Recruitment - It Is Not All About the Ad

Recruiters, HR Director Needs Your Advice!

Here's the deal. We are an 1100 person medical center with about 80-90 positions open at any one time. About 10-15% of those positions are critical or key positions such as physicians, psychiatrists, and nurses. Our recruitment is being done by my 3 HR generalists who already have a full plate with the regularly occurring non-critical positions in addition to the myriad of other activities.

Within the total market, there is a niche looking to work for the government and working with veterans. I need to locate that niche. I need to be able to source them, recruit them and once here, retain them. I need to develop a bench strength. I need to create a recruitment program that will make a difference and will truly be a critical key business process that produces. It is so much more than a updating a job ad.

We have a passive, low technology approach to recruitment and really, beyond our student programs for nursing, have developed little in terms of sourcing. The talent is there, we are not getting to them. Our current methods are clearly not getting the job done.  Dr. John Sullivan struck close to home when he wrote in his ERE post, You Can't Find Talent. . . . You Must Be Kidding , that "during the current period of low unemployment, you must use multiple approaches to proactively seek out people that are no longer looking for you. Shift resources toward "low unemployment" tools that are more effective in attracting currently employed individuals. Those tools include employment branding, proactive employee referrals, recruiting at professional events, targeting boomerangs, professional networks, and yes, even resource-intensive direct sourcing. "

Electronic recruitment? I want some of that. I posted about it here and have not really progressed any closer to the goal. It is even more clear to me now that I am the "idea girl" in this one and I need someone with the technical expertise, internet savvy, and more critically, the time to take this on.  We are  building organizational support for the concept of a dedicated recruitment effort for critical or hard to fill positions.

Describing and defining that effort is going to take some thought. Do I outsource all or parts or do I keep it all in house. Do I separate sourcing from recruitment?  Should this position be part of HR or Public Affairs? What are the required skill sets for success? The deliverables? How do you set reasonable goals and measure success? This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of questions. For those that have wrestled with these questions already, do you have any advice, tips or tools to use to best determine what is best for the current state of my organization? For what is the most cost effective? We have an active discussion at work going on now about this and I value any new perspectives. 

In the meantime, our awesomely creative public affairs officer and my super supportive boss are taking a shot at the ad and we are updating and refining our current tool box of techniques. This low hanging fruit will make some impact I expect, yet I am desperately seeking to develop so much more.