8 Recruitment Goals For 2023

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Setting the right recruitment goals is essential for both recruiters and in-house hiring managers. Recruiting well can make or break a business, as finding talent is a challenge all businesses face.

Keep reading to learn what goals for recruiters actually matter, as well as how to set recruitment objectives for your business.

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on reducing new hire failure rates from the start of the recruiting process.

• Optimize your process so your speed-to-hire doesn’t slow down.

• Implement SMART goals for recruiters to stay on track.

• Have a recruiting strategy that incorporates key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.

What are recruitment goals?

Recruitment goals are targets to help recruiters and hiring managers improve their performance and hire high-quality talent for their companies. Recruiting goals are ultimately dependent on what matters most as a recruiter, meaning they’re adaptable based on your recruitment methods and objectives.

8 recruitment goals to aim for

The recruitment process revolves around receiving a job order, sourcing top-notch candidates, screening applicants, bringing them to your clients, extending a job offer, and successfully placing a candidate. There are many goals for recruiters you could set to improve this process.

Here are 8 recruiting goals examples and sample performance goals for recruiters:

1. Reduce new hire failure rates

   As a recruiter, you want to make as many placements as you can. But, the placement process doesn’t end when the candidate is onboarded at your client’s company. In fact, part of the placement process is employee retention.

   New hire failure rate is something many businesses struggle with. In fact, about 46% of all new hires quit or are fired within 18 months of getting hired. It’s not enough to get a candidate in the door at your client’s business—you need to keep them there to satisfy your client. If a client is not satisfied with your results, they won’t want to hire you in the future.

   How do you reduce the new hire failure rate? Simply put, there isn’t one direct answer to this question. But, taking a proactive approach can help you work on achieving this goal.

   • Spend more time screening and interviewing candidates to learn what their career goals are.

   • Listen to what your client is looking for and communicate that to the candidates.

   • Take notes.

   • Be reliable so you build a strong relationship with clients and the candidates you source.

   Before you pass candidates along to your client or to the hiring manager, make sure they will be a good fit. On top of looking at their skills, education, and experience, get to know them. Determine if they would jive well with the culture at your client’s company.

2. Keep your speed-to-hire strong

   Depending on the client, industry, and number of candidates you source, you might see the hiring process drag on. But, long placement processes are one reason that candidates reject job offers. To prevent low acceptance rates, make sure the hiring process stays focused.

   • Stay organized and adapt to current industry trends to prevent lag.

   • Do your research before you start sourcing candidates.

   • Look up comparable positions to see the average salary and qualifications.

   • Then, base the job description on these industry averages to attract the right people.

   Getting overloaded with resumes is one reason recruiters spend more time on the hiring process. You can streamline your process by using recruitment software to keep track of applications, schedule appointments, and source candidates from your database.

   Don’t let your speed-to-hire slow down because your recruiting process isn’t adapting to current industry standards. Do your research before posting a job opening.

   Foster good communication with candidates throughout the process. Keep them posted on where they stand.

   Make sure your client stays on track with hiring as well. Screen and interview candidates on behalf of your client to speed up the process.

3. Implement SMART recruitment goals

Above all else, the goals you set should be strategic. Before you set a goal, make sure it is SMART:

• Specific: Define the goal you want to accomplish and why

• Measurable: Be able to quantify the goal

• Achievable: Determine if you have the ability to accomplish the goal

• Reasonable: See if the goal is worth your time

• Time-based: Establish a timeframe for reaching the goal

You don’t want to set goals without developing a plan for how you will achieve them.

The plan you make should list a specific and relevant goal you can measure, how long it will take you to reach it, and how you plan on achieving the goal. If you can’t measure your goal, you won’t know if you reach it or not.

For example, your goal might be to improve the number of placements you make. Last year, you made 10 placements. Take a look at how using the SMART goal strategy will help develop your goal:

• Specific: Make 11 placements this year

• Measurable: 10% increase

• Achievable: Yes—one study found that 56.4% of recruiters make 11 or more placements a year

• Reasonable: Yes—will increase salary

• Time-based: 1 year to achieve goal

As you can see, the goal is planned out before it is implemented. It is specific, measurable, attainable, and worthwhile, and the timetable is appropriate.

4. Simplify the recruiting process

   One of the best recruitment objectives to set is to make your recruiting process simpler. This can be achieved by using recruiting software to make your recruitment process more efficient and keeping all your information in one platform. Beyond that, you’ll be able to track important recruiting KPIs much more easily while also reaching more job seekers.

   This will save you time and effort, and can ultimately free up your time to create better rapport with candidates and, in turn, land more qualified employees for your business.

5. Improve recruitment marketing

   One of the best smart goals for recruiters to set is to increase your company’s visibility (and inbound leads) through marketing. By creating an attractive corporate brand, attending recruitment events, and engaging with job seekers (and possibly customers) on social media platforms like LinkedIn, you generate much more interest in your company’s open roles.

   Your job becomes much easier when people come to you looking for jobs, rather than needing to outreach to passive job seekers who have never heard of your company before.

6. Reduce your cost-per-hire

   Cost-per-hire tracks the money you spend to recruit a single employee. It’s an important metric for recruiters to track, and a “good” cost-per-hire depends on your industry and the job level (executives cost more to recruit than entry-level workers, for example).

   Regardless of your market, it’s essential to have a strong grasp on your current cost-per-hire, so you have a bar to work with. Reducing your cost per hire will make you more efficient, save your company money, and free up resources for other important business goals.

7. Upgrade your career page

   Career pages are an essential element of recruitment, and serve as the first impression of your business for many candidates. A confusing career page with a bad user experience will turn off talented job seekers who only want to work for the best.

   Investing in career page improvements that make the candidate experience seamless and engaging will bring in more candidates for less money. Overhaul your UI and make sure that any question a job seeker might have is clearly visible on the page. This goes hand-in-hand with enhancing your employer brand and overall candidate experience.

8. Write better job descriptions

   A more specific goal than upgrading your career page, crafting compelling job descriptions goes a long way in generating more inbound interest in your open roles. Get input from hiring managers, team members, and other stakeholders to draft a candidate persona that attracts the right sort of job seeker to apply. This also saves time and money on the backend, since you’ll waste less time interviewing unfit candidates.

   To get started, remove the responsibilities and qualifications that are not essential, and really drill down on the ones that are. Paint a picture not just of the job, but of the company, its culture, and the salary/benefits the position comes with. Ultimately, a higher quality job description leads to higher quality applicants, saving you time and money on new-hire failures.

Benefits of setting recruitment goals

Setting the right recruitment goals improves your performance as a recruiter and the quality of employees for your company — a win-win. It’s important to adapt your recruiting goals to focus on areas of weakness before fine-tuning areas you already excel in.

Good goals for recruiters help to increase your hiring rate, lower the cost of hiring, reduce the new-hire failure rate, and, ultimately, improve the workplace for everyone. Benefits of goal-setting in recruitment include:

• Reaching a larger pool of candidates. The more applicants you receive, the better the odds you’ll hire a quality employee who will stick around longer and make positive contributions to the team. Plus, a larger candidate pool means more diversity, contributing to a more inclusive work environment that has a wide range of skills and experience.

• Saving money. Achieving recruitment goals brings down your cost-per-hire, while also reducing your new-hire failure rate. It doesn’t matter if you can hire cheap and fast if the people you hire keep quitting or getting let go because of inaccurate job descriptions or inadequate skill sets that weren’t sussed out during the hiring process.

• Promoting a great company culture. Finding candidates that fit with your current company culture or make invaluable additions to it benefits the whole company. In turn, this makes it easier, faster, and cheaper to hire new employees in the future, as talent will start seeking you out, rather than requiring a lot of outbound work.

• Increasing productivity. The ultimate goal of hiring is to improve your business and make it more efficient and productive. Setting the right recruitment goals makes these elements more effective, increasing your company’s productivity and revenue.

Additional tips for recruiting goals

Having recruiting goals is clearly important to success. You want to be focused and alert during the entire process. You want something to aim for while you remain aware of successes and failures.

Additional ways to improve your recruiting goals include:

• Simplify the recruiting process. Similar to accelerating the hiring process, you want to be efficient with your time and energy. Accomplish this by using technology to your advantage. Recruiting software, job boards, and content management systems will all help you keep track and centralize your process.

• Have a recruitment strategy. Don’t just go into the recruiting process blind. Have a target recruitment strategy that incorporates KPIs (key performance indicators) in your SMART goals. It is also important to understand that your strategy should last the full recruitment cycle, from defining your needs to recruiting, screening, hiring, and onboarding.

• Improve job descriptions. Complicated or cluttered job descriptions will only hurt you in the end. Keep your job descriptions as concise and clear as possible. You want to make sure to set expectations to avoid any miscommunication down the line.

• Understand cost-per-hire Get a financial sense of the hiring process to make improvements when necessary. You want to keep cost-per-hire as low as possible without sacrificing the quality of your candidates. Remember that candidates are a long-term investment, so some money should go into finding the best one; just be smart about how you spend it.

• Be flexible. Nothing is perfect, and change is inevitable. If you stick to rigid plans, you only set yourself up for missed opportunities. Use your recruiting goals as a framework on which to target candidates, but be willing to make adjustments. Be flexible in how you approach your goals, as well as what candidates offer, because it could be the difference between finding a good candidate and a great one.

Talent acquisition goals for recruiters: are they worthwhile?

A good recruiter will acknowledge there is always room for improvement. You might meet all the criteria for being a successful recruiter, but you need to challenge yourself and strive to set goals to improve your processes.

When you set goals, think of how they will help your candidates and clients. And, the goals should have a positive influence over your recruiting strategy. You might consider setting little goals every day.

Even though setting goals might take some time, you will find that it can encourage you to improve your recruiting process. When you spend time evaluating and coming up with ways to change your current strategies, you could see higher placement rates, faster speed-to-hire, and more satisfied clients and candidates.

Recruitment goals FAQ

1. What are the 3 P’s of recruitment?

   The 3 P’s of recruitment are purpose, process, and performance:

   • Purpose. This focuses on finding candidates who are the right fit for the company culture and can work well with the existing team.

     • Assessing cultural fit and team dynamics.

     • Evaluating interpersonal skills and collaboration abilities.

   • Process. This involves establishing an effective and streamlined recruitment process to ensure consistency and fairness in candidate evaluation.

     • Designing a structured interview process.

     • Implementing standardized assessments and tests.

   • Performance. This refers to evaluating a candidate’s skills, qualifications, and potential to contribute positively to the company’s success.

     • Analyzing relevant experience and expertise.

     • Gauging the candidate’s potential for growth and long-term impact.

2. What are the 7 stages of recruitment?

   The seven stages of recruitment are analysis, sourcing, screening, interviewing, assessment, selection, and onboarding:

   • Stage 1: Job Analysis

     Identifying the responsibilities, skills, qualifications, and requirements of the position.

   • Stage 2: Sourcing

     Searching for potential candidates through various channels, such as job boards, social media, and referrals.

   • Stage 3: Screening

     Reviewing resumes, applications, and other materials to shortlist candidates who match the job criteria.

   • Stage 4: Interviewing

     Conducting interviews to assess candidates’ qualifications, skills, and cultural fit.

   • Stage 5: Assessment

     Administering tests, assignments, or assessments to evaluate candidates’ job-related abilities.

   • Stage 6: Selection

     Choosing the best candidate based on interview performance, assessments, and overall fit.

   • Stage 7: Onboarding

     Welcoming and integrating the selected candidate into the organization, providing necessary training and orientation.

3. What is the goal of recruting?

   The goal of recruiting is to strategically identify, attract, and hire the most qualified individuals who align with an organization’s mission, values, and business objectives. Successful recruitment works to build a talented and diverse workforce that contributes to the company’s growth, innovation, and overall success.

   At its core, recruiting aims to fulfill immediate staffing needs while fostering long-term sustainability by nurturing a pool of skilled employees who can drive the company forward.

Author

Matthew Zane