How to Create a Successful Recruitment Strategy

More than three-quarters of organizations find it difficult to hire for full-time positions. Recruiters’ top three challenges are low applicant numbers, competition from rival employers, and increased candidate ghosting.

To overcome these roadblocks, plan and create a successful employee recruitment strategy—a roadmap to help you attract, hire, and retain exceptional talent for your business. This guide describes eight steps to create that strategy.

Step 1: Define your recruitment goals and objectives

Your recruitment strategy needs to have a clear purpose and align with your company’s overarching needs and ambitions. Decide what your people strategy aims to achieve by:

Understanding your company objectives

Large-scale changes such as market expansions, product launches, or restructuring plans may all impact your talent needs. Collaborate with senior executives and department leaders to forecast your short and long-term staffing requirements so you can develop a strategy that supports your goals.

Note: This isn’t a one-time step. Repeat periodically throughout the year and before any organizational changes to identify gaps and align your hiring efforts.

Setting actionable recruitment goals

Based on your company’s needs, set small, specific goals shaped by current problems with your hiring pipeline or anticipated roadblocks. Some examples of recruitment goals are:

• Reducing the average time-to-hire to minimize disruption to your internal ops
• Sourcing candidates with niche or in-demand skills for specialized roles
• Increasing workforce diversity to foster a more innovative and inclusive workplace
• Enhancing your employer brand to attract top-tier talent

Identifying key metrics to track success

Establish metrics you can easily track as you implement your recruitment strategy, and check regularly to understand how you’re progressing toward your goal. As a best practice, take benchmark metrics before you roll out your new plan, then measure periodically.

Example: You calculate your current time-to-fill rate for an open position, which is 45 days. Six months after introducing a new hiring strategy, the rate is 39 days.

Some other key metrics to track include:

• Cost-per-hire: Total cost of hiring divided by the number of hires
• Quality of hire: Based on new hire performance and retention rates
• Candidate satisfaction: Measured via surveys or feedback forms from applicants
• Employer net promoter score (eNPS): Measured through employee referrals, external ratings, the number of quality applicants per open role, etc.
• Diversity hiring ratios: Measured by representation across departments

Step 2: Develop and promote a strong employer brand

The caliber of employees you hire is directly related to the quality of applications you receive for each open role. And the strength of your employer brand influences both.

Put simply, if your company is known for its fair recruitment process and exceptional employee experience, you shouldn’t have any problem attracting the best of the best.

But if previous candidates or employees have been vocal about their negative experience of your employer brand, you’ll receive fewer high–quality applications for each open role.

Define your organization’s unique employer value proposition (EVP)

Your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is the foundation of your employer brand. It defines what makes your company unique and why employees choose to work and stay with you.

Create a compelling EVP for your company by:

• Showcasing your company culture: Define your values, work environment, and overall employee experience (for example, company retreats, flexible work arrangements, etc.)
• Communicating your benefits: Include details about your compensation, bonuses, perks, and benefits
• Highlighting career progression: Promote opportunities for growth, internal mobility, or training initiatives

Your EVP should be clear and memorable, so aim for punchiness over writing an essay.

Example: Marriott Hotels’ EVP has three core pillars that describe what candidates can expect from a career with this international hotel chain.

• Begin: Find a career that fulfills your purpose
• Belong: Be a part of something bigger than yourself
• Become: Discover your own future

The employer’s ultimate message to candidates and employers is Be You, highlighting the company’s commitment to helping people become the best version of themselves.

Leverage online channels to build brand awareness

Once you’ve crafted your EVP, it’s time to share it with the world. Job seekers typically check out your company online before submitting an application, so they must like what they find.

You might share your employer brand in the following ways:

• Career sites: Your company’s career pages are one of the main sources for attracting candidates, so make sure they reflect your EVP and showcase job openings
• Social media: Share employee stories, team highlights, company values, and other aspects of your culture on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or X. Where possible, make use of hashtags to reach a wider audience
• Job boards: When posting jobs on external job boards such as Indeed or Glassdoor, ensure your employer brand is well represented in both the job description and company profile sections
• Employee testimonials: Encourage current employees to share testimonials of positive experiences working at your company with their networks. Reward them for successful referrals to promote your employer brand further
• Talent pool content: Regularly engage with passive candidates who have expressed an interest in joining your ranks. Share the latest company news or job openings so they can take quick action when the right opportunity arises

Monitor the success of your employer value proposition by tracking metrics like Glassdoor scores and LinkedIn engagement rates to understand how your brand is perceived in the talent market.

Step 3: Identify the ideal candidate persona(s)

Just as marketers spend time fleshing out detailed customer personas to better understand and target their ideal buyers, recruiters can also define the attributes of their ideal hire. A well-developed candidate persona focuses recruitment efforts on individuals with the skills, experience, and traits necessary for the role and company.

Follow these steps to create yours:

Define role-specific skills and experience

• Start by listing the hard or technical skills required for the position, such as certifications or technical abilities
• Include relevant work experience, such as industry background or years of professional experience.
• Incorporate soft skills critical for success in the role. CV Genius ranks the most sought-after candidate skills in terms of teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking, verbal communication, time management, and adaptability

Incorporate competency frameworks

Competencies outline the behaviors and traits that indicate high performance in your team members throughout their tenure. To define competencies in your candidate personas:

• Collaborate with team leaders to create intricate competency models that outline the key behaviors required for success in each role
• Map each competency to measurable outcomes (e.g., a “problem-solving” competency might involve resolving client issues within a specific timeframe)
• Use competencies to understand the progression paths for each candidate. For example, if a candidate persona requires mid-level competency in communication, consider how they’ll gain the advanced level needed for their next role

Align personas with company culture

Cultural alignment is as important as technical skills. Identify traits that reflect your organizational values, such as adaptability, collaboration, or a growth mindset.

Tip: Ensure your persona steers you away from bias by avoiding any details related to age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc, that could damage your diversity initiatives.

Craft a competency-based job description

Use your candidate persona and competency framework to create clear, engaging job descriptions that resonate with your top talent. These should:

• Highlight the key skills and competencies needed.
• Use language that reflects your company culture (e.g., “collaborative team” or “innovation-focused environment”).
• Mention career development opportunities, such as specific training types or internal mobility programs.

Example: A job description for a software developer could emphasize technical expertise in Python and problem-solving competencies while promoting a team-oriented culture and opportunities for growth.

Step 4: Define and optimize candidate sourcing channels

With the foundation of your employer brand in place and a strong idea of what you’re looking for, the next step is to introduce high-quality candidates to your hiring pipeline. There are limitless ways to source applicants for your open roles, from chance meetings to contacting a former employee. But often, you’ll use some of the following tried-and-testing sourcing channels:

Job boards

Popular platforms like Indeed, Glassdoor, and Monster allow you to reach a large pool of active job seekers. But don’t forget to post your ad on smaller niche boards to attract diverse talent. Some examples include:

• Diversity.com
• Blackjobs.com
• FairyGodBoss.com
• Workforce50.com
• Pink-Jobs.com

Tip: Use detailed, keyword-optimized job descriptions to ensure your postings display in relevant searches. Remember to keep the language neutral and inclusive so you’re not repelling high-quality candidates with gender-coded words like “rockstar” or “champion.”

Social media channels

Platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and even TikTok provide excellent opportunities to showcase your employer brand and attract candidates.

Tip: Post engaging content such as behind-the-scenes videos, employee testimonials, or thought leadership articles to spread the word about your brand and job opportunities.

External recruitment agencies

If your company lacks the resources to handle recruitment in-house, third-party recruiters may be a good fit, especially if you need to fill a high volume of seats or require niche expertise for a particular type of role.

Tip: Partner with agencies specializing in your industry or company size to ensure they understand your unique hiring needs. Additionally, ensure the agency is transparent about its fees and processes before signing an agreement.

Employee referrals

It makes sense that your current high performers may have more great talent in their personal networks. Encourage current employees to refer candidates through incentives like bonuses, promotions, or recognition programs.

Referrals are a cost-effective way to attract and retain top talent. However, relying too heavily on employee networks can harm your diversity initiatives if your current workforce is homogeneous (e.g., predominantly young, white, or male).

Ensure your referral scheme is inclusive by promoting diversity awareness and supplementing referrals with other sourcing strategies to reach underrepresented groups.

Networking events

Career fairs, tech conferences, and networking events offer a chance to meet potential candidates face-to-face.

Tip: Be prepared to answer questions about your company culture and candidate selection processes. Also, have materials like brochures or business cards to share with interested applicants.

Career pages

Whether you have a careers mini-site, a dedicated jobs page, or a simple notice on your home page, your website is an important source of talent. Alongside your social profile, it’ll be the most frequented place for candidates to learn about your company, and you can use it to paint a picture of what life might be like working with you.

Tip: Potential applicants are trying to envision themselves as part of your team. Help them connect the dots by using rich media like photos or videos to showcase your team, workplace, and culture.

Step 5: Design an efficient, positive candidate experience

A well-crafted candidate experience is essential to attracting and retaining top talent. 91% of recruiters believe candidate experience plays a central or important role in their talent acquisition strategy. However, they experience common hurdles in delivering it, including limited resources, difficulties maintaining candidate engagement, and high application volumes.

Follow these steps to get your candidates from applied to hired as smoothly as possible:

Simplify the application process

Don’t make your candidates jump through hoops to apply for a role. They shouldn’t need to repeat the same information across multiple forms. Instead, candidates should be able to apply in minutes using a concise application form accessible across mobile and desktop devices. Ensure you clearly outline the hiring steps and expected timeline so the candidate knows what to expect from the start.

Use automation thoughtfully

The candidate experience should feel personalized and human. But automation can support your processes by:

• Sending timely updates and notifications
• Providing immediate assessment scores
• Using chatbots to answer routine questions.

Conduct structured interviews

For all candidates advancing to the interview stage, a structured process provides a level playing field to evaluate them fairly. Recruiters will use the same competency or behavioral-based interview questions across all interviews to understand skills and cultural fit. Standardizing your questions allows recruiters to compare answers fairly, eliminating the risk of bias.

Reduce the length of your recruitment cycle

Respect your candidates’ time by limiting the number of interview rounds you expect them to go through. Quick decision-making avoids unnecessary delays and allows you to extend an offer quickly so your new hires can quickly ramp up and become productive. Chetan Vyas, a talent professional at Deel, explains the importance of speed in recruiting for junior roles:

Step 6: Implement technology to streamline recruitment efforts

Manual recruitment methods may work for startups making their first hire, but they quickly become messy and inefficient. Instead, the right recruiting tool stack will streamline your hiring process, keeping all your candidate data and workflows accessible from a central location. Consider using the following solutions:

Applicant tracking system (ATS)

An applicant tracking system supports your entire recruitment process, keeping everything from job postings to interview feedback in one place. An end-to-end solution provides a faster, more efficient process that benefits recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers.

Background checking

Verifying a candidate’s credentials gives you confidence that your new hires are trustworthy and qualified. But background checking is often a time-consuming process. Automated tools take care of the heavy lifting by ensuring your applicants’ education, work history, and legal requests all comply with regulations.

Skills testing

Traditional resumes don’t provide all the details you need to make the right hiring choice. Skills testing platforms evaluate how candidates perform in realistic scenarios. Whether it’s coding challenges or problem-solving tasks, these tools give you objective insights into their abilities, helping you make fair and informed decisions.

Data analytics

Transform raw data into actionable insights using platforms with built-in reporting and analytics functionality that identify trends and bottlenecks in your processes. With data at your fingertips, optimizing your hiring strategies, predicting future talent needs, and making more informed decisions to align recruitment efforts with business goals is easier.

Step 7: Build a talent pipeline for future hiring needs

A successful recruitment strategy is proactive rather than reactive. If you’ve been waiting until a position becomes available to start your candidate sourcing process from scratch, this is a reactive approach. In contrast, a proactive strategy requires you to work in the background, gently and gradually building relationships so you have talented people waiting in the wings whenever a vacancy arises.

Develop your own proactive talent pipeline by:

Engaging passive candidates

Not every potential hire is actively seeking a job, but passive candidates—those who are currently employed but open to opportunities—can be some of your best future hires. As many as 1 in 4 people are passive candidates this year, unsure whether they’re looking for a new role or not.

First, identify your passive candidates. These might be people who have:

• Previously applied for a job with your organization
• Engaged with your social media posts or attended your webinars
• Been employed by one of your competitors and may be interested in their next move

Consistent, low-pressure communication, such as conversations at networking events or newsletter correspondence, allows you to stay on their radar.

Content marketing is also a powerful engagement tool. Stay top of mind by penning thought leadership articles, company updates, and industry insights that position your organization as an attractive workplace. As soon as they’re ready to make a change, these people are more likely to consider your job vacancies first.

Building internal talent pools

Don’t overlook the talent you already employ. Your internal talent pools are a rich source of skills, experience, and institutional knowledge you can deploy into other areas of the organization.

Leverage your internal talent pools by:

• Holding developmental conversations to identify current employees for open positions
• Using career development planning to help your employees prepare for their next step
• Completing 9-box assessments to find candidates interested in professional growth

Step 8: Evaluate and adjust your recruitment strategy regularly

The best recruitment strategies aren’t stagnant—they evolve with your company’s needs.

Evaluate how effective your current strategy is by:

• Circling back to the metrics you defined in step one and assessing whether you’re meeting your goals
• Asking for honest feedback from new hires who have been through the recruitment process. What did they like? What can be improved?
• Checking in with hiring managers to gather their insights. Are new hires reporting inconsistencies between information shared during recruitment and their experience once in-seat? Are new hire turnover rates very high?
• Keeping an eye on industry trends and staying current with best practices in recruiting
• Setting up regular reviews to adapt the strategy to business growth and changes

Build a sustainable, successful recruitment strategy with Deel

Recruitment is only truly effective when hiring people who want to remain with your company for the long haul. Deel offers a suite of tools to hire global employees and contractors, then nurture and engage your talent, ensuring everyone feels valued and connected to the company. Choose:

• Deel EOR: Our safe and secure Employer of Record services across 150 countries allow you to quickly hire and onboard your employees, with payroll, tax, and compliance all baked into the same platform
• Deel HR: Free for all companies, Deel HRIS supports your global talent with unified reporting, automated people admin, and more from a single location
• Deel Engage: Retain your top performers using our AI-powered people solution, which manages development, performance, and training programs from one central workspace

Deel HRIS is custom-built for your entire team, so you can easily manage HR for workers compliantly in 150+ countries. Unify reporting, automate HR admin, and supercharge your HR stack with our streamlined platform.

Ready to recruit excellence to join your organization? Take a free product demo today to see how Deel can support your talent initiatives.