11 ways to build a strong recruiting pipeline

We all remember the moment when we finally understood the importance of having a strong recruiting pipeline. It’s the same moment we acknowledged that we’d been underestimating the amount of time and energy needed to really attract top talent.

Feeling overwhelmed and underprepared each time you recruit for a position should not be the norm. I would venture a guess that the root cause for this feeling is because you lack a strong and constant pipeline of qualified candidates. Now if this is the case, you have a dilemma on your hands because you need to be focusing your time on two things: building a pipeline and taking care of day-to-day tasks.

So how do you build a strong recruiting pipeline? There’s no one hack or trick. You need to focus on these three fundamentals consistently over time: Culture, content, and reviews.

Other resources that might interest you:

• How to Hire Employees Who Complement Your Strengths
• 8 Recruiting Tips for Successful Hiring
• Are You Hiring Without a Map?

Culture

You’ve heard by now that a strong company culture is imperative to attracting top talent, but how do you actually go about accomplishing this?

1. Ask employees to produce content.

• Produce day-in-the-life content that highlights life at your office.
• Create a unique hashtag that your employees know to use when posting culture related content.
• Make a unique Snapchat filter over your building’s location.
• Utilize your blog to showcase what it’s like to work at or to show what type of people are at your organization. Do Q&A content series using your employees.  You might be surprised at the amount of views these types of posts get!

2. Amplify your content by asking your employees to share it on social.

• While this is sometimes a hard sell internally, if you can pull it off, it has tremendous impact. Your team’s 1st and 2nd degree social connections are gold mines of talent and are more likely to listen to a friend’s opinion in lieu of a untrusted 3rd party.

3. Have new employees participate right away.

• From the moment a new hire walks in the door, get them to participate in culture/team building exercises. It could be as simple as telling a unique fact about themselves.
• Founder of Nextwave Hire, Phil Strazzulla, explains a unique trick Toast does on its careers page using Spotify.

• Side note: Phil runs a great whiteboard series where he goes over simple tips and tricks on how to recruit top talent. Phil also sat down with The Predictive Index (PI) Recruiter, Will Otto, to discuss this specific topic in our recent webinar: How to open the floodgates of your recruiting pipeline.

4. Stress culture in your job description

• Jackie Dube, VP of People Ops here at PI outlines the importance of doing this here:

Content

The saying “content is king” doesn’t just apply to marketing. It’s also true in regards to recruiting. But what type should create, and where should you promote your content?

5. Post genuine content about your culture.

• Images and videos of your teams and workspace are always welcome on LinkedIn and Instagram.

6. Create microsites for key roles.

• While job descriptions on your careers page are the first line of defense, if you’re hiring heavily in a specific region or desperately need to fill a tough role, look to building out a detailed page specifically for that location or job. You’ll reap both SEO and increased engagement on these pages.

7. Make sure messaging is authentic.

• Don’t sound too pushy or overuse buzz words. We’re all humans and can tell when someone is BS-ing a job post. Be open and honest with the role and don’t make it out to be something it really isn’t.

8. Set clear expectations.

• Give a well-rounded view of the position: Your goal is to find the right person for the job, not the one looking for a “cushy” gig. It’s important to stress the downs just as much as the ups. There will be things in this position that not everyone will like to do, but has to do in order for this role to be successful. Be upfront, and don’t hide behind the perks.
• PI CEO, Mike Zani, stresses the importance of posting the best reason a candidate should join your organization:

Reviews

Reviews can help your organization close deals and also top candidates. However, getting reviews (especially good reviews) is not always easy. In fact, most businesses tend to avoid looking at their online reviews completely. Many think that they can’t control ratings so why spend time trying get them. We’ll I’m here to tell you to be proactive with your reviews!

9. Use reviews on your job descriptions.

• B2C companies do this all the time on their product page, so why not try this on your careers page?

10. Be proactive with your reviews.

• By proactively promoting reviews internally, you’ll increase your chances of having positive reviews. This shows your employees that you’re willing to listen to their feedback and are actively trying to improve.

11. Keep your content updated.

• Post videos and photos that best represent what it’s like to work at your office. The more up to date the better.
• Don’t just focus on Glassdoor, keep your LinkedIn and Facebook business pages up to date with fresh content that highlights your organization’s culture. The goal here is to attract the type of talent that will thrive in your culture.
• Additional tips on bolstering your Glassdoor rating can be found on our recent webinar: Glassdoor Survival Guide

To build a strong recruiting pipeline you need to promote your culture through engaging content and genuine reviews. Each company is unique so you’ll need to build out your own rinse and repeat process, which encourages your employees to help fill your pipeline. The weight of solving this problem shouldn’t be all on you, the recruiter, or hiring manager, it’s up to the whole team.