Recruiters are under a lot of pressure. Their judgment calls have a direct effect on a company’s bottom line, and you can bet the hiring manager is under about the same amount of pressure. One slip-up or messy interview can easily make or break the future of everyone involved: company, recruiter, and candidate. So, yeah, the pressure’s on.

This isn’t to say that some of this stress can’t be relieved with a little bit of recruitment planning. Some of the steps in a recruitment plan can’t be taken by a recruiter alone, especially an outsourced recruiter. A big part of recruitment planning requires input from internal hiring managers/hiring leaders, HR, and possibly some of the big-wigs.

7 Steps to Craft a Solid Recruitment Plan

1. Conduct a skills gap analysis

As a recruiter, it’s pretty common to be given very little details about a company’s long-term business goals. This is strange, though, since reaching those business goals depends largely on the company’s employees—most specifically the employees’ skills. And since it’s recruiters’ jobs to source and interview new employees, it’s crucial that they know what’s going on behind the curtain. 

You know, they can get a pretty clear picture if they had access to a concise skills gap analysis. An individual can whip up a decent skills gap analysis in 3 simple steps: 

⋅ Pinpoint skills the company currently possesses
⋅ Pinpoint critical skills the company will need in the future to reach its goals
⋅ Review current and desired skills and develop a plan to fill the gaps

2. Set a personal timeline

Breakdown the timeline you already have into bite-size pieces to help organize the recruiting process. For example, say you have until X to deliver qualified candidates to the hiring manager. Tell yourself that you have until Y to source candidates and that all interviews need to be scheduled by Z. This timeline doesn’t have to include the hiring manager; whether it’s just you on the req or if there’s a team of you recruiting for the same position, keep it private.

4. Examine job descriptions & prioritize skills

Recycling the same job descriptions over and over saves you time, I know. But as businesses and departments grow, it’s natural for roles and responsibilities to change. I don’t know about you, but recruiting candidates with an outdated job description is a nightmare. Responsibility will likely fall on your shoulders (even though it shouldn’t in most cases). This would be a huge bummer for a number of reasons, but especially because it’s avoidable. So, avoid the drama and take a look at the skills gap analysis. Then, piece together any holes and be on your merry way. 

Okay, so chances are you can’t include every single skill from the skills gap into the description. Companies think that in order to snag the golden candidate, they have to list every single ideal skill set. What happens instead is that those overstuffed and unrealistic descriptions scare away candidates. So, prioritize. What are the top 3-5 skills the company absolutely needs? What are the secondary skills? 

5. Prepare relevant questions before the interview

As much as we all like casual interviews, they don’t give us the answers we need to determine if the candidate is a fit. The lack of direction not only makes it super easy to go off course, but it opens a welcoming window for personal interview biases to influence our final decisions. The best way to remain objective is to be prepared and keep the end goal in sight.

6. Create an organized document for note taking

Eventually, you’ll have to reconvene with the hiring manager and share your notes, right? If they’re scattered and borderline incomprehensible, prepare for a heaping pile of 💩. Since you already have your interview questions prepared, you can just use the same document for note taking. That way, it’s all in one place.

7. Establish a follow-up protocol

It doesn’t matter if the candidate flopped the interview or if the candidate killed it. You 👏 Have 👏 To 👏 Follow 👏 Up 👏. The candidate took the time out of her day to chat with you, and that deserves acknowledgment. No matter what, don’t waiver on follow-up protocol. 

Moral of the story here is that recruiters need as much information as possible to recruit candidates clients actually want, need, and can retain. They can’t do their job to the best of their ability without even a simple outline of a recruitment plan.