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
- Use alternate locations for registration.
- Offer larger than normal referral bonus for difficult-to-fill positions.
- Staff a mall kiosk to apply for work. Give gift certificate after 40 or 80 hours of work.
- Hire a full-time recruiter.
- When applicant turns down an assignment, ask if they know someone else who might be interested.
- Systematically call applicant to ask for referrals.
- 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.
- Instant bonus for giving name of person they would refer ($1 lottery ticket).
- Publicize your training room; better market your training facility.
- Work with companies who are laying off – offer to help displaced workers.
- 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.)
- On-campus job fair – after 40 hours of work, donate $25 to school fund – $50 if school refers person to us.
- 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).
- Use permanent applicants for temp work.
- On-hold advertising.
- Direct recruit during lunch hour.
- Sponsor a break during a night course – provide free refreshments.
- Use “free training”, if you provide it, in your classified ads.
- Align with outplacement or resume services.
- Recruit from 3rd party training schools.
- Meet instructors of classes at local colleges, continuing education, etc.
- Advertise on-line, especially for technical positions.
- 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.”
- Ads for college interns – Get experience with XYZ Staffing.
- Affiliate with Kinko’s – give temps a discount for copies.
- Treasure hunt game – create treasure map. Give applicant a piece of the map for each referral given. Complete map to get prize.
- Staff a booth or table in a grocery store for registration.
- Ask clients if they have dissatisfied employees we could recruit away to save termination costs.
- Make the application process more fun.
- Lunch is on you – if applicants register on lunch break, by them lunch.
- Borrow space at a university, or set up a table in the student union.
- Ask other companies for creative and innovative recruiting ideas.
- Align with local Realtors – recruit people relocating here.
- Go to employment and job fairs.
- Recruit from substitute teachers lists.
- Hold a marketing event / open house for instructors, teachers, etc.
- Speak at a class at community education or continuing education.
- Ask your clients for referrals.
- Open branch offices and move to territories for each branch.
- Advertise in your clients’ newsletters.
- Shop your competitors to get creative recruitment ideas.
- Instruct a class at community education / continuing education.
- Guest lecture at a local college.
- Raise your minimum referral bonus amount.
- Get testimonials from temps who have used your training facility.
- Hold an open house.
- Place a coupon in the paper – give something to the applicant for registration.
- Write articles / columns in the school newspapers.
- Use space at the Department of Labor.
- List available positions with the Department of Labor.
- Present a high school career day.
- Mobile recruiting – bus for recruiting ideas.
- Contact local libraries.
- Recruit from GED classes.
- Work with the Board of Education.
- Advertise at theaters on-screen.
- Offer remote testing – go to the temp.
- Advertise on radio.
- Get on your local morning news program.
- Consider an infomercial.
- Provide bus / shuttle service for registering.
- Produce an XYZ Staffing video.
- Advertise on city buses.
- Go downtown and hand out $10 coupons to register.
- Advertise on back of supermarket register tapes.
- Hand out brochures in front of your competitors’ offices.
- Have outside sales people display magnetic signs on their car doors.
- XYZ Staffing bumper stickers -Beep if You’re a Temp.
- Sign in front of urinals / bathroom stalls.
- Give away phone calling cards to your temps.
- XYZ Staffing “Classifieds” – fax or mail ad listings to local colleges & training centers to be displayed.
Applicant Retention and Reactivation
- Keep your best temps employed.
- Offer better pay to your temps – pay higher than your competition.
- Don’t wait for the temp to end an assignment to plan for the next.
- Don’t wait for the perfect assignment to come in – market the temp to clients.
- Hand out referral bonuses on the job site; take picture for your newsletter.
- In-office bulletin board with photos of your temps in action “XYZ Staffing on the Job.”
- Offer free seminars on getting a job, preparing a resume, etc.
- Work with companies who are adding staff.
- Automate “Come Back & See Us. We want you back” cards. Mail with W-2’s.
- Have a “Where are you now?” reunion. Share success stories. Have former applicants bring a friend, bring a boss, etc.
- 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.
- Send monthly relationship builders to highly qualified temps – post cards, notes, birthday cards, etc.
- Call to reactivate highly skilled temps.
- Help temp applicants who want perm jobs find perm jobs as well.
- Provide discounts on daycare.
- Hold a special drawing for new applicants.
- Develop a process for sending postcard, “Haven’t heard from you lately, are you still interested?”
- Market to your inactive temps list.
- Provide bonuses to long-term temps.
- Offer your clients a faxed laundry list of temps coming available.
- Provide more recognition for temps.
- Develop a relationship between the temp and your staffing service.
- Offer a scale for increased vacation time – earn more than one week.
- Offer an XYZ Staffing day care service.
- Hold an XYZ Staffing picnic for temps.
- Allow temps to pick up paychecks at alternate locations.
- Offer a frequent hours club – gift for working certain number of hours.
- Develop a “permanent” staff of temporaries – guarantee your best temps 40 hours at minimum wage and offer them assignments first.
- Call your temps “substitutes.”
- Hold a happy hour / cocktail party downtown.
- Hold a family fun night.
- Develop and give away an XYZ Staffing Temp Cookbook.
- Hold an XYZ Staffing golf outing.
- Offer an XYZ Staffing Visa card.
Improving Skill Level of Current Applicants
- Put a process in place for automatic follow-up after temps are interviewed. Encourage them to train and work for your service.
- Get lists of job descriptions from clients, and train around these needs.
- Gather evidence that training pays off for your temps – higher pay, better assignments, etc.
- Quantify what improved skills mean to your temps.
- Include an article in each issue of your newsletter discussing need for specific skills.
- Provide coupons to your applicants for free training.
- Provide coupons to train on a specific skill.
- Offer additional training room hours, after business hours.
- Ask the trainees why they are training.
- Training party – hold a training class followed by a barbecue.
Other Recruitment Ideas..
- Get client vacation schedules in advance to plan better for their needs.
- Cross train temporary and permanent placement counselors in interviewing, to encourage applicant sharing between divisions.
- After scheduling interviews, sell specific jobs to create a sense of urgency.
- Use vacation planners as giveaways to clients.
- Confirm scheduled interviews.
- Follow up to no shows – ask them why they didn’t show, and possibly reschedule them.
- Creative fills – use in-house staff to fill short-term orders for high potential clients.
- Double-book interviews.
- 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.
- Give temps a bonus for client referrals – tickets, training, free lunch, free training.
- Create a job resource book for job hunters with ways to find jobs locally – important names, numbers, room for notes on job search, college names, or professional training.
- Hold a “Temp of the Day” contest on local radio, where your clients call or fax in nominations. Good promotion for the radio station and your staffing service.