How do you define and implement a recruitment policy?

Whatever the business or sector concerned, a recruitment policy defines the best practices applied to recruitment within an organization. It outlines the recruitment process by including the actions, decisions and resources implemented by a team or department to fill vacant or newly-created positions within a company.

Whether you're a human resources director, manager, HR manager or departmental recruitment officer, the human resources policy you implement is of vital importance to your organization's overall strategy: it guarantees the application of procedures while enhancing the experience of future employees and promoting the company's values and culture.

How can you put in place a recruitment policy at the heart of your HR approach, and make a success of your recruitment campaign?

See all software Recruiting

Why define a recruitment policy?

If the aim of recruitment is to acquire new talent, the implementation of a recruitment policy defines the conditions under which recruitment takes place.

It will not only help you find suitable candidates, but also :

• optimize processes,
• support the company's development,
• and ensure the long-term development of its activities.

Let's take a look at the issues involved in defining a recruitment policy.

Adapting to the main recruitment constraints

Following a well-defined policy helps limit the impact on the company's activities. Recruitment is a complex system to implement, and is exposed to a number of constraints:

• it is time- and cost-intensive : the preparation of recruitment actions, the publication of the advertisement, and the possible use of an external recruitment agency or service provider, all generate expenses;
• it is dependent on changes within the company: in the face of technical, organizational and other changes, recruitment procedures must adapt to these changes and support these requirements;
• it depends on the economic situation and the state of the market: other offers on the market, in specific sectors in high demand, make the search for the rare pearl more difficult.

Defining a recruitment policy, linked to a strategy, enables you to circumvent anticipated difficulties or mitigate their effects, for example by strengthening your employer brand in order to stand out from other recruiters on the hunt for talent.

Adopt a consistent, transparent approach

When a recruitment policy is defined, followed and respected, the actions implemented are streamlined. As a result, a genuine recruitment process can be put in place, and best practices can be applied systematically.

In order to establish procedures to follow, here are a few points to consider:

• How and on what criteria can I select and validate skills?
• Which search or talent management tools will I use? Will an HRIS be necessary?
• How do I conduct the job interview? Will there be several interviews? In the presence of which employees?
• What evaluation tests or assessment tools should I use?
• What elements will be essential in determining my final choice?
• What steps will I take to integrate new employees?

To ensure transparency, each candidate is given a clear recruitment pathway:

• whether or not a pre-selection interview is required,
• number of interviews and with whom (manager, HR manager, future manager or employee, etc.)
• a business or technical assessment,
• a personality test, etc.
  
  

And why not go a step further by detailing the integration process for the new recruit: onboarding period, training course to discover the company and its professions, welcome afterwork with the team, etc.? Candidates will certainly benefit from knowing what awaits them during and after the process, and will be able to decide whether or not to apply.

Promoting your employer brand

A clear statement of the company's values can arouse the interest of qualified candidates prior to hiring. By integrating these strong values into your recruitment policy, you convey an image of cohesion and harmony to applicants. Your objective: to attract new talent, but also, in the longer term, to make them want to stay.

Your employer brand is based on a set of strong values that create your corporate culture: innovation, leadership, solidarity, ethics, equal opportunities, skills development, etc.

Here's an example of how the Parot Group's key values are highlighted on their website, under the heading "Our HR policy" / "Our values":

In this case, the company's values are clearly identified and promoted with simplicity and aesthetic appeal.

You too can take care of your employer communications to develop an attractive image among candidates, whether :

• via your website's career page,
• your corporate profile on LinkedIn,
• or at a professional event.

Will your company choose to emphasize recognition, well-being at work, performance? Know how to communicate the company's values, mission and expectations in a way that sets you apart and highlights your strengths as an employer.

⭐ Our tip for enhancing your employer brand: opt for a tool that facilitates communication between you and candidates (and future recruits), like Flatchr (more info below). Your corporate culture will be visible on your career site, and you'll be able to centralize and manage applications more effectively, giving your company a more positive image... In short, you control your brand image to recruit more effectively!

Comply with legislation

A recruitment policy must also take into account the imperatives of fairness and equal opportunity. In the world of work, the law aims to give everyone access to any type of position, whether in the public or private sector, without any distinction :

• race,
• gender
• age,
• religion
• ethnicity,
• health, etc.

All forms of discrimination must be avoided right from the selection stage.

A recruitment policy sets out rules to ensure that those in charge of recruitment do not allow themselves to be influenced by discriminatory (but possibly unconscious) prejudices, practices or customs.

To date, 20 discriminatory criteria are enshrined in the French Penal Code.

The exclusion or preference of one candidate over another should be based essentially on the skills required for the position to be filled (including knowledge, technical skills and soft skills).

Other parameters also need to be taken into account, such as :

• the protection of personal information, which is handled during the recruitment process,
• personal rights,
• and everything to do with health and safety in the workplace.

Sustainable recruitment

Recruiting represents an investment on several levels (budget, time, resources, etc.). That's why it's so important to have a recruitment policy that looks to the long (or at least medium) term. Its aim is to achieve long-term recruitment. To achieve this, it provides the means to promote :

• a good match between job and skills,
• the successful integration of new recruits: induction program, welcome booklet, etc.
• a strong corporate culture and values with which future employees can identify,
• employee well-being or quality of life at work : occupational health, working hours and conditions, quality of professional relations, etc.

Finally, the policy includes a set of measures aimed at employee fulfillment. This is part of the company's more general HR policy, which aims to establish, for example, a healthy working climate open to dialogue.

How to implement a recruitment policy?

Know your company's strategy

To be relevant and successful, any recruitment strategy needs to be thought through in advance, and in line with the company's overall strategy.

This means familiarizing oneself with the company's strategic goals in economic, financial, technological and social terms.

This is followed by the definition of priorities: strategic needs are prioritized, then skills requirements are identified. Finally, the types of profiles required for the company's development or long-term survival can be validated.

Defining recruitment objectives

Recruitment objectives must be defined in advance, and depend on the company's short-, medium- and long-term objectives, as well as its current projects or changes: developments, transfers, relocations, restructuring, etc. These variables can have a direct impact on the recruitment process. These variables can have a direct impact on recruitment: an inflated budget for a given period or, on the contrary, a hiring freeze, etc.

Objectives can also be set at department or team level. For example, a department may set itself the target of finding the right skills and professional experience, in order to reduce the cost of subsequent training. Alternatively, a department that operates in an agile mode and values cross-functional skills will be looking for a flexible personality with a collaborative spirit.

💡As well as defining objectives, it may be useful to identify the factors that may determine whether or not they will be achieved: don't hesitate to think about the key risk or success factors in hiring.

Draw up specifications

Once the needs have been analyzed and the objectives formulated, it's time to detail the conditions for implementing the policy. What means of action are available? Recruitment is one of them, but sometimes it may involve a training plan, if existing resources match the required skills, or the construction of new work processes.

Drawing up a set of specifications will meet several imperatives for the effective implementation of a recruitment policy:

• formulate the response to be made to the company's diversity or equal opportunity criteria;
• determine the fundamentals of the policy and its specific objectives,
• identify the key phases in the process.

Drafting the policy

Following these preparatory stages, the policy can be formalized. It can take the form of a paper or electronic document, containing :

• the purpose of the policy,
• the scope of the policy
• a statement of the various rules and best practices as defined for the recruitment process,
• definitions of any technical or specific terms used,
• references or appendices for a better understanding of the policy,
• its effective date and, if necessary, the revision date(s).

Implement the key phases of the process

Once everything is in place, the policy must then be applied during the recruitment process. To do this, make sure that it meets the challenges mentioned above, at the crossroads between :

• compliance with the law,
• efficiency and sustainable development of the company,
• and alignment with the organization's values.

Make sure it is communicated effectively to all employees. In this way, each stakeholder will follow the different procedures put in place for each key stage of the recruitment process:

• preparation: identifying or expressing the need, defining the position, fine-tuning the approach,
• candidate search: choice of tool, resources involved in the recruitment campaign,
• candidate selection: sorting of applications, interviews and tests,
• reception of candidates: communication of the positive decision, reception within the company and integration into the job.

From research to integration, including job interviews, the reference text that is the policy accompanies and guides your employees.

Measuring the impact of actions taken

When defining objectives, it is essential to check whether they have been achieved, and to evaluate their impact. Once the above-mentioned phases have been completed, you'll be in a position to assess the success of your recruitment.

How do you assess return on investment? In a straightforward way, the aim is to see whether the tasks undertaken by the newly-arrived employee meet the needs defined upstream, by observing the following elements, among others:

• how is the department or team performing?
• how satisfied are colleagues or direct managers?
• how does the person themselves feel about their position, their missions, their welcome within the team, the quality of life at work, etc.?

These are just some of the factors that can be used to assess the effectiveness of our recruitment policy. But the work of the human resources function doesn't stop there! Other HR policies can complement the essential stage of recruitment.

Other HR policies

Training policy

This will enable future recruits to enhance their skills and develop their position and missions.

Internal development policy

Through career management, the HR department "recruits" from within the company. That's why it's important to implement an internal mobility policy alongside recruitment.

Workplace well-being policy

A policy of well-being in the workplace (team-building activities, friendly workspaces, etc.) encourages employee motivation and involvement. A good way to retain new recruits!

To ensure the implementation and efficiency of any human resources policy and its variations, there are tools available to help companies save time and increase productivity, and ultimately optimize their investment in human capital. Let's find out what they are!

Tools for an effective recruitment policy

What are the benefits?

As we have seen, effective recruitment requires a well-defined process. Some tasks can be automated, and work carried out collaboratively.

Software can help you to do this, and offers many advantages for optimizing your entire recruitment process, such as :

• automatic distribution of job vacancies,
• building up a pool of candidates and CVs,
• application management and tracking at different stages,
• job tracking and statistical data dashboards,
• automated correspondence, etc.

Automating tasks, tracking them in real time and centralizing information will undeniably facilitate and accelerate your recruitment process.

Selection of 6 recruitment software packages

Beetween

Beetween is a digital recruitment management platform that digitizes and centralizes all your recruitment processes: multicasting among over 150 job boards to choose from, sourcing from LinkedIn, career site creation, collaborative recruitment with internal validation workflows, and more. Its wide range of functions will meet all your needs!

Why choose Beetween?

• a fully customized, easy-to-use software package,
• relevant statistical reports to evaluate and improve your recruitment activity,
• the responsiveness and efficiency of our support teams, who will help you make the most of the tool.

Flatchr

Flatchr is a recruitment and candidate tracking software that promises to simplify the management and acquisition of candidates, and to support recruiters throughout the entire process. Multi-distribution of job offers, statistical reports, online CV library, etc., go digital with this simple and ergonomic collaborative tool!

Why choose Flatchr?

• a fully customizable recruitment management process,
• customized rates and offers tailored to your needs,
• a motivated, expert and efficient support team at your service.

Greenhouse

The Greenhouse ATS solution turns recruitment into a competitive advantage. Automate all aspects of hiring, and simplify CV management to enable your teams to find talent more efficiently.

The software even sends detailed reports and measurable data at every stage of the recruitment process, so you can use them to improve your processes.

Why choose Greenhouse?

• Easy to use and can be integrated with over 150 other partner systems.
• Alerts and notifications to reduce your reaction time and enable you to be proactive.
• Customizable recruitment plans that can be tailored to each member of the recruitment team.

Recruitee

Recruitee is a recruitment and talent management software designed to optimize the efforts of recruitment teams, so that they can concentrate on higher value-added tasks: from sourcing to the automatic distribution of offers, via skills assessment, the solution optimizes the recruitment process. It can also be used to create a career site, helping to enhance your employer brand.

Why choose Recruitee?

• advanced data analysis features,
• unlimited number of users, regardless of the subscription chosen,
• ease of use.

softgarden

softgarden is a tool for rapidly recruiting top talent. Automatically manage the CVs of your candidates, making it easier to find the talent among them.

Post job offers in just a few clicks, thanks to the tool's help and templates, which you can automatically distribute to over 300 specialized partner sites.

Why choose softgarden?

• Everything is set up so that no time is wasted. Result: 60% less recruitment time;
• Constant evaluation of your internal processes and entry channels to optimize them;
• With the mobile application, receive notifications and react instantly. You manage your recruitment campaigns in real time.

Softy

All-in-one software, Softy is a recruitment and application management tool that makes the most of the latest technological innovations: a matching algorithm identifies the most suitable candidate for the vacancy to be filled, grouped mailings optimize your communications with candidates, and so on. Your application and recruitment process management is entirely centralized.

Why choose Softy?

• integrated recruitment tests: personality, cognitive, technical and professional,
• video interviews can be conducted directly from the Softy interface,
• an intuitive tool that's quick to learn.

Taleez

Taleez centralizes recruiter and candidate experiences on a collaborative platform, simplifying the recruitment process.

The software automates the distribution of job offers and enables global recruitment management, from talent sourcing to application management.

Why choose Taleez?

• an all-in-one solution for companies ranging from start-ups to SMEs and ETIs,
• the creation of a personalized career site to promote your employer brand,
• multi-distribution of job offers across a hundred or so sites and 13,000 higher education courses.

Talents'in

Created " by recruiters for recruiters ", Talents'in is an all-in-one software package that adapts to the needs of all organizations: Whether you're an SME, a multi-site company, a local authority, a recruitment firm or an agency, there's a solution for you. The software helps you put collaboration and efficiency at the heart of your approach, optimizing your recruitment management and involving all your staff.

Why choose Talents'in?

• comprehensive functionality in an ergonomic environment,
• the creation of a personalized candidate experience that enhances your employer brand,
• high-quality support in getting to grips with the tool, your strategy and your KPIs.

See all software Recruiting

The right method and tools for a successful policy

All recruitment requires the implementation and management of a recruitment policy in line with the company's strategic stakes, while integrating it into a coherent, global HR approach... a huge undertaking!

For this ambitious but achievable program, there are methods and tools to support you. For example, you can choose to implement forward-looking employment and skills management, an HR management tool which aims to make the strategic choices needed to best meet the challenges facing a company in the future.

Whatever approach you adopt, there are many levers at your disposal for successfully implementing your recruitment policy. Which ones should you choose?