Does the phrase “proactive hiring” make you cringe? Does the whole concept just seem like too much work? In the current hiring environment, though, it truly pays off. To get the best talent, you need to work a little smarter than the competition. How?

Proactive hiring simply means being aware of what jobs are most valuable to your bottom line and having a plan in place to fill vacancies or newly created roles—not waiting to hire until someone quits or a new project is on the table.

Here are four strategies to get you started:

  1. Start your spring with a fresh attitude and promise yourself you’ll try to avoid last-minute hiring. You know that all too often it leads to high turnover, which leads to more hiring. Doesn’t that sound like too much work?
  2. Get your timing right. This is the biggest challenge in proactive recruitment. Use what’s called the A-B-C method—which stands for Always Be Closing, or at least always looking for, prospective employees. That way you’ll have some at top of your mind and maybe even at your fingertips when necessary. Build yourself a qualified talent pool.
  3. Only accept quality people. Finding good candidates is about more than finding people who can do a job. You want to find people who will grow and thrive in the job. This requires hiring more for personality than for skills. Locate the people with the skills you need, then interview them for the personality you require—or hire them if they have the right personality but could use a little training and development in the skills department. After all, you can teach skills, but not personality.
  4. Learn to make quick decisions. With the speed of today’s hiring market, he who hesitates will almost certainly lose. If your hiring process is process-heavy, multi-layered, and slow, you run the very real risk of losing your good candidates to another offer. Streamline your processes so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Once you’ve identified the areas where you’ll most likely have to hire soon or regularly, talk to your executives about the company’s growth plans. Again, if you wait to hire until the last minute, you’ll be hiring reactively, not proactively.

Proactive recruitment will ensure your company has enough potential talent available whenever the time arrives—now, soon, or in the near future.

There’s really a fifth strategy for hiring proactively: call the professionals at Staffers! Contact us to see which one of our flexible staffing plans will work for you.

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