HR Recruiting: 4 Important Ways to Assess Your Hiring Needs

One day, you’re sitting at your desk and your HR manager approaches you with a task: hire four new employees before the end of the month. For starters, you’re not sure why they need to be hired. Second of all, no one briefed you on the company’s current HR recruiting needs. When it comes to HR recruiting, many companies take this approach: hire for a role as soon as it opens up. Sounds pretty logical, right? But, all of the companies end up with one common struggle: finding the right talent when they need them the most. While your company might either choose a reactive or proactive approach to HR recruiting – identifying its hiring needs first will help it get started on the right foot. To build an exceptional HR recruiting process, the first step can never be overlooked: identifying your hiring needs.

Wondering how you can identify your needs before diving deep into HR recruiting? We got you covered!

Get a general overview of your employees

There’s a global skills revolution out there. And re-skilling employees should be on top of your list. Especially if you want them to adapt to a fast-paced work environment and marketplace. So before diving straight into HR recruiting you to need to take a moment to identify your hiring needs for the next year. But first, that means you need to get a general overview of your existing employees. You can begin by grouping employees based on seniority, salary, and performance. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to draw more insights. Such as their salary, contract type, main responsibilities, reporting manager, and performance. Now, you may be wondering how this will help your HR recruiting. Well, for starters, this will help you better identify what’s missing in terms of skills or operational gaps in your groups. Perhaps these gaps occurred due to promotions or departing employees. So by having an overview of your existing staff, it will be much easier to steer your HR recruiting in the right direction. Pinpointing gaps in your workforce is normal, especially if your business is growing and scaling its operations. But you can take that to your advantage and consider these gaps as your HR recruiting goals.

Consider your gaps as your goals

As we mentioned earlier, it’s time to take these gaps and turn them into HR recruiting goals that need to be achieved. How will this help? It will allow you to seamlessly communicate your needs internally and externally with hiring partners. For example, let’s assume you opened a new office in a new country. Let’s also assume that your Sales team is anticipated to leverage this new market opportunity to generate more sales. Suppose the reality was quite grim, and the Sales team has not succeeded, nor grown since the opening of the office. The only thing this has led to is the rise in admin work. In this case, you can identify the need (goal) that you need to reduce the amount of admin work done by the Sales team. So as soon as you translate your needs to goals, it makes it far easier for you to determine the direction and budget you need to achieve this HR recruiting goal. Now, if you’re finding it hard to identify gaps in your workforce, perhaps these tips can help:

• Ask your existing employees to fill out a survey with the skills and competencies that they have.
• Engage in group discussions, assessment tests, and interviews to gauge existing skillsets.
• Leverage customer feedback to pinpoint where gaps may exist.

Determine short-term and long-term hiring needs

Sometimes, for HR recruiting to work, you need to determine your long and short-term hiring needs. For example, many employers resort to short-term hiring just to fulfill an immediate need. Especially if a current demand requires immediate hiring. So if a startup is looking to experience rapid growth, they might turn towards hiring freelancers. Especially since they can get them on board faster. Also, many enterprises also favor short-term hires, especially for finance and IT positions. Not only does this expedite your HR recruiting, but it also helps you meet your short-term needs with ease. Now, your long-term HR recruiting strategy should typically match your company’s corporate strategy. Especially when you want to recruit talented employees that seamlessly fit your company’s goals and culture. A great place to start is by having a strong employer brand to accelerate your long-term HR recruiting strategy. This will help you boost retention rates and keep your employees happy.

Check your finances

HR recruiting can be costly. Especially when your hiring needs keep ballooning. So prior to delving into it, it pays to check your finances first. So, even if your company chooses not to be transparent with salary ranges, your HR team needs to know about it. Why? Because before HR recruiting starts, your team has to do the necessary research. That means looking into the market, gathering information, looking into what the competition is offering, and learning more about the candidates’ expectations. Only then, will you be able to see what you can offer and what you cannot. Bear in mind, that salary ranges differ based on different factors. Seniority level also plays a critical role. So whenever you add any extra skills or extensive work experience to the job description, you’ll also have to increase the financial remuneration. For HR recruiting to work, you need to provide new hires with compensation that is not only competitive but fair. All while making sure it doesn’t burn your cash or put a strain on your budget.

Keeping it short

HR recruiting requires a lot more than just enthusiasm and dedication. It needs you to thoroughly assess your hiring needs. It also needs careful planning and research, to help you see the bigger picture and what your company really needs. So, how does your company assess its hiring needs? Let us know in the comments below! EVA-REC is an end-to-end ATS that automates and improves the hiring process with AI technology. From small businesses to industry giants – EVA-REC helps companies drive merit-based, objective, and fair hiring practices that minimize bias, without dehumanizing the hiring process. Request a free demo and see EVA-REC in action today!

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