9 Best Recruitment Channels To Use In 2023

Every one of us at some point in our lives has been asked: “How did you hear about us?” And the majority of the time we paid such little attention to our journey to that point, we probably ticked a random box, because what does it matter to us how we got there?

However, the answer to this question is vital if you work in recruitment and you’re trying to establish which are the best recruitment channels for your business. Because not only does every recruiter wonder how to get great candidates through their doors, but when your recruitment budget is tight, you don’t want to be spending money on fruitless recruitment channels.

In 2023, options for solving this universal conundrum are as diverse as ever, however, it can be a double-edged sword: having found all of these great recruitment channels, how do you know which ones the best candidates come through?

Is it via:

• Job boards?
• Social networking sites?
• Your corporate website?
• Word of mouth?

And how do these recruitment channels differ for entry-level employees, senior and middle management?

Unfortunately, there is no universal formula. Every company is different and what works for one won’t necessarily translate into a successful hire for another. But chin up, we’re bringing you the next greatest thing: 9 best recruitment channels to inspire you in your recruitment efforts in 2023.

What’s in?

1. Online job boards
2. Company/corporate website
3. Employee referrals
4. Social media
5. Events
6. Trade journals
7. Candidate rediscovery
8. Email campaign
9. Internal recruitment

Recruitment channels efficiency

In order to decide which recruitment channels are the most efficient for your company, you will need to keep track of various metrics. We have previously looked at which recruitment metrics are worth your while to measure, including cost per hire, time to hire, quality of hire and employee turnover and attrition. Ideally, you track these per role, per job family or per level of the position.

For determining the efficiency of each recruitment channel for specific roles, you want to be asking specific questions:

• How many applicants each channel brought
• How many qualified applicants each channel brought
• Where the interviewed candidates came from
• How the candidates heard about the role

Looking into this data will not only help you manage your spending, it will also guide you in optimizing your recruiting efforts.

Best recruitment channels to power up your hiring

Knowing how to measure the efficiency of your recruitment channels is beneficial, but that isn’t why you’re reading this article. You’re here for the juicy advice we have accumulated for you. So without further ado – the 9 best recruitment channels for you to try out.

1. Online job boards

Let’s start with the obvious port of call. More than 41 million people search for jobs and are recruited into jobs every single year. 60% of those job seekers begin their job hunt via online job boards.

So, use the big ones to post your job advert on, the ones like Monster, Glassdoor and Indeed, (Indeed has over 250 million unique visits each month) and increase the chances of your advert being seen by your ideal candidates.

Just don’t put all your recruitment eggs in one online job board basket. Think about utilizing the niche job boards too, the ones specific to your industry. For example, if you work in the tech industry, try Dice; if you work in IT, try GitHub, or if your business is hospitality based try Caterer.

The niche job boards may get fewer eyes on them, but the eyes they do get are more likely to be the high-quality eyes you’re after.

And of course, when you’re writing your job advert, don’t forget to make your advert as appealing as possible:

• Give it an eye-catching title – make it stand out from the off.
• Write it for a human and appeal to their emotions – a single opening paragraph that acts as the lede to make applicants want to keep on reading.
• Optimize it with keywords – humans will read your post, but AI will scan and rank your job post for relevancy, so include keywords that your ideal candidates will search for and don’t forget to add the location.
• Sell the position – don’t just rattle off the job duties, limit these to two or three; instead tell candidates about the benefits they will have if they did the job i.e. flexible working, social Thursdays, free gym membership, healthcare, casual Fridays etc.

2. Company/corporate website

If you don’t have a company website, stop reading now and go create one.

A corporate website is a low-cost first step in your employer branding. It’s a passive (yet incredibly effective) means of recruitment. The first thing candidates look for when they find your job post (especially if you’re a startup and no one knows about your company yet) is to check out your website.

Not only does a corporate website give you credibility as a business, but it can be a great way to market your company to potential clients and employees.

Include a separate Career Opportunities page so that organic visitors, who like the look of you, can see any available opportunities, and if you aren’t actively recruiting, make it clear that you positively encourage proactive job seekers. Don’t forget to include it on the top of the page!

Also, don’t forget to set up analytics to your career page so you can analyze how it is being used. You collect and measure data for every other aspect of your business, so do it for the website too, and more specifically do it to help your recruitment drive.

Start by introducing Google Analytics onto every page of your website to determine how the audience are interacting with your site, where potential talent comes from and how this potential talent measures up with your employer values.

Finally, optimize your site for mobile use: 45% of job hunters look for jobs daily via their mobile phones and 77% of them will apply via their phone if they can.

An experience cloud company Exponea includes ‘We’re hiring’ link on the homepage to attract the website visitors to their careers section.

3. Employee referrals

Employee referrals continue to be counted among the most efficient recruitment channels. This is because employees will only refer people who they would like to work alongside and who they know would fit in with the rest of the company. And besides, who is going to jeopardize their own career to refer a dud hire?

And for you the company? Why is an employee referral so great? Because it saves you time and money having to hunt out that elusive great candidate – they’re presented to you.

So how do you encourage employees to refer their friends and acquaintances?

• Referral programs. Set aside some of your recruitment budget as a reward for employees who refer future hires.
• Consider rewarding all referees, even if the hire didn’t happen. You want people to keep referring.
• Turn it into a competition to raise awareness and up enthusiasm for your referral scheme.
• Catch new employees in your referral scheme from the start.

4. Social media

Social media is a great recruitment channel. Plan your social media recruiting strategy early and use your social media platforms wisely.

Think about your messaging and how you can reach your target group. Plus, when managed effectively, social media recruiting can be far-reaching and low-cost.  

• Encourage your employees to share job openings on their social media platforms.
• Work on your employer branding as it is still counted among the most efficient sources of hires. The way in which Millennials and Gen Z view jobs now is in stark contrast to how boomers viewed a job. No longer do Millennials want a job for life, instead, they value concrete rewards: financial benefits, flexible working, career development or more downtime as great reasons to join a company.
• Use your social platforms to highlight what makes your company so unique:
  • Get employees to create content for you.
  • Give people a behind-the-scene tour of your company.
  • Create ‘day in the life of’ videos for everyone from the receptionists to the CEO.

5. Events

Events as a recruitment channel fall into different categories: hiring events vs industry events. The first is specific events to attract candidates, whereas the second is a networking opportunity, and can be effective for hiring higher-level employees.

Consider attending campus career and job fairs at universities or posting your job openings and internships on the job boards of diverse schools. Don’t overlook the smaller campuses, not all ideal candidates can afford to go to the best universities.

Do your homework and establish which campuses specialize in teaching students about your industry. For example, Cornell University produces world-class hospitality employees, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is renowned for IT candidates, and the University of California, Berkeley for coders.

6. Trade journals

Don’t be fooled into thinking these are obsolete, far from it. They can be great hunting grounds for filling senior roles.

Consider the different ways in which the different generations approach job hunting. The majority of Millennials will use the internet to job hunt, whereas only 48% of boomers will.

The advantage of taking out an advert in a trade journal is that you will attract the very readership you are appealing to. Plus, it can be a lower cost option than more modern methods of advertising and it physically covers a wider geographic area.

This even goes up to 45% for public services sector.

7. Candidate rediscovery

Candidate rediscovery is a recruitment channel that essentially matches past candidates, who are still in your ATS, with new opportunities. Integrate AI with your current recruitment systems to search, scan and rank potential candidates who have previously shown an interest in working for your company.

Don’t worry if they don’t have the specific skills you are looking for, those can always be taught. Concentrate on finding candidates with great transferable soft skills who will be the best fit for your company culture and go from there.

8. Email campaign

Consider carrying out an email campaign to advertise a job opening. Your email list is a list of people who have signed up to hear more from your company, or the people in your talent pool. Let these readers know there is an opening available, should they wish to work for you.

You’re pushing on an open door: they already know about you and like what you do enough to have signed up to receive your latest newsletter, so take advantage of that interest.

Fun fact: email is 40 times more successful at acquiring new clients than both Facebook and Twitter combined.

9. Internal recruitment

If you’ve exhausted all of the above recruitment channels, how about stopping to check that you don’t already employ the best person to fill your opening?

Why spend valuable time and money on a recruitment campaign when you could simply recruit from within the ranks, especially for more senior roles? If you have someone suitable to promote, you already know they’re reliable and competent and you’ve invested a lot in them up to now. Why not see how much further you can take them, and them you?

Plus, corporate knowledge will remain in-house and there will be no knowledge gap and dead time while the employee comes up to speed on your company.

For more on how companies like UPS are enabling self-serve leadership development, watch our webinar featuring UPS’ Vice President of Global Talent Management.

Final word

Considering the wealth of potential recruitment channels you could go down in 2023, there is no reason why you can’t recruit the top talent for your business.

Just remember to measure the metrics and consider the differences among diverse roles and levels to ensure that the recruitment channels you’ve chosen continue to be the most effective, efficient and best recruitment channels to meet your company’s hiring requirements.