9 Recruitment Strategies from Highly Successful Recruiters

From social media campaigns to creative job postings, recruiters are always in need of an effective recruitment strategy to attract top talent while facing fierce competition. But sometimes, the best strategy is to learn from the best among your competition and emulate their success instead.

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the recruitment strategies of highly successful recruiters and how they have managed to outdo the competition. These inspiring approaches will help you take your recruitment game to the next level and land the best hires for your organization. So, let's dive in!

Recruitment Strategy 1: Networking With Business Leaders

“I think the biggest thing about how you can prepare for a future-proofing recruitment is making sure you're in those meetings with senior business leaders“ says Jacqueline Abeel, Talent Acquisition Business Partner at The Kraft Heinz Company. “They're able to see what's going to be upcoming and what is the vision for the next few years.”

According to Jacqueline, connecting with business leaders is key to attracting future talent because they have access to and connections with younger talent in their space.

“We have something currently within IT that's called IT 2025. They already have an outlook of what functions are going to need specific roles. So, what I have done is I've partnered with one of those leads to try to work with him on how we can bring future talent in. One of those strategies is to start bringing in people that have just graduated. Start a boot camp and a program so we can start getting that talent.”

Abeel also pointed out the importance of nurturing relationships with developing talent for future opportunities. “Because the thing that we've seen, and we've been missing is - since I've started - I have not hired anyone with under five years of experience. We need to start growing them as soon as they graduate. Because people are going to grow out of these roles. “

Listen to the full recruitment strategy insights from the Kraft Heinz HRBP here.

Recruitment Strategy 2: Prioritize Diversity

“It can be challenging to find diverse candidates because they do not always indicate their gender, race, or nationality on their resumes or social media profiles. “ says Jonathan Kidder, Senior Technical Recruiter at Amazon. “It is essential to look at other indicators such as non-profit connections, association groups, universities, schools, or specific locations to target diverse candidates. “

According to Kidder, having a diverse pool greatly helps keep the recruitment pipeline active.

“My current team tracks all candidates coming through our process, and we have internal goals to hit, particularly when it comes to gender and diverse candidates. Bringing in a diverse pool of candidates is critical for our team.

Listen to the full recruitment strategy insights from the Amazon Recruiter here.

Recruitment Strategy 3: Prepare for the Future

“Today and in the future, talent acquisition will be approached in a different way”, says Brajesh Singh, Director of Talent Acquisition at Capgemini. “Although the metrics remain the same, the methods of achieving them are changing rapidly.”

Brajesh highlighted the importance of building sustainable recruitment pipelines from not only external channels, but also internal sources.

“The elements for future sustainability for talent acquisition include governance and operation, recruitment as the core activity, irresistible experiences, trusted employer brand as messaging, internal mobility, and flexible job models. These are the hard elements that any talent acquisition framework should have to stay competitive beyond 2023.”

Listen to the full recruitment strategy insights from him here.

Recruitment Strategy 4: Virtual Teams and Internal Talent

“Some CHROs, specifically in larger corporations, now understand that they need to push business leaders to offer or think about more virtual teams and work,” says Tim Ackermann, former Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Oda. “Not only with the pandemic in terms of physical location but also in terms of the gig economy. Teams are becoming more liquid - people come from the outside, join a team for a specific point in time, move on, and come back while others move within the organization.

“Another thing that’s getting more attention from CHROs is that talent acquisition is not only an externally focused function. Corporate talent acquisition needs to include the internal talent landscape and skills map. I think it will merge over time with talent development - not in terms of training but in terms of visibility of talent and succession planning. In a lot of corporations, that’s not included at all.”

Listen to the full discussion with Tim Ackermann here.

Recruitment Strategy 5: Nurturing Client Relationships

“The majority of my clients have been with me for at least 10 years, and the same goes for candidates. It takes time to build a steady contingency model, but it can definitely be done.” said Samantha-Leigh Hayward, founder of S. Hayward Consulting.

“My previous boss always referred to meaningful relationships. That’s the key. With my clients, I know the best times to contact them and their working hours. The same goes for candidates. This sets me apart from agencies that come and go. It’s important to have a partnership and a more personal relationship.

“From the start, when you’re meeting and taking down the brief, it’s important to be honest about who you are. If you can find the person, be completely authentic and transparent about it. I find that relationships are built quicker that way. “

Read the full interview with Samatha-Leigh Hayward here.

Recruitment Strategy 6: The Must-Have Hard Skills to Execute

“First, you need to handle all the online tools like the G Suite, you need to understand how an ATS works, for sure LinkedIn, and you need to learn how to do Boolean searches. Many things that probably are not specifically related to interviewing people.” says Fabio C. Sottile, Head of International Talent Acquisition, Glovo.

Fabio talks about how recruiters need to have a lot of hard skills and processes that aren’t about finding or interviewing talent, but are still in use on a daily basis.

“It’s also very important that you start having this mathematical approach. In the past, we were not hired or selected as recruiters by handling data. But that is crucial nowadays. And probably this may sound very basic, but it’s not only a matter of how you extract the data, it’s how you interpret the data. And when you need to interpret data, it’s very important that you’re good at math. If you’re good at statistics, even better. Nonetheless, it’s super important that you understand data, that you can bring insightful data and comments and you can take insightful decisions when it comes to recruiting that are supported by data.

“And then of course you need to have the skill of stakeholder management. Sometimes it’s not everything about presenting the perfect candidate, but also being able to influence your hiring manager with a good candidate and influence your hiring managers to make decisions. So, all in all, I think that’s a combination of all those skills.”

Listen to the full chat with Fabio C. Sottile here.

Recruitment Strategy 7: Preparing for, and Embracing Change

“I would say go back to basics and think about it. People are now struggling with hybrid work and how they’re going to do it. The conversations are already happening about four-day workweeks. Use this experience to document your process, get folks in your organization used to that change, and try to speed up the pace of change so that you can continue to be agile.” says Robert St-Jacques, Director of Legal Talent, Clark Wilson LLP

“When you’re faced with another challenge like the four-day workweek, you can say, ‘Hey, we just handled hybrid work. We had lots of lessons learned. We created this change management process with communication and stakeholder engagement. Now we’re ready to move this through instead of stumbling along.’ Now you can confidently run through it because you have foundational knowledge and skills in agility, an agile mindset, and change management.

“So, then you’re able to roll with these changes. For example, ChatGPT is coming in with AI. How would you adapt to that? If you use current activities like hybrid work as your training wheels or training event and document your processes in terms of change, then you’re more able to meet challenges like ChatGPT or AI.”

Read the full interview with Robert St-Jacques here.

Recruitment Strategy 8:  Scaling Capacity

“I think a big thing that we’re looking at is capacity planning. Knowing what our team is able to deliver, regardless of external factors, like what are the key metrics? And what should we be able to deliver? If we added an additional recruiter, they would be able to deliver this.” says Amber Schwartz, Director of Talent Acquisition at Salesloft; when asked about future-proofing recruitment.

“But I’m taking it one step further and looking at capacity in three ways: people, processes, and technology. Do we have the right roles within our team? Are we specialized or generalized enough to serve the business? Are our processes allowing us to have more capacity? Are they acting as intended? Because processes can be put in place to slow down certain areas or speed up.

“And then the last piece is technology. How do we use technology to give us more capacity? There are a lot of tools on the market today that are allowing teams to think about more responsible scaling or the ability to expand or contract based on business needs at any time.”

Read the full interview with Amber here.

Recruitment Strategy 9: Sales Training

“On the recruiter side, I think there is often a lack of sales training. Whether you’re a delivery consultant or only talking to candidates, if you understand the principles of selling professionally, you don’t push, you pull. That’s about asking the right questions.” says Mike Walmsley from RecruitmentTraining.com.

Mike posits that you can use sales techniques to nail the right fit for roles you have to fill by zeroing in on the right information.

“For instance, if I’m interviewing you, I’ll ask, “What are the five most important things to you in your next career move?” Once you’ve told me it’s a, b, c, d, and e and I have a vacancy that has a, b, c, d, and e and describe it to you, you’re interested straight away.

“You’re less likely to let me down and there are many other reasons why that’s powerful. But that’s a sales technique called establishing a need. So, I find out what you need before I sell you anything and then sell the solution to your need. Therefore, you welcome it because it helps you in your career journey. “

Listen to the full podcast episode featuring Mike Walmsley here.

Conclusion

Recruitment is not a one-size-fits-all process, but a creative and dynamic challenge that requires adapting to the changing needs and preferences of candidates and employers. These strategies will not only help you fill your vacancies faster and more efficiently, but also build a positive reputation and a loyal network of candidates and clients. Remember, recruitment is not just about finding people for jobs, but about creating meaningful connections and lasting relationships.

If you are looking for a tool that can help you implement these strategies and streamline your recruitment process, you should consider Manatal. It is a cloud based Applicant Tracking System (ATS) specifically designed to help recruiters smoothly glide through the hiring process from end to end. Manatal is packed with innovative features, including:

• Candidate Sourcing
• Job boards integration
• AI Recommendations
• Branded Career Page
• Candidate Enrichment
• Recruitment CRM
• Reports & Analytics
• And more.

With Manatal, you can easily manage your candidates, collaborate with your team, and optimize your hiring decisions. Start its 14-day free trial today and discover Mantal’s ability to help you track, identify, and acquire top talents within a few clicks.