targeted vs Open: The Two Types of Recruitment
As a recruiter, you may have observed an increase in the number of specialist job boards over the years.
As a result, companies are increasingly using focused recruitment techniques for four reasons:
- Boosting team productivity and company profitability.
- Reducing employee turnover.
- Increasing employees’ commitment.
- Reflecting how important representation is to a company.
Because it focuses on pre-selected and qualified applicants rather than a large pool of underqualified or indifferent applicants, targeted recruiting is efficient and allows the hiring budget to go further. Targeted recruitment also enables a company to establish a valuable brand presence in a specific, useful area, whether geographically or in a specialized industry.
Open recruiting (also known as open hiring) is the process of hiring people without regard for their unique talents, histories, or demographics. For example, people with a history of criminal convictions, homelessness, or a lack of work experience may be hired through open recruiting.
Open recruiting aims to give those who have often overlooked a chance to work in jobs that do not require a certain skill set.
More than just broadening the applicant pool is one of the advantages of open recruitment. Other advantages include:
- Improved diversification and employee retention (open hires often appreciate being given the work opportunity).
- A faster recruitment process.
- The local communities support it.
Why Targeted Staffing Solutions Fare Better Than Open Recruitment
Targeted recruitment has a number of advantages that make it a smart strategy to use at your firm.
- Establish your brand: Targeted staffing solutions, for starters, allow you to establish your employer’s brand in front of a specific, high-value group of individuals. You may establish a strong employment brand image in the healthcare area by developing a recruitment strategy that targets healthcare professionals like full-time or per-diem nurses, for example. Healthcare professionals will see your job advertising if your targeting is good and your message is appropriate, and as a result, they will become more familiar with your brand over time.
- Successfully place candidates for difficult-to-fill positions: Developing efficient targeted staffing solutions can assist your organization in filling difficult-to-fill positions. In typical open job postings, the easiest-to-fill positions generally receive a disproportionate amount of applicant volume, while the hardest-to-fill positions receive few (if any!) candidates. This is addressed via targeted recruitment, which eliminates the “post and prays” approach associated with a job posting.
- Receive relevant applications: Suppose you can be explicit about the qualifications that potential candidates must meet to see your job ad. In that case, you can be confident that the applications you receive will be qualified and precisely what you’re looking for.
- Guarantee cost-efficient and effective results: Focusing your advertising efforts on quality over quantity ensures your money is spent on people who meet your specific requirements. Every dollar spent on recruitment advertising becomes even more helpful when you focus your search on a small group of candidates. Because you can better plan your expenditure and thus allow for a better distribution of applications, targeted recruiting will enable you to manage your budget more effectively and minimize your cost-per-hire.
Knowing Your Targeted Staffing Solutions
Pay-for-performance, recruiting on college campuses, leveraging trade journals and industry magazines, and tapping a reputable targeted recruiting firm are the types of focused recruitment tactics you might utilize. Each of these tactics has its own set of benefits and drawbacks.
Pay-for-performance
Advertisers can better target their prospective employees via pay-for-performance recruitment media. Advertisers can pay for clicks or applications instead of paying for a duration-based advertisement or slot, guaranteeing that their advertising dollars are spent on meaningful interactions with job searchers.
You can do the following with the pay-for-performance strategy:
- Increase retention by hiring high-quality employees.
- Boost employee morale by increasing staff engagement.
- Make your company’s goals stand out.
Keep in mind, however, some of the drawbacks of pay-for-performance:
- It might lead to resentment and jealousy among staff.
- Employees may be hesitant to submit input on policies for fear of losing their jobs.
- It emphasizes the quantity of work completed rather than the quality of work completed.
College recruitments
Companies that recruit via college campuses are also using a targeted recruitment strategy. For example, this strategy might involve entering into internship cooperative education agreements with colleges.
Making internship and cooperative agreements with college campuses will help you source students with entry-level experience whom you can consider for vacancies in your business.
The following are some of the benefits of recruitment on college campuses:
It can help your organization save money on hiring charges.
- Candidates will bring some useful abilities to their new position (such as social media knowledge and technology skills)
- Candidates are eager to learn and improve their abilities.
However, keep in mind some of the downsides of recruiting on college campuses:
- There will be fewer years of job experience among the candidates.
- Candidates’ schedules may prevent them from working full-time.
Leverage trade journals
Using trade journals allows you to target specific applications. Post a job ad in a journal that corresponds to your sector and personalize your messaging to prospects who read the journals you pick to recruit utilizing trade journals and industry periodicals.
Three significant benefits of using trade periodicals are:
- In addition to their printed editions, trade journals that offer online versions of their publications expand the reach of your job ad among target prospects looking for openings.
- Your brand will be reflected in trade periodicals, which will help to raise awareness of your brand.
- When advertising in trade periodicals, recruitment agencies might establish fixed charges and special rates.
However, take in mind the following:
- There may be no online copies of some trade periodicals.
- It is tough to keep track of application response rates.
- You do not always have control over where your job ad appears in a journal or magazine.
Tapping a recruitment firm
Hiring is a lengthy process requiring a significant amount of time and resources. Using the knowledge of recruiters is one option to relieve some of this stress.
There may be other advantages along the road, such as:
- Quick access to a qualified prospect pool: Unlike in-house recruiters, who are only active when a position becomes available, recruiters are busy all year. As a result, they usually have a network of qualified specialists that they may recommend to you when you approach them.
- A Quick Hiring Process: The recruiting firm will handle the nitty-gritty, which claims to place fresh applicants faster than in-house hiring.
- Profits and Savings: You save time and rapidly onboard new A-players when the recruitment process is completed promptly. You can take on new accounts and work on existing ones faster and more efficiently with fresh blood on the team. This additional clientele enables you to maximize efficiency and increase company profitability.
To Wrap It Up
For companies with trouble filling open specialist positions, targeted recruiting firms can help quickly search and hire top talents, boost company efficiency, and increase profitability.