10 creative hiring strategies for any budget
This guide can help recruiters and hiring managers discover new ideas and fresh takes on traditional hiring strategies — regardless of budget.
1. Facilitate internal mobility ↓
2. Actively identify candidates ↓
3. Automate your applicant pipeline ↓
4. Inspire employee referrals ↓
5. Create employer branding ↓
6. Invest in video interviews ↓
7. Assess soft skills ↓
8. Assign case studies ↓
9. Use screening questions ↓
10. Look at the competition ↓
1. Facilitate internal employee mobility.
Sometimes, the right candidate already works for your company. Considering existing employees can make it easier to hire for hard-to-fill roles — and to keep your best talent within the organization.
Why it’s important
According to Sapling, “the median cost of [voluntary] turnover is 21% of the departing employee’s salary.” However, since transferred internal employees already know your company’s systems, processes, and culture, they tend to stick around longer and get up to speed a lot faster.
How to achieve it
Offer LinkedIn Learning to help employees develop new skills to support their growth and transition into a new role. Make sure to also capture people’s motivations and manage expectations. You can achieve this with clearly documented goals and frequent one-on-one communication between employees and their managers.
Pro tip
Share information about open roles by sending company-wide emails or posting the job descriptions through internal communication channels.
2. Get more candidates by actively identifying them.
Actively identifying candidates who meet your requirements can be a more effective way of finding high-quality talent faster. If you have a small budget to work with, consider investing in technology that can help streamline your search and speed up the hiring process.
Why it’s important
Finding candidates is more than twice as effective as waiting for them to find you. This is especially important for high-growth periods when you need to hire at scale.
How to achieve it
Use LinkedIn Recruiter to proactively source candidates and reference them later to help build a pipeline. You can also use free tools that help you search and stand out, like the LinkedIn Search bar, to find passive job seekers who might be a fit for your next role.
Pro tip
Streamline your search and sort through candidates faster with the help of Recruiter or other sourcing tools. Fill out this form to see our product in action.
3. Automate your applicant pipeline with an ATS.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a powerful tool designed to streamline hiring and provide an automated way to manage the entire process, from receiving applications to hiring employees. An ATS helps teams collaborate better and creates a positive candidate experience.
Why it’s important
Without a set timeline, the hiring process can extend longer than it should. An ATS helps automate different stages of hiring, helping your company cement its reputation as an employer of choice. A study found that almost 69% of candidates would consider sharing a negative experience with their friends and network.
How to achieve it
Find an ATS that meets your needs and priorities, whether it’s mobile-friendly or offers social sourcing tools.
Pro tip
Optimize your job descriptions by including keywords crucial to the role you’re hiring for. That way, your ATS can more efficiently find candidates who match all of your job requirements.
4. Inspire employee recommendations with a referral program.
With this hiring method, your employees point you toward incredible candidates with skills similar to their own. When trusted sources recommend candidates, you can reduce your time and cost to hire.
Why it’s important
According to LinkedIn data, it takes a company 29 days to hire a candidate who was referred by an employee, compared to up to 55 days for most other methods.
How to achieve it
Design a user-friendly referral program that can be adopted by everyone at your workplace. Then make it an essential part of onboarding and manager training, and promote it every chance you get.
Pro tip
Keep diversity top of mind. Referrals can unintentionally lead to a homogenous workforce. Discover how to create an inclusive workforce with this playbook.
5. Create an employer branding strategy and invest in content.
This may seem like a daunting proposition, but creating an employer brand is as much about the effort you put in as it is about the cost.
Why it’s important
According to LinkedIn data, your company’s employer brand is twice as likely to drive job consideration as your consumer brand.
How to achieve it
Start by establishing your employer branding success metrics, developing a content plan that includes channels and frequencies, and creating a career site that makes applying easy and shows what it’s like to work there.
Pro tip
Build your employer brand around the employees who best represent your cultural values, so you find candidates who share those traits. Use Career Pages to post content that communicates company values, gives a feel for your company culture, and builds trust and connection with prospective hires.
Additional resources
How to reduce your time-to-hire
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6. Invest in affordable and effective video interviews.
If you can hire hybrid or fully remote employees, don’t limit your candidate pool by location or time zone. With video interviewing tools, candidates can answer either live or prerecorded interview questions at a convenient time and location for them.
Why it’s important
Meeting candidates’ expectations is part of providing a good interview experience. Candidates have an expectation that companies will offer virtual interviews as an option, and are more likely to have good video interviewing skills and reliable tools. Plus, when video interviews are recorded, they give your entire hiring team an opportunity to review candidate responses.
How to achieve it
Live video interviews make it convenient to screen remote candidates with more warmth than a phone call. You can also streamline the process with one-way video interviews, in which candidates record themselves answering basic questions.
Pro tip
Streamline communication and collaboration with your hiring team by sharing notes and tagging colleagues in Recruiter. You can also use Spotlights in Recruiter to identify and connect with candidates who are more likely to engage with your company.
7. Assess candidates’ soft skills for success on the job.
Often overlooked in the interview process, soft skills include a candidate’s ability to connect with colleagues, create trust and dependability, and lead teams.
Why it’s important
Soft skills account for up to 25% of the skills required to succeed in a role and to work well with others. But they’re not always as straightforward to assess during the interview process.
How to achieve it
Instead of asking interviewees about how they’ve applied soft skills in the past, give them a real situation in your company and ask how they would resolve it. At each step, ask them to identify which of their specific soft skills would be needed.
Pro tip
Quickly filter for candidates with relevant skills in Recruiter using LinkedIn Skill Assessments.
8. Assign case studies to assess critical job skills.
Invite candidates to solve real-world challenges, so you can assess critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills with a real business scenario.
Why it’s important
It’s one thing to nail the interview — and another to be a good fit for the job. Working through a case study gives candidates a chance to demonstrate their industry knowledge and skills firsthand.
How to achieve it
Develop a case study based on addressing your target audience’s pain points and provide it to candidates ahead of time, so they can prepare. During the interview, ask candidates to take you through their strategy for solving those challenges.
Pro tip
Make sure people on the hiring panel are available to address any questions candidates may have. This gives candidates a chance to interact with potential colleagues — and lets them know you’re invested in their success.
9. Use screening questions to connect with the best-quality candidates.
A thorough screening process can help give your company an advantage by narrowing your focus, speeding up the sourcing process, and preparing your hiring panels for interviews.
Why it’s important
Screening questions help you focus on only connecting with top-quality candidates with the relevant skills and experience to succeed in the role. Without them, you can risk a high volume of candidates with varying degrees of fit, which are time-consuming to sift through.
How to achieve it
Ask the right questions to better understand candidates’ employment eligibility and skills. Remember to respect candidates’ time, and focus on the most critical information.
Pro tip
Add screening questions while posting a job on LinkedIn to help identify applicants who meet your qualifications or express interest in the job.
Additional resources
Free vs. paid hiring tools on LinkedIn
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The complete guide to virtual onboarding
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10. Look at the competition’s talent and recruiting strategies.
Any open roles you have will call for a certain type of experience and knowledge. A person who already works in your industry is likely to have the attributes you’re looking for, so hiring from a competitor makes a lot of sense. It’s a bold move, but it can be worth the extra effort.
Why it’s important
When you hire great talent directly from a competitor, your company gains a competitive advantage.
How to achieve it
Whether or not you’re aware of competing talent, it’s important to make a statement that attracts candidates. Uber, for example, directly targeted their competitor’s drivers by riding with them.
Pro tip
Track which top companies are employing the talent you’re looking for with LinkedIn Talent Insights.
Learn more about how LinkedIn can help you hire quality candidates — regardless of your budget.
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