The Smart Move for Growing Companies Is to Always Be Recruiting Talent By keeping your list of potential new hires evergreen you are well positioned whether business gets abruptly better or a hole on your team abruptly opens.
By David Ciccarelli •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Continuous intake is the process of always accepting resumes from promising candidates looking to join your growing company. This initiative can be taken a step further by reviewing the resumes submitted by candidates and even interviewing the candidates, especially those stars on a continuous, unending basis.
Why would a company want to be always accepting resumes? You may be thinking this is a waste of time. On the contrary. Entrepreneurs and executives alike will find that this process is a significant time saver.
Related: Hire Better: Recruiting 2.0
Here are a few scenarios to consider in the continuous intake growth strategy.
You're Growing Faster Than Anticipated
Let's open with a best-case scenario. You've mapped out your hiring plan for the year to reflect the anticipated increase in sales volume. You're likely not planning just for sales representatives and account managers, but also supporting roles in project management, customer service and finance. Now imagine your wildest dreams are coming true and business is growing faster than anticipated.
In this optimistic scenario, you're in a position to capitalize on what the market is telling you; people are responding to your marketing efforts, prospects are converting into customers and you're able to deliver an exceptional customer experience through second-to-none technical support. It's time to seize the day.
To maintain momentum, you need to bring on more staff, faster than you had original forecast. So where do you turn? To your increasingly deep pool of promising candidates, of course!
Tapping into a pool of candidates who have already expressed an interest in your company allows you to carry on, from a running start if you will. Gone are the days of starting your hiring process from a standstill. Using this new recruiting strategy, your job postings on third-party websites will have longer expiration dates. For jobs posted on your own website, keep them up, indefinitely.
The result will be that you're able to save time in the hiring process and ultimately reach your business goals faster than planned.
You've Lost a Key Member of Your Team
No one wants to face it, but the day will come when a key member of your team will pursue another career opportunity. Assuming that you've at least considered this scenario, you've also thought about what you'd do next.
That next step can be easier if you know that you've got a back-up plan, and in this case, your back-up plan includes a number of high-potential candidates who have previously expressed interested in working with you but you simply didn't have a position available at the time.
Related: Could This New Recruiting Tool Be a Bigger, Smarter LinkedIn?
Rather than turning the candidate down, encourage them to apply now and you'll short list their resume so that if an opening should arise, they'll be the first to know.
Putting Continuous Intake Into Practice
Putting job descriptions for each key role on your website is a great place to start. Candidates need to see where they could fit in.
Featuring job postings with no expiration date is another way to implement continuous intake. Why limit yourself to 30-day windows? LinkedIn's job slots allow employers to post new jobs every 30 days, but you can simply renew your last posting, something we take full advantage of.
To complement the job postings, ongoing outreach to candidates using resume databases like LinkedIn, Indeed, CareerBuilder or Monster is also prudent. By starting the conversation early, you'll be catching those passive candidates who may just apply because they are curious. Great! That's the first step. Generate awareness and interest in them joining your company.
Recruiting is a time consuming process. It's an area that you certainly don't want to rush. These are big decisions for your company and a life-changing career move for the candidate. It's understandable that people want to take their time to make the right decision.
However, the right decision doesn't mean that you have to reinvent the wheel with each new opening in your organization. Developing a streamlined process that includes continuous intake will ensure that you've got a pipeline of promising candidates. Following that, conducting speed interviews and one-on-ones will improve the caliber of people joining your company.
In a year's time, you'll look back and wonder why you didn't start this process earlier. On that note, go get all your job postings on your website today and put yourself into the mode of "we're always looking for great people," because that is true of every great organization.
