Who recruits the recruiters?

It’s one of the greatest challenges for any internal resourcing function – effectively servicing your business through the peaks and troughs of recruitment. That’s why ‘forecasting and workforce planning’ are some of the most popular resources we share here at The Firm. Whether you’ve managed to get ahead of the game or not, task one when tackling a hiring surge is to build out your recruitment function itself.

Whilst this should be the most familiar area to hire from, it can be daunting to seek talent within your own pool. Quite rightly, recruiters are likely to set a high bar for their candidate experience and like any sector this one has its own challenges and opportunities.

Crucially, your customer here knows what good looks like, so it’s important to bring your best game. Let’s get back to basics and think about some of the push and pull levers at your disposal.

THE PULL LEVER – A GREAT PLACE TO WORK

Those working in recruitment know better than anyone the aspects of work that play the greatest role in attraction, engagement and attrition too. During the conversations they have with candidates every day, all recruiters have had plenty of time to reflect on what gets them out of bed in the morning.

That means you need to portray the full rounded view of the opportunity you’re offering. Yes, compensation and benefits are important and recruiters will know their worth. This audience more than most will look more broadly at your employer brand. What are you offering to them and would this be a business they could evangelise about day in and day out in the role?

Things to think about:

Do your social channels present an attractive culture?

As a Forbes article explained whilst discussing the causes of The Great Resignation since 2021, “even outside of an attrition crisis, research has shown that culture comes first”. A positive culture has proven to outperform hygiene factors in terms of retaining talent more than ever.

Your compensation package alone won’t persuade this highly informed audience of your appeal. Showcase your other credentials as an employer – flexible working, generous benefits, inspiring leadership, happy colleagues. Your social channels are the most direct way of sharing this content – remember, the simplest executions can be the most authentic and trustworthy. 

Is your employer brand clearly communicating your company’s purpose?

In addition to the elements above, purpose led work is a huge lever in terms of pulling in the best talent. As you know best, in-house recruiters spend huge portions of their working day describing your business strategy, accomplishments and opportunities. This often means that recruiters are some of the most loyal employees – they believe in what they’re selling. So you have your work cut out here to entice them away. Your message and purpose needs to be clear and more compelling than the one they describe in their current role. How does it currently compare and can you make this more inspiring?

Do your recruiter job descriptions bring the opportunity to life? 

Set a high bar here. We all know there are good job descriptions and poor good descriptions. They’re inevitably important in presenting a new role and this is the bread and butter of the task you’re recruiting for. Get it right and you’ll not only present the role in the best light, but you’ll attract the best recruiters who care about quality too. You can find plenty of advice on generating job descriptions in our tools and templates. 

Most of all, practice what you preach. Does the opportunity you’re presenting show that you’re a business and recruitment function that people would aspire to work for and learn from?

THE PUSH FACTOR – USE YOUR NETWORKS

Are the best quality hires staring you in the face? It’s possible that this is true, but how do you best go about this with professionalism and whilst ensuring you’re creating an inclusive and diverse function? Push your opportunity out to the relevant networks – you’re only a few steps away from a wide talent pool. Within The Firm’s networks alone you’ll find many talented resourcing professionals. Check out our Community Jobs channel or ask us about using the ‘highlighted job’ slots in our newsletters.

A few other starting points:

LinkedIn – the natural habitat of your potential candidates.

This audience will be some of the most prevalent users of LinkedIn. You can find plenty of information and guidance on hiring through LinkedIn within our tools and resources. Your network alone is one of your greatest starting points.

Remember, as a member of The Firm you can post vacancies in our LinkedIn group where you’ll find a wealth of talent.

Everyone’s network includes recruiters.

Likewise, think about the rest of your team and taking advantage of their networks. Almost everyone in your business is likely to have connections with recruiters. If you work in a specialist field, your colleagues’ networks could be even more powerful. Do you have a referral scheme in place? We can help you with that – see our project pathway on ‘Implementing an Employee Referral Programme’.

Think creatively to reach a diverse candidate pool

It’s another example of practicing what you preach. When recruiting within your own field it can be even easier to recruit from within a small network of lookalike candidates. Stay true to your values here and look more broadly in the same way that you would when hiring for other functions. Can you hire transferable skills from different sectors to expand your pool for talent?

ONBOARD YOUR MOST LOYAL COLLEAGUES

Remember that when hiring recruiters you are creating the face of your business for all future potential hires.

Recruiters tend to be the most loyal and engaged employees as they sell your employer brand every day. The onboarding phase is essential here to open the door to even greater pools of exceptional talent that will fuel your business in the future.