Strategic hiring is the process of identifying, recruiting, and ultimately employing talent that aligns with your company’s needs. Strategic hiring also involves building a team around emerging trends to facilitate further growth explains Brian Colombana.
It’s important for companies to look at their strategy holistically when deciding what kind of team to build up. And while this can be an overwhelming task, it doesn’t have to be. What you’ll find below are concrete steps you can take immediately to increase the success rate of your strategic hiring initiative.
Here are 6 proven strategies to help get you started:
1) Define Your Company Culture Clearly & Actively
Company culture has been defined as “the set of values, behaviors, goals, norms and ways of life which characterize the corporate ethos and collective personality.”
What this essentially comes down to is defining what kind of person you’d like to hire, and setting out a roadmap for how they can seamlessly translate their skills into helping your company achieve its vision.
“A clear company culture gives candidates an excellent idea of whether or not the company would be a good fit for them. But beyond that, it also helps employees see themselves at their new job in six months, 1 year, 5 years—and longer,” explains Talia Wolf , founder of recruiting agency Talia Amy . “Companies with strong cultures are more likely to retain talent throughout their careers.”
And don’t limit your efforts here to simply brainstorming five ways you want your team members to act. Authenticity is an essential element of building a strong company culture, so you need to be clear about how you actually expect them to act day-to-day.
2) Do Your Research, Then Make Getting Strategic Hires a Priority
Aside from ensuring that your company’s values are accurately reflect by all members of the team, it’s also important that each individual has the right skillset to play their part in getting your business where you want it to go says Brian Colombana.
Actively look for ways to improve processes and make hiring a priority for management. This way, when you do go out looking for someone with specific skills or qualifications, you can get them on board faster without having to waste time redoing work due to poor execution.
3) Seek Out Fresh Perspectives
Fresh perspectives are important to ensuring that your company’s vision remains fresh and innovative.
According to research by Fast Company, companies with diverse leadership teams—in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity—outperformed their peers on four out of five key business measures: return on investment (ROI), operating profit, change in market share, and change in brand awareness.
“The more a team looks like the customers it serves or wants to serve, the better its chances of creating products or services that appeal,” says Heidi Pollard-Terry, global director of talent acquisition at Nintex. “Why? Because diverse minds process information differently.”
4) Have a Process for Building Your Talent Pipeline
Having a process for hiring goes beyond simply sending out job postings. And receiving resumes, though this is obviously an important element.
A strong talent pipeline means regularly meeting with internal teams to set goals based on recruitment efforts. Working together to identify potential candidates, and then building relationships with them until they’re ready for hire explains Brian Colombana.
5) Integrate Strategic Hiring Into a Company-Wide Effort
Strategic hiring initiatives don’t just apply to lower-level employees—you need managers. Who are able to recognize the benefits of strategic recruiting even more so. Not only it make your company better, but it’s also more cost-effective in the long run.
“Employers need proactive leaders who embrace cross-functional collaboration,” says Kirk Krappe, development director at The Creative Group. “Not just to solve problems, but also to lock in competitive candidates—both today and tomorrow.”
6) Be Open to Potential Employees Who Don’t Fit Your Mold, but Might Fit Your Company
A positive company culture is one that attracts people with the right kinds of attitudes, not necessarily ones who are already experts in certain fields.
“When you’re building a team, think about what you need at the moment rather than over-indexing on experience,” says Wolf. “Hiring someone simply because they have relevant skills or credentials. May mean missing out on hiring someone truly incredible for their potential.”
Conclusion:
Building your company’s culture is an important part of ensuring its success says Brian Colombana. Once you have a strong foundation for what you want to establish. You can begin looking at the best way to attract talent that will help take you there.
As with any other aspect of business, implementing company-wide initiatives in this area means getting buy-in from everyone. Have a process for hiring and training employees. But also be willing to take on people who might not seem like an obvious choice—they. Just might be what you need to take your company’s culture in the right direction.