5 Things to Do to Boost Your Proactive Recruitment Strategies

Are you using proactive recruitment strategies in your business?

In a highly competitive and candidate-driven job market, recruiters across various industries might find it easier to keep up with hiring demands by switching from reactive to proactive recruitment. The former can be considered the “traditional” way of recruiting, where companies only look for new employees when there are job openings available.

Meanwhile, proactive recruitment can be considered as the more modern approach, where you look for employees for future roles. This way, you’ll have your choice of the most qualified candidates even before you need them. Ultimately, this results in a smoother hiring experience and lower recruitment costs.

Do note that switching from reactive to proactive recruitment will take some effort. For one, your hiring team should be composed of skilled, agile recruiters who can always stay on task (learn more here).

You should also revise your strategies to accommodate more dynamic, responsive practices. Speaking of which, here are some things you can do to enhance your proactive recruitment strategies:

1. A Good Proactive Recruitment Strategy is to Simplify the Application Process

One of the best assets of any company is an active talent community. However, you won’t be able to attract applicants, much less build a candidate pool, if your application process is too tedious.

Moreover, it simply doesn’t make any sense to make a candidate jump through all the hoops only for you to decline them later on.

The best thing to do here is to ask only for the basics during the early stages of the application. Make it as straightforward as possible with simple requirements.

Then, as the candidate makes it farther along, you can start a deeper dive into their credentials and references. This creates a smoother, more comfortable candidate experience, which will reflect onto both the recruiter and the company.

2. Streamline Your Online Presence

Proactive recruitment means being always available to provide information to candidates. Remember: someone can conduct a job search at literally any time of the day.

If your company and job opening doesn’t come up, you’ll have missed an opportunity to convert. Thus, you need to streamline your online presence so you’ll be visible to candidates 24/7.

The best thing to do is to work on your website SEO first. Be extra particular about anything career- and job-related; use the right keywords so you can always create relevant content.

It is also important to curate your social media feeds. Again, post relevant content to engage both active job seekers and passive candidates. Take advantage of the variety of content and experiment with them to find out which ones receive the best responses. 

It is also a good idea to utilize the business-focused tools of certain social media platforms. These can give you consumer insights, statistics, and other useful data that you can then use to fine-tune your content and boost visibility.

3. Build a Separate Career Site

If your website already has a dedicated careers page, then good! However, have you considered creating a completely separate website that is exclusive for recruitment? Doing this can help your proactive recruitment in a variety of ways, first and foremost by funneling those interested in a career with you to a central location.

Having a standalone career site will also make it easier for job applicants to get in touch with you about existing job openings.

You can also drum up hype about new roles, company news, and other exciting career-oriented updates without overpowering the rest of the company website’s content. Don’t forget to make visitors sign up for email newsletters about job opportunities and similar updates.

4. Put Extra Emphasis on Company Culture

Company culture is a huge factor that influences a person’s decision to join, stay with, or leave a job. If there is someone on the fence or is already unhappy with their current situation, you can entice them to join your company by highlighting your positive culture.

Aside from your values, mission, and vision—which can help candidates relate with your purpose—you should also play up the work-life balance enjoyed by employees. In fact, make sure to gather testimonials from both your current and past team members.

Remember that even the most attractive compensation package is not enough to make someone hold on to a job; fun is also an important component.

5. Find New Approaches to Networking

Networking has always been a crucial part of recruitment, be it in real estate or any other industry. This is accomplished most of the time through events such as conferences, job fairs, and mixers. However, in a proactive approach, the approach is geared towards digital methods.

For example, online communities are a great way to find an active group of people looking for jobs or helping others find opportunities.

There are also social media pages and messaging chat groups where you can find highly engaged communities. Basically, it is better to approach them on a platform where they are already comfortable and where they have the “power,” so to speak. This will make them more receptive to your message.

Finally, remember to always engage, engage, engage. This is the best way to build rapport and nurture a relationship with candidates, so it is easier to convert them when the time comes. Of course, make sure you are engaging through their preferred platform so you can more or less guarantee a positive reception.

Proactive hiring will take some getting used to, but the resulting efficiency, quality, and cost savings are definitely worth the effort!