8 Steps to Building an Effective Recruitment Plan

shakeHiring the right talent for your next available marketing position starts with a great recruitment plan. Take it from me, after a solid year of leading the process at DMA, I’ve learned some lessons and developed practices that will help us to secure the right talent for our company. Before you start your next search or approach your human resources team to find your next marketing superstar, use the tips below to complement your process along the way.

1. Post your job description online. The savvy marketer that you’re seeking to fill your next available marketing position will likely conduct his/her research online. According to an article published by Millennial Branding citing the Multi-Generational Job Search Study 2014 in May 2014, 45% of HR professionals find candidates on online job boards followed by their company website.With websites readily available like Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed and the PMA Foundation, as an employer you have many online job posting websites to consider when broadcasting your available positions.

2. Optimize your job description with keywords.

Clever wording of your job description can help would-be candidates find your available job easier via search engines. Using long tailed keywords to describe the position and ideal candidate like “inbound marketing experience” or “consumer marketing promotions experience with fresh produce brands”, will help connect job seekers to your available position.

3. Elevate what makes you great. Speaking of job descriptions, companies often miss an opportunity to use the description to elevate the company and highlight why a candidate should want to work there. A good job description should include not only the requirements of the position, but also be a marketing piece that sells your company. Even by adding an opening paragraph that describes the company’s attributes, vision and mission, along with the role the position plays in achieving these goals, is a significant step for companies to consider.

4. Do your homework on salary. Before you post your job description, be sure you fully understand the current salary range in your market for a position that is similar to the one that you’re trying to fill. Websites like Salary.com and Payscale.com offer job seekers and employers’ competitive salary ranges and insights for a wide range of positions, including marketing.  Discuss money up front with your interviewees to ensure that their desired salary range is in line with the budget for the position you’re trying to fill.

5. Find thoroughbreds.

Don’t just leave it up to the right candidate to find you! As a leader and employer, you should be motivated to conduct your own recruitment tactics by embracing the power of the internet to find your next marketing thoroughbred. Using the carefully crafted keywords you included in your job description, visit websites and online job boards to locate and connect with candidates that meet your top criteria.

6. Use social media to vet interview candidates.

Once you’ve received resumes from prospect interview candidates, start the vetting process by conducting online research about each candidate using social media channels to conduct due diligence on behalf of your company, your team and your candidate’s short and long term success. Social networks like LinkedIn showcase the candidate’s capability to manage their own online resume and provide you with ample links to see other work and people they may have worked with in the past. Networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram may also uncover facts about your candidate(s) that may help you determine if they are the right fit for your team and company’s culture as well.

7. Schedule as many interviews as it takes to hire the right person.

Unless your company’s human resources department has an established process that dictates the number of mandatory interviews that you must conduct, I recommend that you use as many telephone and face-to-face meetings as it takes for you to find the right candidate. Dedication to this practice will allow you the space and time you need to ask the many questions that will help you arrive to a decision.

8. Give people within your organization the opportunity to interview your final job candidates. Providing talented people within the organization with the opportunity to interview your top candidates gives you added context and will help you gain additional perspective from subject matter experts and culture ambassadors within your organization.

Bonus – Conduct reference interviews.
Request references from interview candidates at the beginning of the interview process. This gives you the opportunity to contact specific references throughout the process and have the opportunity to address specific questions you may have about a particular candidate.  

Through the 10+ years that DMA Solutions has been in business, we’ve come to find that marketing is a team sport, whether that team is in-house or not. We recommend that in addition to the recruitment strategy we’ve outlined above, you look for people with proof as marketers that have a passion for what they do. With that in mind, you will realize your vision of building a team of talented marketers for your business in no time!