How to Create a Recruiting Plan

A recruiting plan in many ways is much like any other plan. To accomplish an important goal, you need a plan. No matter if it is personal or professional. As talented people are the lifeblood of a corporation, a plan to attract and hire top candidates is critical to the success of any organization.

Pre-Planning

Before creating a recruiting plan, there are 2 critical steps, an inventory of resources available and a set of well documented job descriptions for the jobs requiring fulfillment. First we’ll talk about the resources. As in any plan, you need to understand what tools are available so you can work within an appropriate framework. The most elegant plan that does not realistically include resources is an exercise in fiction.

Same goes for a job description. A recruiting plan develops a process of how to attract and hire top candidates. If you don’t have a clear description of a “top candidate” then the plan will lead you to nowhere. You need to have the end in mind. The plan will show you how to get there.

The Plan

With a list or resources in hand and an end in mind, now it is time to fill in the plan. The plan consists of a couple parts,a needs analysis, the methods and processes and the documentation. The needs analysis takes the job description one step further and gives you some idea of the scope of the process required. Is it a short term position or a full time position? Each requires different solutions using different methods and resources.

This leads to the methods and processes which shows how the available resources are to be allocated. It describes everything from creating the job posting to describing the interview process and hiring decisions. These criteria are all described and developed as part of the plan.

Finally, is the documentation. As with any plan the only way to improve on it, is to document what you are doing and diagnose what works and what does not. To improve the plan the successes and failures must be honestly documented. The plan should try to strike a balance between documenting and cumbersome paperwork.

For more information about recruiting plans visit Staffing and Recruiting Essentials.

About the Author;
Trained as an electrical engineer, Tom now applies the process and analysis skills to attracting and hiring top employees for his clients. For those who want to give it a go for themselves, Tom has created http://www.staffing-and-recruiting-essentials.com, a web site for small and medium size business who want to attract and hire great people. Of course the hope is that someday you will want to hire Tom and his company but in the mean time, give it a try yourself or get his free e-book titled, ‘The Top 5 Hiring Mistakes – and What to Do About Them’.