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For many roles, utilizing external recruiting resources will dramatically increase your quality of hire and can reduce your time to fill.  But, external recruiters are not always the best solution for every role.  Here are some of the best tactics when approaching hires with external recruitment help.  

• Build A Bench Internally  

The best way to fill an open role is to promote from within.  Ideally, you will be building a bench internally of individuals that are ready for the next step. Every organization has some turnover –  It just happens.  So, build a bench of people internally for different roles so that if and when someone leaves, you have someone else ready to move up.  In Sales, if you have Key Account Managers as the most experienced salespeople and someone leaves, you can promote an Account Manager or Account Executive.  They may not know every customer inside and out, but they know your organization, products, and how to sell your value proposition.  Then you can promote an SDR or inside salesperson into the open role. This doesn’t always work perfectly, but if you have a deep bench of talent internally and promote from within, you will build a better culture overall and have to use external recruiters for key hires less often.

• Always Be Recruiting  

Don’t wait until you have an open position to start recruiting. Taking a more proactive approach versus a reactive approach will help you keep an eye out for the perfect candidate so you can fill an open position right away instead of dragging the process out for months. You should be consistently trying to identify top talent, nurture relationships, and work to promote the company to build an external pipeline so that your time to fill is low. Every hiring manager should have at least a mental list of people they would love to have on their team if the opportunity presented itself.

• Be Reasonable

There are some roles where having experience doing the exact work previously is an absolute necessity.  But most of the time it really should not be a REQUIREMENT.  Especially in the current market, recruiting individuals with transferable skillsets for many roles is almost a necessity.  If you must hire someone with direct experience doing the exact role and function, be prepared to pay above market value for that experience.

• Be Transparent

Candidates want to know the details about your role.  What will they be doing day to day?  Who will they be working with?  Where will they be in a year?  Being transparent about your hiring goals and the career trajectory of a possible candidate will help set clear expectations about what they can expect and how they will learn and grow. This will also help keep your turnover rate low because people know what to expect from you and the organization. On a similar note, list the non-negotiable skills that someone will need to be successful and explain them during the interviews.  Involving your team and allowing them to be honest about their thoughts will also enable a new dimension to the hiring process. Read up on our Team Interviews blog for more information.

• Final Thoughts

Simplifying your recruiting process is critical in being able to actually hire the best people.  Streamlining the application and interview processes will make a huge difference. These are just a few tips to help you decide if you should hire on your own or use a recruiter. What are your thoughts? Do you have any tips as a hiring manager for recruiting candidates? Let us know, and send specific questions to Jon@inpeakdemand.com.