Planning your recruiting strategy
Due to the economic downturn and tight job market, pharma, biotech and healthcare employers are carefully planning their recruiting strategies. In this article, MedZillas Frank Heasley and HR experts discuss the recruitment planning and the need of HR professionals to plan and establish effective strategies for the coming year.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Michele Groutage
Company: MedZilla, Inc.
Title: Director of Marketing & Development
Phone: 360-657-5681
Email: mgroutage@medzilla.com
URL: http://www.medzilla.com
Planning your recruiting strategy
Marysville, WA (PRWEB)-- September 12, 2003 -- A tough economy and tight job market are putting extra pressure on HR professionals to plan recruiting strategies. Recruitment planning is one of HR's most important functions, says Frank Heasley, PhD, MedZilla.com President and CEO.
You cant wait until you have openings to start planning the recruiting strategy," Dr. Heasley says. HR professionals today have to take part in the strategic planning of their companies and plan for the coming recruitment year by looking at the needs of their hiring managers, top candidates, recruiting trends and what has and hasnt worked in the past."
Be part of the corporate culture
HR professional should be part of the business team and have a good understanding of what is coming for the company in the next 12 to 24 months to complement the business strategy, says Keith Greene, director, organizational programs, Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). This will enable the HR professional to plan a strategy to complement the business approach. If an organization is going to go through an acquisition period or the possibility there of, you need to plan accordingly. If you think, you might be going into a position where you maybe laying people off, you have to take that into consideration. The most important thing for an HR professional is to make sure theyre aligned with the business strategy, he says.
Do the math
The first thing you have to analyze is your current hiring/recruitment process. Have an audit taken of your current program," says Lou Adler, president, Performance Hiring System and creator of Power Hiring, a 5 step hiring process designed to attract top people. Figure out those tactics that work and give you the most bang for the buck," he says.
If youre not measuring, youre not going to be taken seriously in the corporate environment," says Greene. The entire concept of metrics in the field of human resources has taken on a much more important role because HR people need to be able to justify and measure their effectiveness. If you want to be a business partner you have to speak in business terms," Greene says.
Passive, partially active and active candidate breakdowns
According to Adler, you should break down that process into three areas, including recruiting for active candidates (those looking for a job); partially active candidates (people with reasons to look occasionally); and passive candidates, who may be interested but have to be found and approached proactively.
Businesses, especially in pharma and biotech, are under pressure to employ top people in order to successfully develop their products from concept to market," Dr. Heasley says. This requires taking a multi-pronged approach to hiring, where youre using different targeted methods, including niche job boards and targeted networking, to get the people you want."
Adler also, author of Hire with Your Head: Using Power Hiring to Build Great Companies, published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, says that the more passive the candidate, the more expensive the recruiting methods. Active candidates tend to be found through well-placed job ads; versus passive candidates who tends to be 'high touch, requiring professional recruiting and networking.
Its important to look at these three broad categories of candidates to determine where your candidates are coming from and whether your recruiting channels work properly.
Hiring the best in each category
You need to know what the best people in each category want, Adler says. The reason this is so important is that there are fundamental differences in how the top 10% to 20% of candidates decide on jobs. For example, top passive candidates tend to be more discriminating because they have more opportunities and they are relatively satisfied right where they are. They look at both short and long-term objectives when they look at the job offer. They not only look at salary, but also growth opportunities and challenges. They are much more concerned with how the companys vision and strategy tie to the job. They tend to decide with other people because they already have a job or competing offer. They look at the first day on the job as a start of a new career, rather than the end of a job search. To capture these people, you have to design a hiring strategy that will meet their needs, Adler says.
The strategy is built around knowing how these top employees make their decisions. Within each of these broad channels, you have to design every one of your hiring systems [ads, employee referral program, networking, etc. to take into account the needs of the best," Adler says.
Dont forget about the employees you have
According to Greene, more organizations today are paying attention to succession planning and retention. Succession planning is putting people in place and training them to take over a position at the next level, so that as openings come up, you have the opportunity to move people up, as well as hit the ground running. In reality, what it does for recruiting is that it enables you to recruit at a less skilled level, which means the position, will be easier to fill. Consequently, the skill requirements could be less. This may apply to pharmaceutical and biotech more than other industries. Their need for talent is acute. Therefore, these organizations need to pay more attention to keeping their best people and preparing them to assume additional responsibilities."
Trends that capture candidates
Adler says that the better candidates will not allow themselves to be bogged down in the system. The trend, he says, in corporate recruiting strategies is toward improving technology to better identify the best and get them in touch with a very professional recruiter. That seamless transition from of high-tech to high-touch is key, he says.
About MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, resumes from more than 13,000 currently available candidates and 55,000 archived resumes. These resources have been characterized as the largest, most comprehensive databases of their kind on the web in the industries served.
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MedZilla® is a Registered Trademark owned by MedZilla Inc.
Copyright ©2003, MedZilla, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this text in its entirety, and if electronically, with a link to the URL http://www.medzilla.com. For permission to quote from or reproduce any portion of this message, please contact Michele Groutage, Director of Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc. Email: mgroutage@medzilla.com.
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