Setting recruitment goals is a delicate balancing act. If you have too many goals, you risk diluting your focus, leading to inefficient hiring and wasted resources. 

On the other hand, initiating talent acquisition efforts without clear goals has too many pitfalls in the long run. This can also potentially compromise candidate quality and ultimately hurt business growth. 

So, how can you strike the right balance and set goals that truly optimize your recruitment efforts?

After considering the change in candidate expectations and specific business needs relevant currently, we highlighted the top goals in this guide to help transform your hiring process. 

But first, let us go over recruiting goals and their benefits. 

What are recruiting goals, and why are they important? 

Recruiting goals guide recruiters in properly defining their efforts to attract and reach highly qualified candidates. Of course, the best play here is to take the SMART goals approach to create a roadmap clearly. 

Each goal has to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

For instance, a goal such as “increase the quality of hire by 20% within the next quarter by using industry-specific platforms for job postings” satisfies this approach. 

Setting recruitment goals also requires you to identify the areas that need improvement within your organization. These goals must be directly tied to the overall business goals and recruiting KPIs your company tries to achieve within the year. 

Here are some of the benefits of setting recruitment goals:

1. Boost efficiency: Recruiting goals helps you focus on areas that truly matter to your business by streamlining your process and minimizing wasted efforts. 
2. Reduce cost: With recruitment goals, you can allocate your hiring budget precisely to improve hire quality and increase revenue. 
3. Drive innovation: When your team sets SMART recruitment goals, it challenges everyone to think outside the box and generate fresh ideas for achieving them.
4. Customer satisfaction: Retaining more qualified and happy employees will increase their empathy and eagerness to solve customer problems through your product or service. 

9 Recruitment Goals Talent Teams Should Set 

Let’s dive deep into the recruitment goals your talent team should focus on. 

1. Improve the quality of hire through skills-first hiring 

Beyond filling an empty position, you need to evaluate the level of impact a new hire will have on your organization. This is why recruiting professionals have identified quality of hire as the No. 1 objective.

‍

Interestingly, LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting report suggests that 73% of recruiting pros identify skills as a priority for hiring. However, there is a growing emphasis on soft skills such as leadership, communication, and analytical skills over hard skills. 

Here are some useful steps for you to improve hire quality: 

• Evaluate the skills your current employees already have to spot the skill gaps within your organization 
• Draft an ideal candidate profile without neglecting growth potential as a main factor 
• Make a clear distinction between necessary skills and those that are “nice to have”
• Draft a clear job description that communicates role expectations clearly 
• Use the candidate scoring feature in an all-in-one applicant tracking system like Kula

2. Optimize the hiring process and candidate experience 

From the first time a candidate clicks your job ad till they start their first day or get rejected, the process has to be seamless. Since top talents have numerous job possibilities, only companies with the best candidate experience get to retain them. 

Megan Flanagan, Chief People Officer at Coro, says, "It's really important for candidates to interview us as much as we interview them and to thank them for the time they’ve invested.” 

If the communication is clear, appreciative, and kind, it increases the candidate's likelihood to stay since your hiring process reflects your company culture.  

Leverage these strategies to speed up the hiring process:

• Use Kula ATS to create a personalized experience by giving candidates access to portals that allow them to track progress and collaborate better
• Auto-reply candidate messages to keep them informed throughout the process 
• Make interviews conversational, short, and transparent for candidates to close job openings faster without sacrificing hire quality 
• Use Kula’s AI-powered interview note-taker to reduce feedback time 
• Take advantage of resume parsing software to extract relevant information from CVs and cover letters to save time

3. Reduce turnover rate through upskilling strategies 

Based on the research done by Great Place of Work, 53% of workers were open to quitting in 2023. A high turnover stems from a lack of appreciation,  poor work-life balance, and insufficient development opportunities. 

Jeanne Meister, former EVP of Executive Networks, shares that “Employees are looking to their employers for continuous development to help them grow their skills for their current and next jobs.” 

Also, 81% of recruiting experts believe upskilling and reskilling employees will become even more crucial in the next five years. However, to achieve this result, recruiters must partner with the learning and development (L&D) department to fully implement it. 

Consider these strategies to reduce turnover rate and increase employee happiness:

• Allow existing employees to fill the company’s skill gap by offering upskilling opportunities
• Conduct internal mobility programs to help employees advance in their career path
• Ask employees about the soft and hard skills they would love to develop so you can find ways to help them achieve their goals 
• Create a budget for employee training to reemphasize the importance of skill growth 
• Train hiring managers to develop high-trust leadership behaviors to foster a culture of appreciation and transparency 
• Ask employees for their honest opinions about their workplace through surveys 

4. Attract and retain Gen Z candidates

Gen Z candidates could change jobs ten times between the ages of 18 to 34, but they will make up more than a quarter of the global workforce by 2025. 

This shows that despite how challenging it is to retain Gen Z, it’s necessary to learn how to keep them. This generation is the future of work, but they have higher expectations from employers than millennials or Gen X. 

‍

Since only 49% of Gen Z view their jobs as central to their identity, employers have to prioritize their value for work-life balance and flexibility. This also means they value genuine friendships and relationships at the workplace. 

Here are ways to make Gen Z interested and committed to your workplace:

• Be transparent about the salary and pay right from the job listing or ad 
• Allow Gen Z to understand the opportunities for growth within your organization 
• Create opportunities for them to connect with team members even before they start a new role
• Tighten your follow-up game, especially after an interview 
• Use written, electronic communication that’s concise and easy to read to offer information to Gen Z 

5. Enhance employer brand by collaborating with marketing 

A great employer brand reduces cost per hire by 50%, reduces employee turnover by 28%, and attracts 50% more qualified candidates. That’s how powerful executing this goal is for your organization. 

Your employer brand is your perceived reputation, image, and identity-based on how you tell the company story. Since 75% of job seekers consider your employer brand before applying, collaborating with your marketing team to amplify your brand is crucial to attracting the best candidates. 

‍

Take advantage of these tips to build a strong employer brand:

• Define your employee value proposition (EVP) to differentiate your offer from your competitors. 
• Use social media platforms to spread the good word about your place of work 
• Encourage employees to share their experience on social media and job review platforms to signal trust 
• Show off your company culture in job descriptions and ensure the transition from candidate to employee is seamless
• Leverage Kula ATS to create a customized career portal and showcase your brand identity through consistent messaging and design elements 

6. Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion 

Embracing diversity is a competitive differentiator since companies in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity are 35% more likely to have higher financial returns. 

Promoting DEI can improve the company culture, as there is an awareness that even minority groups are seen, heard, and valued. This approach also increases job satisfaction, especially among Gen Z, core believers of DEI. 

‍

Use these practical measures to reach your DEI recruitment goal:

• Make the criteria for your ideal candidate flexible enough to accommodate underrepresented candidates 
• Train hiring managers to use inclusive language and address unconscious bias in the recruitment process 
• Tailor your employer brand and job description to reflect a commitment to workplace diversity 
• Leverage different recruitment sources to access underrepresented talent and assign a budget for it 
• Measure key metrics such as candidate diversity, leadership diversity, and diversity of hired candidates. 

7. Provide flexible work options

There’s one thing that remains clear after the pandemic, and it is that five days a week in the office is dying. Companies that recognize this incorporate providing flexible work options into their recruitment goals to attract top talent. 

‍

When candidates realize that a company requires too much in-office participation, they move elsewhere. This approach reduces the number of applicants and talent pool since 87% of respondents in a survey don’t want to work from the office full-time. 

You can implement this goal by investing in technology that enhances remote communication and being transparent about the timeframe for response while onboarding. 

Also, new hires can remain motivated when trained managers are trained to provide constructive feedback remotely. 

8. Embrace automation and AI to improve efficiency 

Recruiters deal with numerous mundane and repetitive tasks that reduce their focus on the human element of hiring. By embracing automation and AI, you can save time, increase productivity, and optimize the hiring process. 

52% of companies mistake AI for automation instead of intelligence and machines capable of learning and logic. Automation takes the grunt of recruitment, while AI empowers decision-making. Although different, they work hand-in-hand to boost efficiency. 

‍

These are practical applications of AI and automation in recruiting: 

• Automate job posting and design intricate workflows to streamline the recruitment process using Kula ATS’ visual builder. 
• Nurture passive candidates using automated messages and chatbots to keep them informed 
• Schedule interviews and confirm availability to avoid unexpected cancellations 
• Automatically match and source candidates based on job descriptions to identify if they’re a perfect fit 

9. Build an employee referral program 

Your next quality hire could be lurking in your employee’s network, and it’s your job to reach them quickly. It’s also an effective way to keep your employees engaged and improve the perception of your company, especially on social media platforms. 

Here are some crucial steps to help you succeed with an ERP:

• Get executive buy-in before you kickstart the referral program by highlighting its benefits 
• Incentivize employees for referrals to show appreciation for their participation, even if the referral doesn’t lead to a hire 
• Be transparent by keeping employees informed about the progress of their referrals 
• Advertise the employee referral program within your workplace to keep everyone informed 
• Experiment with different referral tactics and stick with the best ones 

Kula ATS: Easily implement smart recruitment goals to propel growth

The next step after setting recruitment goals is execution. That’s where we come in at Kula. From improving candidate experience to automating repetitive tasks, Kula provides powerful features that make implementing your goals easier. 

Choose our all-in-one solution, which will be your companion throughout the recruitment process, to reduce the complexities of hiring. 

What are you waiting for? Contact us today at Kula to start executing your goals.