Recruitment Strategies

Let’s take a look at recruitment strategies. Numerous recruitment strategies—methods of contacting and informing potential applicants—are available, but seldom are they all used for any given position.

Of course, it is not the sheer number of strategies used that determines a quality intake process but the choice of an appropriate combination. Ten strategies are discussed next, each of which has strengths and weaknesses and, therefore, various utilization patterns. For each strategy, we identify four major factors: relative ease of use, effectiveness, cost, and common usage.

Job posting originally consisted of the placing of the announcement on walls in prominent locations such as post offices and city halls. Many civil service systems still require physical posting in a minimum number of public places. Today, however, job posting also includes dissemination of the announcement through in-house job bulletins, newspapers, and other standard communications media. Posting is considered the most basic of all recruitment strategies; it is easy to do because the entire announcement can be used without modification.

Today, posting also includes electronic posting—listing jobs on (a) agency websites or (b) websites exclusively dedicated to job seekers (also known as job boards). The Internet is an enormously important recruitment tool with minimal cost, so agency website posting has become the “passive” recruitment base, and posting on specialized government job boards has become a very important active strategy.

Personal contact recruitment occurs when potential applicants are personally encouraged to apply for positions. Newspaper recruitment focuses on local or regional openings. Trade journals are the newsletters and magazines that inform members of professions about activities on a regular basis. Mail (and e-mail) recruitment (custom mailing) is a highly personalized approach in which individuals are encouraged by letter to apply.

Institutional capacity recruiting focuses on ensuring that job seekers consider an agency in general and visit its job application website, rather than on specific jobs. Internship recruitment programs are a common strategy in many midsize and large jurisdictions.

Headhunting, or external recruitment, occurs when the staffing function is farmed out to a third party that makes the initial contact or even provides the hiring contract. In noncompetitive recruitment (also called direct or one-day hiring), a single official completes the process without a formal comparison of candidates.

Which strategies are best for which jobs? For management positions in police, fire, and paramilitary organizations with strong seniority policies, there is little reason to go much beyond physical and virtual posting. Organizational members wait for these opportunities, and internal recruitment is usually sufficient.

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