Proactive Recruitment: Key Phases, Benefits, & Strategies

Recruiters are well aware of the challenges in the current hiring market. What we hear from customers is that, with a lack of qualified talent and an abundance of open positions, finding and retaining the best applicants can feel like an uphill battle.

What if we told you there’s a way to work ahead – so that when you do need to hire fresh talent, you’re already a few steps ahead of the competition?

Implementing a proactive recruitment strategy allows you to prepare your talent pool ahead of time.

See how you can get started using this approach today.

What Is Proactive Recruitment?

Proactive recruitment, also referred to as “pipelining,” describes a strategy for sourcing, engaging, and hiring new talent ahead of a rise in hiring demand. Typically, organizations use a reactive approach of posting open positions and waiting for candidates to apply before starting the recruitment process.

This process on its head is to give you a head start – no more scrambling to fill open roles. With proactive recruitment, you’re laying the foundation by building rapport with qualified talent.

Engaging with people before your hiring needs ramp up allows you to generate interest in potential employment opportunities and create a pool of pre-qualified candidates.

Implementing a proactive recruitment strategy offers numerous benefits.

For starters, it radically reduces time spent recruiting talent. Rather than waiting for the best candidates to come to you, your organization takes conscious steps to engage and build relationships with your ideal candidates.

This enables you to forecast your hiring needs more accurately and simplifies the hiring process so you can get top talent onboarded and up to speed quickly.

Overall, this leads to a more positive candidate experience that will help you secure strong employees.

The 5 Phases of Proactive Recruitment

When it comes to proactive recruitment, hiring managers should consider 5 key stages in the process:

Sourcing	Find ideal candidates that fit the kind of skills, experience, and culture you want to cultivate. Start by talking internally about what ideal candidates look like. What certifications or training do they have? Are they open to remote work? How much experience do they have? Creating this profile will help identify the candidates you want to speak with. Intelligent sourcing tools can help you identify and engage with top passive talent.
Engaging	Reach out and initiate conversations with potential candidates. Use social media channels, networking events, or other industry communities to introduce yourself and discuss your organization.
Nurturing	Nurture your relationships with these potential candidates. You don’t want to lay the groundwork and forget to follow up. Nurturing the candidate pool helps keep people engaged and interested in your company so your organization is top of mind when they finally make a move.
Attracting	Take steps to turn prospects into actual candidates.
Converting	Convert candidates into applicants. When roles open up, reach out to pique their interest. Once they’ve applied, provide a positive experience by maintaining transparency about their position in the process. This is how you shine – by showing them you are the employer of choice.

Looking to enhance your recruitment function? Download our comprehensive guide to see how you can get started.

Proactive Recruitment Strategies:

Now that you understand the benefits of proactive recruitment, it’s time to discuss the finer details. Below we’ve highlighted 4 strategies to help you embrace this approach.

Grow your talent pool

It’s likely your organization already has a talent pool you tap into to fill open roles. Work on continuously expanding your pool with future candidates to draw upon.

How? By leveraging networking opportunities, industry events, and industry-related communities to find and engage with people.

Find the spaces where your ideal candidates are interacting, and reach out to form connections. Sourcing technology like Visage can also help you engage with potential candidates across a variety of locations, like:

• Job fairs
• Conferences
• Facebook groups
• Slack channels
• LinkedIn communities
• Sourcing technologies
• Alumni offices at colleges and universities

While this list is not exhaustive, it does provide a good starting point.

Pro-tip: engaging with candidates in niche communities like professional groups and targeted social communities can yield better results because they see less competition among recruiters.

Focus on employer brand and visibility

To firmly establish yourself as an employer of choice, work on demonstrating your values, beliefs, and goals as a brand.

Before a candidate applies for a job, you can be certain they will do their own due diligence to research your organization. Make sure you’re broadcasting a brand that resonates with your intended audience.

Update your social media profiles to reflect your values as an enterprise. Leverage employee testimonials and “behind the scenes” posts to show what working at your organization is like. Talk about the kinds of benefits you offer your teams or give examples of your corporate social responsibility measures.

Boosting your online presence helps attract and nurture more talent and enhances your SEO.

 

Engage potential candidates via targeted content

The content your organization creates can (and should!) be leveraged to engage and attract potential candidates.

It’s a great way to showcase your expertise and products and it can also help keep your company at the forefront of candidates’ minds.

Vary the kind of content you offer with videos, blog posts, webinars, white papers, and company newsletters/updates. This can be an excellent way to continue building your established relationships.

Make the application process easy

Your application process can make or break your ability to convert candidates into applicants.

A long, tedious process may deter applicants, so be sure to streamline what you can and create a simple application. Searching for a new job is hard, so reduce the friction for your candidates by eliminating unnecessary or repetitive steps.

Your proactive recruitment strategy should center around finding the right person for the role rather than just filling an opening.

Taking measures to source, engage, and attract qualified candidates on the front end can reduce the strain and stress on your team when your hiring needs increase.

Get started on expanding your recruitment efforts today! Reach out to our team at Visage to learn how our intelligent solutions can support your talent acquisition needs.

Proactive Recruitment with Visage

Following these tips can help you create a successful proactive recruitment strategy to identify top talent for your company.

However, using a quality software platform like Visage can further simplify this process by automating logistics, organizing contact information, and streamlining recruiting workflows.

Our platform offers the following premium features:

• Automated follow-up
• Robust analytics and reporting
• Compatible with most tech stacks
• Templates for email outreach
• Outreach and candidate comms tracking

… and more.

For more information on how to source and secure better candidates with our premium software platform, visit visage.jobs!