What is a recruitment plan?

A recruiting plan documents your company’s strategy for attracting and hiring employees. It defines step-by-step processes for each part of recruitment and hiring. Think of it as a road map that simplifies the process whenever you have an open position. Everyone involved in the hiring process, including human resources, hiring managers and recruiters, can refer to your recruiting plan for guidance. By preplanning your recruiting strategies, goals and processes, you can hire faster and more effectively.

Why your organization needs a recruiting plan

Recruitment plans primarily benefit the people involved in hiring and recruiting. However, they indirectly benefit the entire company by improving your hires. Here are some benefits of having a customized, detailed recruit plan in place:

• Saves time. A recruitment plan creates a set process for handling open positions. This means you’re ready to recruit as soon as you have a vacancy, instead of wasting time deciding how to handle the process.
• Creates consistency. It creates consistency in your recruiting because all hiring managers use the plan when searching for new employees.
• Improves candidate quality. When you think through the entire process, your interview processes and onboarding improve, which can help you find better candidates who stay with your company longer.
• Reduces costs. You can save money when you streamline your processes and speed up the hiring process. By finding a candidate that fits the position well, you can improve retention. This cuts down on repeated hiring costs.
• Eases stress. Having the process laid out clearly cuts down on stress for hiring managers and HR. Making the job less stressful can help retain those existing team members.
• Helps you meet specific goals. Your organization might have larger goals, such as increasing diversity or adding new skill sets to the team. With a recruiting plan, you can focus your activities on meeting those hiring goals.
• Improves the candidate experience. A faster hiring timeline keeps job seekers interested. Consistent, well-defined practices can also make the process smoother for candidates. Giving them an improved candidate experience helps them develop a positive opinion of your company, which can improve how they feel about you as an employer if they get the job.

How to create a recruiting plan

Recruitment plans contain similar information, but they should be highly tailored to your organization to make it effective. Follow these steps to help you customize your recruiting plan.

1. Assess your organization’s needs

Start by reviewing the current state of your recruitment process and upcoming hiring needs. This includes things like expected growth, anticipated employee turnover and new positions you might need to meet your company’s goals. Look for skill gaps in each department to shape your strategy for strengthening the overall organization.

It can also help to look at your current recruiting and hiring metrics to understand where you are. Look at data such as:

• Time to hire
• Candidate sources
• Offer acceptance rates
• Cost per hire
• Retention rates
• Diversity of your hires

You can also ask for feedback from job candidates, new hires, managers and coworkers. All this information helps you identify potential areas you need to address in your recruit plan. For example, looking at candidate and new hire sources can help you target the most effective places to find job seekers. A look at your cost per hire can determine if you’re using your recruiting budget wisely or need to cut costs.

2. Identify your recruiting goals

Consider your goals for the company and your recruiting process specifically. Are you trying to increase diversity, save money on the hiring process, improve employee retention or something else? Refer to the analytics to help you with this step. You can also look for input from everyone involved in the hiring process. They might offer unique perspectives from different parts of the process. Keep these goals as the focus of your plan.

3. Create a hiring timeline

Your recruitment plan also needs a hiring timeline and recruitment calendar. This requires you to forecast hiring needs and anticipate when you’ll need to fill the openings. You might know you’ll need more customer service agents before your busy holiday season, for example. With this timeline, you can fill in your recruiting calendar, so you’ll have ample time to recruit and hire for each position.

It’s also helpful to create a general timeline for filling a position. This should start with identifying the opening by giving the selected candidate a job offer. It should include all steps that need to take place. This might include:

• Submitting a requisition
• Writing the job post
• Setting the application deadline
• Posting the job
• Screening the applications
• Holding initial interviews
• Completing additional pre-employment screening
• Holding final interviews
• Sending a job offer

Your process might involve additional steps, or you might not need all of the above-listed steps. Once you have the steps listed, assign a timeframe for them. For instance, day one might be submitting the job requisition followed by a week for writing and posting the job description. This helps managers understand the deadlines for their duties and gives them a realistic look at when they can expect a new team member to be hired.

4. Develop strong job descriptions

Strong job descriptions for upcoming hiring needs play a crucial role in your recruitment plans. They attract job seekers with the qualifications you need and help generate excitement about working for your company. You should have a job description on file for every current position within your company. Review those existing job descriptions to ensure they still reflect the duties of the job.

Then, spruce up your existing job descriptions to make them more appealing to candidates. Use language that conveys your company’s brand and core values to attract applicants who appreciate those characteristics. You can also create new job descriptions for newly anticipated vacancies, so you’re prepared when those jobs get posted. You might need to adjust job descriptions slightly for future vacancies, but having accurate base descriptions on hand makes the process faster.

5. Identify appropriate recruiting tools

Choosing appropriate recruitment tools saves your hiring managers time. Applicant tracking systems are common, allowing you to create a database and easily screen applications. They come with a range of features, often including interviewing, communication and onboarding tools. This lets you keep everything in one location where everyone can access it easily.

Other helpful recruitment tools include:

• Social media platforms for promoting openings
• AI software to help with job posts
• Chatbots to automate candidate communication
• Collaboration software for discussions between team members involved in hiring
• Onboarding software
• Interviewing and testing software

Once you decide on the tools you’ll use, set guidelines and expectations for using them. This creates consistency and ensures everyone uses them appropriately. Training staff members who use the recruitment tools also helps everyone use them effectively.

6. Choose candidate sourcing methods

Another important part of recruiting is deciding where to find candidates. Having a variety of candidate sourcing methods helps you draw a broad range of talent and can help you find people who match your requirements. Some sourcing options include:

• Job boards
• Employee referrals
• Recruiting agencies
• Networking in your industry
• Professional industry organizations
• Social media
• Paid advertising
• Colleges and universities
• Job fairs

Consider past success with each method to identify your top choices. Sourcing methods might change based on the type of position. You might find better candidates for a highly skilled, technical position by using a specialized headhunter service or networking with members of a professional organization. For a less specialized position, such as an administrative assistant, you might have better luck with job boards or employee referrals.

7. Create selection and interview processes

Selecting and interviewing candidates seems simple, but it’s a crucial part of finding new hires who fit well in your organization. Establishing specific steps to select and interview job seekers helps create consistency across departments.

This starts by deciding how you’ll screen the applications. Set expectations and provide specific methods that hiring managers or recruiters should use. For instance, if you’re using an applicant tracking system, you can automate the screening process by checking for certain education levels or keywords listed in the resume. Screening tests might also be part of the process.

Your plan should also outline the number and type of interviews conducted for each position. You might start with a phone screening interview followed by two rounds of in-person or virtual interviews. Include expectations for each stage. You might outline what types of questions to ask in phone interviews or discuss one-on-one versus panel interviews.

8. Define your onboarding process

Employee onboarding should start as soon as a candidate accepts a job offer. Write an onboarding plan that outlines how you’ll help new employees integrate into your organization. Onboarding goes beyond new employee training and includes preparing workstations, welcoming employees, assigning mentors, introducing them to their colleagues and helping them become familiar with the company culture.