What is a recruitment drive?

Recruitment drives are similar to donation drives that a charity might have. A charity has specific goals for the donations it needs and hosts special events to encourage more donations than normal. The difference is that with a recruitment drive, you’re pushing for an influx of job applicants to fill vacant positions.

A recruitment drive is a focused hiring initiative designed to help you find the talent you need. You typically cast a wide net by promoting your openings through various channels. It includes all the same stages as the typical recruiting and hiring process, such as candidate sourcing, screening, interviewing, hiring and onboarding.

Benefits of a recruitment drive

A job drive can benefit your company in many ways, including:

• Address staffing issues: A targeted hiring campaign can help you meet a specific hiring need with a structured approach that fills a gap in your staff.

• Greater talent: When you ramp up your recruiting efforts and promote openings widely, you’re likely to get more applicants than usual. This could offer more diversity in the applicants and help you find people with the specific skills you need.

• Faster hiring: If you’re hiring for multiple positions, you can source, screen and interview several candidates in a short time. You can often find several new employees in the group, allowing you to fill several positions with one recruiting drive.

• Brand recognition: A major push to hire new employees can put you on the radar of people who haven’t heard of your company before. It can expand brand recognition and encourage more people to apply for future openings.

• Future talent pool: Even after you’ve hired for the position, you can keep those applications on file to build a talent pool to tap into the next time you’re hiring.

What strategies are used for recruitment drives?

When you’re holding a recruitment drive, you’re trying to reach a large number of candidates at once. This often means using multiple strategies. You can implement some or all of the following ideas:

• Host a hiring open house

• Post a job on Indeed

• Design paid advertising campaigns

• Create and post a strategic social media campaign to pique interest and encourage people to apply

• Reach out to your network

• Get your employees involved with new incentives in your employee referral program

• Set up at job fairs and campus recruiting events

• Use Indeed Hiring Events

How to conduct job drives

Your first job drive might take a little trial and error. These steps can make it easier to get started if you’ve never done one before.

1. Puttogether a recruitment drive team

Recruitment drives involve several different strategies to get the best results. Having a team working on the drive helps share the workload and provides you with different perspectives. The people you include on the team might vary. The human resources team is typically involved in all recruiting efforts.

You might also include hiring managers and people from the teams you’re hiring for. For example, say you’re expanding your marketing team. Someone from the team could bring marketing-specific expertise to the recruiting process.

2. Identify your needs and objectives

You might have a general idea of what roles you’re hiring for, but it can help to drill down even more to target your recruitment drive efforts. Start with an overall goal for the drive, such as hiring a team for a new initiative you’re launching or getting your customer service team fully staffed before the holiday rush.

Identify the specific roles you need to hire for. You can review the job descriptions to pick out the key qualifications the candidates need to succeed. Knowing what you needhelps you craft ads and recruitment drive materials that attract people with those characteristics.

3. Choose your methods

Decide on the recruitment methods you’ll use for the drive. Consider your hiring needs and budget when choosing the methods. You might think about the strategies you already use that are effective and expand by adding new methods. These methods might change over time or based on the specific openings you have. Check the metrics from each recruitment drive to see which methods produce the best results.

4. Create aplan

The information you’ve gathered helps you put it all together into a recruitment drive plan. Use this document as a way to organize your efforts. You might also include your timeline for the recruitment process to help you fill the positions quickly. Break down the steps in the drive, such as promoting the opening, sourcing candidates and interviewing.

Tips for a successful recruitment drive

Your basic recruitment drive plan gives you a good start. These tips can help you refine the process for even better results.

• Ensure you maintain quality: The focused energy of a recruitment drive encourages fast decisions, but you don’t want to rush the process. Use standardized checklists, hiring teams and other strategies to ensure you’re maintaining quality throughout the process.

• Focus on the candidate experience : Make efforts to help candidates feel connected to your team with regular communication. Simplifying the process can improve the candidate experience. Positive experiences can keep applicants interested and encourage them to stay with your company longer.

• Prepare for the next steps: Recruitment drives don’t stop after you attract applicants. It continues through onboarding . Plan ahead for your interview processes, including how you’ll select interviewees and what types of interviews you’ll conduct. Have your onboarding process ready to go before you start the drive to help your new employees transition easily.

• Evaluate your work: You can collect metrics on your recruitment activities to evaluate your success. Compare the analytics from your recruiting drive to your usual hiring process to see if it’s more productive. Getting feedback from participants gives you their perspective, so you can adjust the process to make it more jobseeker-friendly.

FAQs about recruitment drives

How long do recruitment drives last?

Recruitment drives can last any duration to meet your hiring needs, from one day to weeks or months.How long your drive lasts can depend on your needs, including how many positions you’re hiring for. The job requirements can also impact the timing. Complex jobs with specific requirements that are challenging to find might take longer.

What type of technology can help with recruitment drives?

Many of your existing technology options can help with recruitment drives. Applicant tracking systems help you manage information about the job seekers you meet during the drive. They can also help you screen resumes and communicate with applicants. Video conferencing can come in handy if you want to conduct virtual interviews.

Do recruitment drives focus on external candidates?

Job drives can attract both internal and external candidates. Internal recruiting can help create consistency and support a smooth transition. Some positions might require specialized skills, which you don’t always have on your existing team. In those cases, external candidates might be a better target.