How to Develop a Recruitment Plan for a New Business

A well-crafted recruitment plan is crucial to your business.

If you are looking to see in your applicant repository a broad pool of highly qualified talents that can help you achieve the objectives of your new business, it is essential that you develop a solid recruitment plan. A thorough analysis of the jobs you need to fill is essential to develop a workable recruitment plan. An inadequate recruitment plan can result in a talent shortage and can even affect your new business's profitability.

Instructions

1. Make a list of vacant positions and the number of employees you want to hire per department. Prepare job descriptions and responsibilities for all the positions. If a job requires any specialized technical skills, describe it. Search different online job sites and see how other companies have given job descriptions for jobs similar to yours. Use them if they fit your job requirements. You can also call up friends working in corporate human resources departments for ideas on describing job responsibilities.

2. Describe the qualifications and characteristics a candidate must possess to be considered for the job. Use online job sites and seek opinions from friends working in such jobs or those experienced in hiring such people.

3. Decide whether you need local or national-level advertisement for the jobs. You may want to consider a national-level advertisement for executive-level jobs and local advertising for entry-level jobs. Include people contacts and Web links in your job publication strategy. Inform old colleagues about the vacancies in your organization and request nominations. Use online job sites to look for candidates looking for jobs such as those in your organization. Contact them to determine if they are interested in the position you are offering or request them to refer someone who is looking for such a job.

4. Choose the channels you want to use for the recruiting process, depending on your advertising strategy. You may want to include job and networking websites, job fairs and seminar and conferences as well as job consultancies, local or national newspapers and other publications such as domain-specific magazines and directories.

5. Define processes to shortlist applicants selected on the basis of your initial requirements. For example, you could use examinations followed by group discussions and personal interviews. Make sure you have all candidate job-testing tools (computers, stationery and specialized software) in place beforehand.

6. Prepare questions for short-listing candidates. Develop questions that help you evaluate the on-the-job skills as well as the personality of the candidate.

References

• University of Mary Washington: Developing a Recruitment Plan
• Human Resources: Recruitment Plan
• Staffing and Recruiting Essentials: The Recruiting Plan