Recruiting Plan Templates

Companies of all sizes can use recruiting plan templates to make smart hiring part of their overall growth and business strategies.

Even if you’re not hiring at the moment, you never know when employee shifts or company changes may send you back into an unexpected hiring spree. For example, employees sometimes leave without notice or warning at unexpected or inconvenient times. Or sudden company growth, while exciting and validating, may create tons of open positions that need to be filled fast.

Even standard cyclical hiring may come around more often than you expect. According to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, most employees stay at their companies for about 4 years. So even in 100% normal circumstances, companies have to hire new talent again and again.

Hiring managers can gain back a bit more control in the sometimes unexpected and always inevitable process of hiring by having a solid recruiting plan in place. We’ve created recruiting plan templates to help you design a company hiring process that’s smooth, efficient, and effective in all situations.

Recruiting Plan Templates

Note: Our timelines assume that the person executing the plan has other things to do. Many time frames could be shortened if someone is exclusively focused on the recruiting plan. On the other hand, many time frames would need to be expanded if you have a large company and need to do a lot of hiring. Simply use the templates as a prompt to kick off your recruiting efforts.

The Classic Recruiting Plan Template

Process Summary:

• Step 1: Conduct salary research for all the positions in your company. (2 weeks)
• Step 2: Develop a realistic hiring budget for the upcoming year. (1 day)
• Step 3: Establish your overall hiring goals. (2 hours)
• Step 4: Establish position-specific goals. (2 days)
• Step 5: Use your work from step 3 to position your company. (2 days)
• Step 6: Use your work from step 4 to position your job openings. (1 week)
• Step 7: Solicit applications. (3 days)
• Step 8: Fine-tune your interview process. (1 week)
• Step 9: Vet candidates. (2 weeks)
• Step 10: Interview and hire candidates. (4 weeks)

Total time for the entire plan: Up to 12 weeks (3 months)

Classic Recruiting Plan Template: Strategies and Tactics

Step 1: Conduct salary research for all the positions in your company.

Time allocation: 2 weeks

Key objective: Gather current, realistic salary information for every position in your company to use as a foundation for your hiring budget.

• Create a list of all positions in the company. (1 – 3 days)
• Add current salary information to the list. (2 – 4 days)
• Research salary trends for the positions and your industry. (1 week)

Step 2: Develop a realistic hiring budget for the upcoming year.

Time allocation: 1 day

Key objective: Create solid cost models to share with the financial decision-makers at your company.

• Estimate the number of employees who will leave based on the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistic that most employees stay at their companies for about 4 years. (Simply count the number of employees reaching their 4-year anniversaries.) (2 hours)
• Find the salaries for each of those positions and add all the figures together. (4 hours)

Every employee comes with costs outside of salary and hiring. Include that in your hiring budget if it’s not already part of your operating costs.

• Add a cushion for negotiated salaries and other new positions managers might need to create throughout the year. (1 hour)
• Add your company’s average cost for hiring an employee. (This figure should factor in costs for job boards, recruiting companies, etc. Check out Workable’s handy formula for calculating a cost per hire if you need guidance. You may be able to find this information in your company’s Human Resources records. The Society for Human Resource Management found that the average cost to hire an employee is $4,129.) (2 hours)

Step 3: Establish your overall hiring goals.

Time allocation: About 2 hours

Key objective: Define the qualitative goals of your recruiting plan.

• Clearly define what your company wants to get from any new hires. (1 hour)
  • This small step includes a lot of considerations. Here are some questions to spark your brainstorming:
    • Do you want to set any diversity targets?
    • Will you hire anyone with aligned skills or only those candidates who fit perfectly with your company culture?
    • Do employees need to arrive with a full skill set or do you have a robust training program?
• Clearly define what new hires may want to get from your company. (This will help you promote your company and individual positions.) (1 hour)

Step 4: Establish position-specific goals.

Time allocation: 2 days

Key objective: Define the qualitative goals of your positions.

• Clearly define what your company wants to get from each position on your list. (About 1 day, depending on the number of positions you have)
  • Note: This prompt is deceptively simple. For example, when you’re hiring an Office Manager, you never simply need someone who can do everything on a bulleted list. You need someone who can communicate, solve problems, and follow through on anything. Knowing what you want from each position will also help you establish your interviewing and vetting strategy.
• Clearly define what applicants might want from your company. (About 1 day, depending on the number of positions you have)

Step 5: Use your work from step 3 to position your company.

Time allocation: 2 days

Key objective: Let prospective employees know what you want in employees and what you offer employees.

• With your definitions from step 3 in hand, update all your company’s “about us” collateral. (2 days)
  • This collateral includes information posted anywhere people might browse when considering taking a job at your company. Think website pages that talk about the company or working for the company, job boards, and social media sites that include overview blurbs, hiring-fair pamphlets, online recruitment videos, and more.

Step 6: Use your work from step 4 to position your job openings.  

Note: During this step, it’s time to focus on only the jobs you have open at the moment. Skip to this step as additional positions open.

Time allocation: 1 week

Key objective: Prepare all the materials you need to post the job opening and start accepting applications.

• Create robust job descriptions for each open position. (1 week, depending on how many open positions you have)

• Each job description should include:

• • • Your refined company overview
    • Your expectations for the role
    • What benefits the applicants will get from both the position and the entire company
    • Specific requirements (Education, work experience, hard skills, etc.)
    • Application instructions (If you haven’t already done so, decide how you will collect applications. Will you use email, add an upload module to your career website, or maybe just direct people to LinkedIn?)

Step 7: Solicit applications.

Time allocation: 3 days

Key objective: Outline precisely how you’ll get your job openings in front of the right eyeballs.

• Select your methods for soliciting applications. (3 days)

• These methods include both online and offline/in-person techniques. In-person techniques take a bit more planning to pull off, but they may also reduce interview timelines; you may be able to cover some key interview questions during the face-to-face interactions you can get during job fairs or on college campuses.

• In-person recruiting techniques:

• • • Job fairs
    • Campus recruiting
    • Networking events

• Online recruiting techniques:

• • • Job boards
    • Your company website
    • Social media sites, especially LinkedIn and Twitter
    • Current-employee referrals
    • Third-party recruiters
    • Digital classified ads and placements in online newspapers

Step 8: Fine-tune your interview process.

Time allocation: 1 week

Key objective: Picture what the interview process will look like and how long it will take.

• Determine interview questions. (3 days)
  • Reference what you said you wanted from each position. What interview questions will allow you to determine if each candidate has what you want?
• Develop interview scripts or guidelines. (1 day)
• The interview process is part of your company’s overall branding strategy, especially when interviewees share their experiences on online forums. Just one interview can influence public perceptions about your company for years.
• Interviews are not simply venues for grilling applicants. Interviews are also opportunities for selling your company to desirable candidates.
• Here are some considerations to help you establish interview scripts or guidelines that leave good impressions:
  • What do you love about working for the company?
  • What are the most appealing and unique benefits your company offers employees?
  • What are the company’s opportunities for growth?
• Determine interview and screening logistics. (3 days)
  • Decide how many interview sessions you would like to have.
  • Determine the breakdown of in-person, video, and phone interviews.
  • Decide which stakeholders the interviewees for each position need to meet.
  • Decide if you can get all the information you need from interviews or if you will need to layer on tests, challenges, and other interview techniques.
• Decide how you will “score candidates.” (1 day)
  • Some hiring managers like to follow their instincts, but adding a standardized scoring procedure to the interview process facilitates final hiring decisions and simplifies interview processes involving multiple people.
    • Fit Small Business has a few helpful templates you can use or build on for your process.

• Agree on hiring logistics. (1 day)

• The best interviews end with job offers, so it makes sense to outline exactly how you will manage the process of hiring your top candidates.
  • Decide who will be the sole point of contact for the recruit.
  • Draft a standard offer letter.
  • Assemble an online or offline welcome packet with crucial information.
  • Decide what you will do in case of a rejection. Do you have the budget to increase your salary offer? Draft standard communications to avoid letting your emotions get the best of you in case of a rejection.

Step 9: Vet candidates.

Time allocation: Over 2 weeks

Key objective: Select a list of candidates to interview.

• Review application materials and select your top 5 candidates. (2 weeks)
• The review of application materials will look different at each company. Some companies may have fully-staffed Human Resources departments that will handle all the screening. Some companies allow hiring managers to screen applicants however they want. If it’s up to you to develop some kind of process, then consider the following tips:
  • Use filtering tools if you’ve collected applications through an online module or hiring software.
  • Create your manual filters by making a list of 5 qualities absolutely all applicants must have to earn an interview. (This should decrease the application pool you have to review.)
• Schedule interviews. (3 days)
  • Offer specific dates and time slots. This will shorten the communication ping pong it might otherwise take to find an ideal time.

Step 10: Interview and hire candidates.

Note: This step doesn’t always end in a hire. You have to repeat steps 9 and 10 as many times as necessary until you find a candidate you want to hire.

Time allocation: 4 weeks

Key objective: Hire your top candidate.

• Conduct interviews. (3 weeks)
• Hold meetings to exchange interview notes (Concurrent to interviews; 3 weeks)
• Keeping a running rank of each interviewee. (Concurrent to interviews; 3 weeks)
  • Who is the top candidate at the moment? Does everyone agree or is there some ranking disparity among the people who will be working with the new hire?
• Rank your top 5 candidates. (1 day)
• Make job offers. (1 week)

Recruiting Plan Template Modifications

The Internal Growth Plan Recruiting Template

Process Summary:

• Step 1: Develop unofficial “lines of succession” or a succession plan for each department in your company. (3 weeks)
• Step 2: Bolster your training to support internal growth. (3 weeks)
• Step 3: Establish your overall hiring goals. (About 2 hours)
• Step 4: Establish position-specific goals. (2 days)
• Step 5: Use your work from step 3 to position your company. (2 days)
• Step 6: Use your work from step 4 to position your job openings. (1 week)
• Step 7: Solicit applications. (3 days)
• Step 8: Fine-tune your interview process. (1 week)
• Step 9: Vet candidates. (2 weeks)
• Step 10: Interview and hire candidates. (4 weeks)

Total time for the entire plan: Up to 16 weeks (4 months)

The Internal Growth Plan Recruiting Template: Strategies and Tactics

Step 1: Develop unofficial “lines of succession” for each department in your company.

Time allocation: 3 weeks

Key objective: Identify a list of entry-level positions you’ll need to hire as you fill other vacancies by promoting internally.

• Talk with leaders in each of your departments to establish unofficial “lines of succession” for each position. (3 weeks)

Step 2: Bolster your training to support internal growth

Time allocation: 3 weeks

Key objective: Give internal employees the skills they need to earn promotions.

• Work with relevant departments to develop a training plan that bolsters your internal promotion strategy. (3 weeks)

After this, proceed to STEP 3 of the Classic Recruiting Plan.  

The Company Growth Plan Recruiting Template

Process Summary:

• Step 1: Go over the company strategic plan with a human resourcing lens. (2 weeks)
• Step 2: Develop a realistic hiring budget for the upcoming year. (1 day)
• Step 3: Establish your overall hiring goals. (About 2 hours)
• Step 4: Establish position-specific goals. (2 days)
• Step 5: Use your work from step 3 to position your company. (2 days)
• Step 6: Use your work from step 4 to position your job openings. (1 week)
• Step 7: Solicit applications. (3 days)
• Step 8: Fine-tune your interview process. (1 week)
• Step 9: Vet candidates. (2 weeks)
• Step 10: Interview and hire candidates. (4 weeks)

Total time for the entire plan: Up to 12 weeks (3 months)

The Company Growth Plan Recruiting Template: Strategies and Tactics

Step 1: Go over the company strategic plan with a human resource lens.

Time allocation: 2 weeks

Key objective: Identify new positions that would help you fulfill your strategic dreams.

• For each strategic planning goal, determine what skills (unrepresented by current employees) you might need to truly reach these goals. Learn about conducting a skills gap analysis here or an HR gap analysis. (1 week)
• Match those unmet skills with positions that exist in your industry. (1 week)