Recruiting Ideas

Disclaimer: These creative and innovative recruiting ideas range from the common to the off-the-wall! Some are serious, some are humorous – but all are intended to get you thinking!

Recruiting New Applicants

1. Use alternate locations for registration.
2. Try virtual and curbside job fairs.
3. Offer larger than normal referral bonus for difficult-to-fill positions.
4. Try Snapchat. It will give you access to 100 million daily users under the age of 34.
5. Hire a full-time recruiter.
6. When applicant turns down an assignment, ask if they know someone else who might be interested.
7. Systematically call, email or text applicants to ask for referrals (be sure to get permission to communicate with them first).
8. Ask for referrals from manicurists, hair stylists, tanning salons. Give them company information to hand out. If they refer someone, give the applicant a certificate for free service at the salon.
9. Instant bonus for giving name of person they would refer ($5 lottery ticket).
10. Dig into job board analytics. Find out who’s applying and how they’re finding you. Redouble your efforts where it makes the most impact.
11. Re-recruit. Returning visitors to your job board are 2x more likely to apply to a job than a first-time visitor.
12. Advertise on Facebook. It’s where both active and tough-to-reach passive candidates are. You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck.
13. Remember word of mouth. Don’t underestimate the importance of discussing your hiring needs in your social circle AND offering an enticing employee referral program.
14. Use mobile-friendly applications. This isn’t technically a way to find candidates, but long applications that can’t be completed on mobile are a sure way to lose them.
15. Re-engage with remarketing. PPC puts you in front of those who visit your website by launching a remarketing campaign that will keep your staffing firm top-of-mind.
16. Learn about recruitment marketing. Focus your efforts on attracting and retaining the best candidates with these tools and techniques.
17. Publicize your training resources (including virtual and on-site training capabilities).
18. Work with companies who are laying off – offer to help displaced workers.
19. Scenario recruiting – set up scenario, ask people to refer the people that fit the scenario (e.g. temps from other services, someone just laid off, someone going on spring break, etc.)
20. On-campus job fair – after 40 hours of work, donate $25 to school fund – $50 if school refers person to us.
21. Form alliance with human resources department to recruit applicants they can not use. If client later has a need for the applicant at their company and you haven’t placed him permanently, give the applicant back (second chance).
22. Use direct-hire applicants for temp work.
23. Add a chatbot to your website’s home page, primary job seekers page or job board.
24. On-hold advertising.
25. Direct recruit during lunch hour.
26. Sponsor a break during a night course – provide free refreshments.
27. Use “free training”, if you provide it, in your job postings.
28. Align with outplacement or resume services.
29. Recruit from 3rd party training schools.
30. Meet instructors of classes at local colleges, continuing education, etc.
31. Find and try new niche boards for highly specialized roles.
32. Pre-graduation mailing – “Apply with hundreds of companies at one time – we will market you.” Or, “You’ve got a job already? Yes, I sent my resume to XYZ Staffing.”
33. Ads for college interns – Get experience with XYZ Staffing.
34. Treasure hunt game – create treasure map. Give applicant a piece of the map for each referral given. Complete map to get prize.
35. Staff a booth or table in a grocery store for registration.
36. Ask clients if they have dissatisfied employees we could recruit away to save termination costs.
37. Gamify your application process.
38. Lunch is on you – if applicants register on lunch break, buy them lunch.
39. Borrow space at a university, or set up a table in the student union.
40. Ask other companies for creative and innovative recruiting ideas.
41. Align with local Realtors – recruit people relocating here.
42. Go to employment and job fairs.
43. Recruit from substitute teachers lists.
44. Hold a marketing event / open house for instructors, teachers, etc.
45. Speak virtually or in-person for a class at community education or continuing education.
46. Ask your clients for referrals.
47. Open branch offices and move to territories for each branch.
48. Advertise in your clients’ newsletters.
49. Shop your competitors to get creative recruitment ideas.
50. Teach a class at community education / continuing education.
51. Guest lecture at a local college.
52. Raise your minimum referral bonus amount.
53. Get testimonials from temps who have used your training facility.
54. Hold an open house.
55. Try QR codes in your ads that link directly to your job board or online application – so job seekers can use mobile tech to apply on the go.
56. Use space at the Department of Labor.
57. List available positions with the Department of Labor.
58. Present a high school career day.
59. Recruit from GED classes.
60. Work with the Board of Education.
61. Advertise at theaters on-screen.
62. Offer remote testing – go to the temp.
63. Advertise on radio.
64. Get on your local morning news program.
65. Consider an infomercial.
66. Produce an XYZ Staffing video.
67. Advertise on city buses.
68. Go downtown and hand out $10 coupons to register.
69. Advertise on back of supermarket register tapes.
70. Hand out brochures in front of your competitors’ offices.
71. Have outside sales people display magnetic signs on their car doors.
72. XYZ Staffing bumper stickers -Beep if You’re a Temp.
73. Sign in front of urinals / bathroom stalls.
74. Give away phone calling cards to your temps.

Applicant Retention and Reactivation

1. Keep your best temps employed.
2. Offer better pay to your temps – pay higher than your competition.
3. Don’t wait for the temp to end an assignment to plan for the next.
4. Don’t wait for the perfect assignment to come in – market the temp to clients.
5. Hand out referral bonuses on the job site; take picture for your e-newsletter.
6. Create videos of successful temps on assignment to highlight their contributions (you can also use these videos for recruiting, too).
7. In-office bulletin board with photos of your temps in action “XYZ Staffing on the Job.”
8. Offer free seminars or webinars on getting a job, preparing a resume, interview success, etc.
9. Work with companies who are adding staff.
10. Automate “Come Back & See Us. We want you back” cards. Mail with W-2’s.
11. Have a “Where are you now?” reunion. Share success stories. Have former applicants bring a friend, bring a boss, etc.
12. Implement an incentive program to pay for medical benefits. Ideas: work a minimum number of hours, or refer a minimum number of people. Must work 28 hours per week to stay on the plan. After 90 days eligible for the program; after 6 months you pay part.
13. Send monthly relationship builders to highly qualified temps – post cards, notes, birthday cards, e-cards, etc.
14. Call to reactivate highly skilled temps.
15. Help temp applicants who want perm jobs find perm jobs as well.
16. Provide discounts on daycare.
17. Hold a special drawing for new applicants.
18. Develop a process for sending postcard, “Haven’t heard from you lately, are you still interested?”
19. Market to your inactive temps list.
20. Create a content strategy to attract more qualified candidates (both active and passive). Create content that answers their specific job search, career growth and career change questions – and be sure to explain the reasons they should work with your agency.
21. Share the content you create on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social sites where your ideal candidates spend time. Include calls to action that drive job seekers back to your website and job board.
22. Provide bonuses to long-term temps.
23. Share job posts in relevant Facebook groups.
24. Use PPC ads to drive more job seekers from Google and Facebook to your website.
25. Market your most placeable candidates to your clients and prospects (educate candidates on the benefits this provides for them, too).
26. Provide more recognition for temps.
27. Develop a relationship between the temp and your staffing service.
28. Push notifications from your career site to job seekers who opt into communications from your firm.
29. Create client-specific career sites. If your client does not already have a career site, offer to provide one. Even if your client already has a career site, offer to create a secondary career site just for temporary jobs. With a client-branded site that you provide, you can post and manage the jobs the client has asked your company to fill, and your client can directly manage other jobs they want to fill on their own. By partnering on a career site, you’ll get better access to your clients’ upcoming hiring needs, and since the jobs are on an employer site, you may be able to get them onto more career sites (no promises, but it’s worth a try!). Also, by marketing jobs in connection with your client, you may improve your response by leveraging your client’s name in your job advertising and social recruiting.
30. Offer a scale for increased vacation time – earn more than one week.
31. Offer an XYZ Staffing day care service.
32. Hold an XYZ Staffing picnic for temps.
33. Offer online timekeeping, paycards and other services to make getting paid easier.
34. Offer a frequent hours club – gift for working certain number of hours.
35. Build or buy an app that promotes your jobs, facilitates service to candidates and allows you to send push notifications.
36. Develop a “permanent” staff of temporaries – guarantee your best temps 40 hours at minimum wage and offer them assignments first.
37. Call your temps “associates.”
38. Hold a happy hour / cocktail party downtown.
39. Hold a family fun night.
40. Develop and give away an XYZ Staffing Temp Cookbook.
41. Hold an XYZ Staffing golf outing.
42. Offer an XYZ Staffing Visa card.

Improving Skill Level of Current Applicants

1. Put a process in place for automatic follow-up after temps are interviewed. Encourage them to train and work for your service.
2. Get lists of job descriptions from clients, and train around these needs.
3. Gather evidence that training pays off for your temps – higher pay, better assignments, etc.
4. Quantify what improved skills mean to your temps.
5. Include an article in each issue of your newsletter discussing need for specific skills.
6. Provide coupons to your applicants for free training.
7. Provide coupons to train on a specific skill.
8. Offer additional training room hours, after business hours.
9. Ask the trainees why they are training.
10. Training party – hold a training class followed by a barbecue.

Other Recruitment Ideas..

1. Get client vacation schedules in advance to plan better for their needs.
2. Cross train temporary and permanent placement counselors in interviewing, to encourage applicant sharing between divisions.
3. After scheduling interviews, sell specific jobs to create a sense of urgency.
4. Use vacation planners as giveaways to clients.
5. Confirm scheduled interviews.
6. Follow up to no shows – ask them why they didn’t show, and possibly reschedule them.
7. Creative fills – use in-house staff to fill short-term orders for high potential clients.
8. Double-book interviews.
9. Conduct a blind survey to compare us to other services – use a fictitious company name. Ask temps for competitive information. Pay $50 to complete it.
10. Give temps a bonus for client referrals – tickets, training, free lunch, free training.
11. Create a job resource downloadable ebook for job hunters with ways to find jobs locally – important names, numbers, room for notes on job search, college names, or professional training.
12. Hold a “Temp of the Day” contest on local radio, where your clients call, email or text in nominations. Good promotion for the radio station and your staffing service.