Key takeaways
- Examples of effective recruitment strategies include developing a positive employer brand, optimizing job postings, and refining strategies using data and analytics from recruitment software.
- A tactical recruitment strategy should detail the steps to attracting top talent and align with your company’s values and vision.
- Recruitment software solutions like an applicant tracking system and onboarding software can streamline your talent acquisition efforts.
- January 27, 2025: Irene Casucian reviewed the information on this page and updated the strategies to factor in data analytics and recruitment software. She also added software examples to help execute your recruiting strategy effectively.
- Alex Ugarte, Operations Manager at London Office Space
- Stephanie Alston, Founder and CEO of BGG Enterprises
What are the most successful recruitment strategies?
Here are the top recruiting strategies to attract and hire qualified candidates:
- Develop a clear employer brand.
- Tailor your job posts to reflect your company’s values and culture.
- Strategize using data and analytics from recruitment software.
- Use social media to target talent.
- Explore niche job boards.
- Revisit silver medalist candidates.
- Consider college recruiting.
- Host or attend industry events and job fairs.
- Make interviews engaging.
- Implement an employee referral program.
1. Develop a clear employer brand
Your brand affects candidates’ perception of you as an employer and shows them why they should (or shouldn’t) work for you. Employer branding should reflect your business’s mission, culture, and values.
Here’s a strong example from a technology company, Bolt:
In this video, Bolt demonstrates a clear employer brand by showcasing its efforts to grow the company and showing how employees can develop their careers within the company.
When developing your hiring materials, think about questions such as:
- Why would someone want to work for this company?
- Does your company support a diverse workforce?
- Does your company sponsor community outreach or other efforts for meaningful work?
- What percentage of your current employees would recommend your company as a great place to work?
Once you have answers to these questions, check that your business’s “about” page, social media profiles, and advertisements align with your branding and recruitment plan.
2. Tailor your job posts to reflect your company’s values and culture
A job post is one of the first impressions the candidate will have of your company. It’s an early opportunity to establish a reputation for being organized and professional while showcasing your company culture and employee value proposition (EVP).
For example, Zapier links to its culture and values, code of conduct, and diversity and inclusion pages in every single job posting so that applicants will know what the company is about. By employing a similar strategy, you will attract qualified candidates who are better aligned with your company values.
Aside from establishing your reputation as an employer, job listings are also an opportunity to showcase the employee benefits your company offers. These benefits let job seekers know that you value your employees’ well-being. Benefits and perks like flexible work arrangements, professional development opportunities, and wellness programs highly appeal to candidates. Highlighting these benefits showcases your commitment to employee well-being and inclusivity.
Because job posts play a huge role in attracting qualified candidates, remember to do a final editing pass to confirm that your job descriptions align with your company’s branding. Look at things such as color, typography, and logo to convey professionalism before posting.
3. Strategize using data and analytics from recruitment software
Leveraging recruitment software to aid in your hiring processes gives you access to hiring analytics that you wouldn’t otherwise have easily. For example, you can identify the most effective job boards for attracting qualified candidates, understand the average time-to-hire for different positions, and determine which stages of the recruitment process may be causing delays. This data-driven approach allows you to optimize your recruitment efforts, reduce hiring time, and ensure you are sourcing the best talent.
JazzHR‘s talent analytics enhances your recruiting process by generating real-time updates and detailed reports that provide actionable insights, particularly through its visual reporting. These tools can help you see candidate progression through different recruiting stages, identify the most effective sourcing avenues, and understand the efficiency of your hiring workflows. The platform eliminates manual data collection and centralizes all candidate data for easy access.
4. Use social media to find talent
Nowadays, you can find quality talent from LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. It’s also important to focus on sharing content that reflects your company’s values. Current employees can also share job vacancies on their social media networks, which will then reach people in their network who may be potential candidates.
Greenhouse integrates with LinkedIn to pull in promising candidates without switching platforms. You can source top passive talent directly from LinkedIn by posting live job openings on your account. You can also schedule posts to social media directly within Greenhouse to boost your recruitment efforts and display your company brand.
By leveraging social media platforms like LinkedIn, you can exceed the reach of traditional channels such as print ads of job fairs. It gives you access to a vast and diverse audience. This process improves candidate relationship management and attracts a broader pool of candidates.
Learn more about leveraging social media for recruitment in our in-depth article on social recruiting.
5. Explore niche job boards
If your company falls into a smaller, more defined industry, try looking into recruitment marketing on niche job boards. These are smaller job sites devoted to a specific niche industry—like Dice, which is dedicated to technology jobs—that often have a community of job seekers and recruiters.
You can also find job boards that increase visibility for women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ applicants, and other marginalized groups. Posting to these job boards helps cultivate a diverse talent pool and reach prospective employees who may not otherwise see your job opening.
Using an applicant tracking system (ATS) with lots of job board integrations can make it easier to find and post to these specific job boards, speeding up the recruiting process. For instance, recruiters can connect BreezyHR to platforms like Diversity, Après, and JobBoard.lgbt to widely promote job openings with just a few clicks.
6. Revisit silver medalist candidates
Just because a job candidate wasn’t the right fit for one role in the past doesn’t mean they won’t be perfect for a different job opening in the future.
With the help of BambooHR, your hiring team can have an extensive database of resumes from previous job openings. It has a dedicated talent pool feature to save and revisit prospects for future roles. Your team can search through these talent pools using keywords and screening rules to find candidates who are qualified for your current roles.
Learn more about this feature by watching this video.
Find out who passive candidates are and learn effective strategies to recruit them in our detailed article.
7. Consider college recruiting
College campus recruiting can help you discover emerging professionals in a particular industry, while also aligning your company with internship hiring opportunities and campus connections. You can grow your college candidate pool in many ways, including attending career fairs or job fairs, volunteering to speak at events for your industry, and being featured on campus online job boards.
For example, Salesforce’s Futureforce University initiative helps college students find internships and entry-level roles within the company. But you don’t need to dedicate an entire team of recruiters to finding newly graduated talent—start with just one candidate recruiter and build your program from there.
8. Host or attend industry events and job fairs
Attending local career events and job fairs can connect your company with job candidates from a broader range of backgrounds. Hosting these events not only increases your exposure to potential hires but also fosters connections with fellow businesses in the area.
Alex Ugarte, Operations Manager at London Office Space, found success in job fair recruitment, as mentioned in his statement below:
“Being in the commercial property sector, our most effective recruitment strategy has been the combination of targeting industry networking events with post-event LinkedIn outreach. The blended approach means we can engage directly with potential candidates who already possess the specialized skills and industry knowledge we require.”
An ATS with a mobile hiring app like SmartRecruiters makes it easier to add candidate information and upload resumes onsite, enabling your team to move a job seeker through the recruiting process as quickly as possible. Additionally, hosting industry events positions your company as a leader in the field, attracting top talent and increasing your visibility in the job market.
9. Make interviews engaging
While your employer brand can create a positive impression in candidates’ minds, interviews play a crucial role in either confirming or altering their expectations. Poorly conducted interviews can cause candidates to doubt their decision to apply while engaging interviews make candidates feel valued and respected.
Some ways to improve the interview experience include:
- Starting interviews on time.
- Encouraging a two-way conversation.
- Allowing candidates to ask questions and receive feedback.
- Facilitating interactions with current employees to give candidates a feel for the team environment.
- Treating candidates like customers by highlighting your company’s EVP.
You should also be on the lookout for any unconscious hiring bias that might lead your HR team to unfairly overlook an otherwise qualified candidate. Standardizing interview questions and having an objective rating system will help your team avoid this when interviewing diverse candidates and making your final job offer selections.
10. Implement an employee referral program
Employee referral programs allow existing employees to endorse qualified candidates for open positions within your business. These programs usually offer rewards such as gift cards or cash bonuses to encourage employee participation.
As a result, you can source qualified candidates with minimal effort from your recruiting team. That’s why companies like Accenture offer substantial bonuses for referring employees who are hired—up to $20,000 for “hot jobs” that are difficult to fill and $1,000–5,000 for other jobs. Referral programs also often improve the most important recruiting metrics, including time to hire, cost per hire, quality of hire, and retention rate.
Stephanie Alston, CEO of BGG Enterprises, also believes in the effectiveness of the employee referral program in her statement:
“In the construction industry, employee referrals have proven to be the most effective recruitment strategy. This method leverages the networks of current employees, often leading to high-quality hires who are more likely to fit well within the company culture.”
However, referral programs can sometimes impede diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recruitment efforts if employees are only referring candidates who are from a similar demographic or background. To promote diversity in the referral program, it may be beneficial to increase the reward value for referrals who are from an underrepresented group.
Why does a recruitment strategy matter?
Recruitment strategies ensure that your company values, business mission, and overall hiring goals are aligned with the day-to-day actions of a recruiting team. Without recruiting strategies, your hiring process will be inefficient and you won’t get the most qualified candidates possible.
Recruitment strategy FAQs
A recruitment strategy is a thorough plan outlining how you intend to attract and hire top talent. It should clearly define the ideal candidates and specify steps to attract them. An effective hiring strategy is paramount for meeting specific headcount goals. It allows you to execute your strategic long-term objectives, such as increasing innovation, profit, and brand visibility. Without a well-defined hiring strategy, your recruitment process can become inefficient.
To set a recruitment goal, you must first identify areas for improvement. For instance, maybe you would like to shorten the length of the recruiting process or make your job applications more inclusive.
Next, choose a key performance indicator (KPI) that will allow you to track your progress over time. If you’re trying to improve hiring efficiency, you might choose the time-to-hire metric as your KPI. With this KPI, you can implement initiatives, like referral programs, email drip campaigns, and automated workflows to speed up your hiring pipeline progression.
The most important recruiting KPIs will vary somewhat from company to company and should be based on your recruitment goals and ideal candidate personas. Some of the most common recruiting KPIs to track include application completion rate, cost-per-hire, time-to-hire, first-year job turnover, and number of qualified candidates.
You can measure the effectiveness of your recruitment strategies by tracking your progress over time. Most ATS platforms automatically track various metrics and put all that data into a reporting dashboard so that you can see how your hiring team is performing frequently.
For even better results, your team should proactively set recruiting goals and work toward meeting them, rather than only tracking their progress after the fact.
In addition to implementing effective recruitment strategies, recruitment software can help at every stage of the hiring process by posting job descriptions, emailing applicants, and sorting candidate resumes.
What’s more, recruiting tools automate repetitive tasks, freeing up your talent acquisition team to spend their time and effort on more valuable activities like conducting interviews and sourcing new talent.
