Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
Few have what it takes to qualify as a strategic recruiter. One of the actions, for example, is developing your own distinctive recruiting approach that provides your company with a measurable competitive advantage over your top talent competitors. Do you meet the requirements? Well, it’s not enough to just assume that you are “a strategic recruiter.” Instead, I have found that in order to qualify, a recruiter must meet at least 7 of these 10 qualifying strategic actions.
What Differentiates A Strategic Recruiter From An Average One?
Corporate recruiting is unique as a profession. Because in order to become a recruiter, you don’t need a degree, a license, or any minimal qualifications. And without an independent professional association for corporate recruiters, there is no association that assigns titles or certification levels to recruiters.
Finally, without an association, there is no recognized “body of knowledge” that precisely defines strategic or ethical recruiting. And because of these shortcomings, most recruiters have great difficulty determining whether they can honestly call themselves strategic recruiters. However, if you want to conduct a self-assessment, this article covers my 10 “Commandments” or actions that differentiate an ordinary recruiter from a strategic one.
“The 10 Commandments” Of Strategic Recruiting
My research and practice over the last several decades have revealed 10 factors, qualities, or actions that differentiate an average recruiter from a strategic one. I call these qualifiers “The 10 Commandments Of Strategic Recruiting.” And it’s important to note that within the following list, the qualifiers with the highest strategic impact appear first.
Thou shall…
#1 – Impact the strategic goals of the business through prioritization – the goal of any recruiter should go beyond simply “hiring people and filling jobs”. Instead, the defining factor for those who want to be strategic is proving that they have had a measurable impact on their company’s long-term strategic goals. The first step should be identifying those strategic goals and then determining which ones recruiting can most likely impact. The next impact step is lobbying your boss, so you are assigned to jobs that directly impact one of these strategic goals. For example, recruiting can impact the primary corporate goal of increasing revenue. Finally, a recruiter is more likely to impact a strategic goal after they prioritize all of their assigned open jobs. They then focus most of their time and resources on high-impact, high-priority jobs.
#2 – Build and maintain a competitive recruiting advantage – most executives are highly competitive, so they love having a competitive advantage. And a recruiter simply will not be able to produce superior recruiting results if they continue to use the same recruiting strategies, methods, and tools that their talent competitors use. So, the second defining factor of a strategic recruiter is building and maintaining a competitive advantage. And in order to build that advantage, a strategic recruiter must first conduct a competitive analysis whose goal is to identify and assess the most effective recruiting methods currently used at your top 3 recruiting competitors. Next, they must begin building a competitive advantage by developing and then using a superior mix of recruiting strategies, tools, and methods. One that is continually updated, so that it continues to produce superior recruiting results.
#3 – Shift to data-supported decision making – the third most effective way for a recruiter to maximize their recruiting results and their strategic impacts. It is to shift away from the traditional intuitive decision-making model that dominates recruiting and toward a data-supported one. This data-driven model will produce superior results because it ensures that all major recruiting decisions will now be made based on facts and with the use of objective criteria that are supported by data.
#4 – Adopt an aggressive recruiting philosophy – in today’s highly competitive talent marketplace. You can’t be successful if you are meek and you use an abundance of caution. Adopting an aggressive recruiting philosophy is essential because of today’s record-low unemployment rates. As many as 90% of the very top recruiting targets are likely to be “currently working across the street at your competitors.” And that means that in order to hire the very best, you will need to proactively recruit (some call it poaching) top talent directly away from the corporations where they currently work. That will first require the adoption of an extremely aggressive “poaching philosophy.” A strategic recruiter must then develop and use the latest poaching strategies, methods, and tools. Unfortunately, the high level of internal resistance to aggressive recruiting will require the recruiter to convince many internal skeptics who are afraid of this practice. Finally, when you are targeting truly rare AI, Quantum Computing, or data security experts, if you expect to hire a single one, you really have no choice but to poach them away from their current employer (who should have been placing a higher value on them).
#5 – Make your offers before your competitors – when you’re trying to maximize your strategic impact. You must realize that in today’s highly competitive world of recruiting, hiring speed really matters. Because if you lag behind in providing your in-demand candidates with an offer until after your competitors have already made an offer, your late-arriving offers will undoubtedly cause you to lose as many as half of your top candidates. Incidentally, research has shown that one of the best ways to speed up your hiring is by using the talent pipeline approach, which reduces recruiting time. This approach begins by identifying and assessing candidates well before they are needed for an open position. Finally, realize that fast hiring has another significant benefit because it allows your hiring manager’s team to maintain their current performance and productivity levels. Faster hiring directly reduces the number of zero productivity “vacancy days” that occur in the team, which are days when you get zero productivity from a strategic position because it has been vacant for so long.
#6 – Influence your managers to spend more time on recruiting – of course, you won’t be able to improve your recruiting results. In the all too common case where your hiring manager simply chooses not to find significant time to devote to recruiting. Fortunately, you can often change and prioritize a hiring manager’s recruiting approach by putting together a compelling business case. Start this influence effort by putting together a compelling business case that informs managers about the painful costs of weak recruiting and the high economic value they receive from strategic recruiting. Incidentally, I have found that converting your recruiting results (both positive and negative) into their dollar value is often the single most effective influence factor with hiring managers. A second key influence factor that will dramatically increase a recruiter’s credibility among hiring managers and the hiring team is convincing them that you are not only a recruiting expert but also “know the business.”
#7 – Fully develop your candidate convincing and selling skills – as recruiting evolves, it is becoming clear that of the four major recruiting components (branding, sourcing, assessment, and candidate selling). But soon, the only recruiting component that will still be dominated by humans and not technology. Those are the exceptional selling skills necessary just to get the best currently employed candidates interested in your company. And an even higher level of skills will be required to convince these in-demand prospects to formally apply. And after they apply. A strategic recruiter will still need strong selling skills to prevent candidate ghosting or the premature dropping out of your hiring process. Finally, at the offer stage, a strategic recruiter will have to possess exceptional closing skills to develop and refine each of these categories of selling skills. Recruiters will need to continually survey applicants and candidates to accurately identify their needs and expectations.
#8 – Use performance metrics to continuously improve – in the rapidly changing world of recruiting and technology. Unfortunately, the established so-called “best practices” that have worked for years quickly become obsolete. That means that if you expect to continually improve both your recruiting tools and your recruiting results, a strategic recruiter will need to begin assuming that most of their current best practices will soon become obsolete. So as a first step, strategic recruiters must develop performance metrics that will alert them when the results of a practice begin to decline. In addition, strategic recruiters will also need to develop and use their own performance scorecard that covers a recruiter’s performance metrics in every critical area of recruiting. And I should note that the single most important metric is the performance level of your new-hires (a.k.a., quality of hire). In many cases, unfortunately, the recruiter will need to track themselves.
#9 – Become a continuous learner – in our rapidly changing world of recruiting and business. To maintain their competencies. All recruiters must not only be constantly reading and learning about each of the emerging business trends. But in addition, they must also be continually learning about the emerging “next practices” in advanced recruiting that are continually being adopted by the top recruiting functions (i.e., Amazon, Meta, and Google). And because of the growing influence of technology in recruiting. Strategic recruiters must also continually learn and maintain expertise in all aspects of recruiting and AI technology.
#10 – Contribute to spreading your organization’s employment brand – In today’s highly connected world, the number of top prospects that you will attract will be directly influenced by the strength and the visibility of your external employer brand. However, even though individual recruiters can’t control a company’s brand, they can help to make it more visible by proactively writing blogs, speaking at industry events, and participating in podcasts. In addition, your recruiters should encourage every employee to do their part in brand building. By spreading the word on social media to their potential employee referrals about the many factors that make your organization a great place to work.
Note: You can learn more about the characteristics of non-strategic recruiters. Who are often labeled as RINO recruiters because, in actuality, they are Recruiters In Name Only here.
Why So Many Strive To Be Considered As A Strategic Recruiter
It’s rare to find a recruiter who doesn’t strive to be labeled as a strategic recruiter. First, many set that goal because of their own professional pride. In comparison, others seek this status because it will cause them to be requested by the top hiring managers. And it will also likely earn them the best recruiting assignments from their TA leaders. Finally, being considered a strategic recruiter may earn the recruiter increased job security, higher pay, or even a promotion.
Final Thoughts
Yes, it’s true that almost every recruiter that I have encountered over the last few decades has been striving to become a strategic recruiter. However, despite this almost universal goal, only a tiny percentage of recruiters have researched and identified the specific actions that differentiate a strategic recruiter from an average one. That lack of research is concerning because, in my experience, no one is likely to reach any strategic level without a strategic checklist to guide them. So my bottom line is that most recruiters should stop calling themselves strategic recruiters, or they should immediately begin putting together their customized plan to meet the above recruiting commandments and actions!
Thanks for reading
Note for the reader
This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company. You can keep up with the latest strategic recruiting issues by subscribing to his weekly Talent Management articles here or by following him on LinkedIn.
