Initially, reactive hiring seems to make sense. With reactive hiring, you hire when you know you need a new team member, such as when an employee puts in their notice or the company is ready to expand. Most companies have worked on a reactive recruiting model for years.
There’s just one glaring problem with this process, if you don’t start recruiting until you know you have a need, chances are your company will go weeks or months without finding an individual to fill that role. Furthermore, you might rush the hiring process and make a poor decision, starting the whole recruiting cycle over again.
What is Proactive Hiring?
When you choose proactive hiring, you focus on sourcing, engaging and attracting candidates ahead of hiring demand. Inevitably, someone will leave the firm, an employee will be terminated, or your company will decide to expand. Through the proactive hiring process, you can start sourcing and engaging with prospective employees long before you actually need them.
The Advantages of Proactive Recruiting
Proactive recruiting offers a number of advantages that can help your business.
Proactive recruiting shortens the time to hire. Proactive recruiting decreases the length of time your business will need to adapt to a shortage of employees, which can decrease stress for your existing employees. It also gives potential candidates a better idea of positions which may open up in the future, which in turn can help them shape their employment choices more effectively.
Proactive recruiting gives you a chance to get to know candidates better. With more interactions with your candidates, you can get a better understanding of their skill set and get a better feel of their personalities. As a result, you will often have a better idea of whether a candidate will really be a good fit for your firm.
Proactive recruiting increases employee retention. When you hire proactively, both you and the candidate have a better chance to determine whether they are a good fit for your company. In turn, once you do make a hiring decision, there is less chance of turnover.
Proactive recruiting gives you a better pool to choose from. During the proactive recruiting process, you have more time to get to know potential candidates in your field. You have a chance to spread your net further and develop a larger pool of candidates, which can be especially helpful if you work in an industry with a talent shortage or you have struggled to fill a particular role in the past.
At Atlantic Group, we make the recruiting process more efficient for your company. Not only do we have access to a vast network of quality candidates, but we can help you connect with them ahead of time through proactive recruiting, before you feel pressure to make a reactive hiring decision.