D354 Task 2 Recruitment Plan with Metrics Example

From Seventy Days to Forty-Five: A Recruitment Plan With Internal and External Strategies, a Rewritten Job Description, Employer Branding and Measurable Goals for a Composite Orthopedic Device Maker

Student Name

School of Business, Western Governors University

D354: Talent Acquisition, Task 2

Course Instructor

Month Day, Year

From Seventy Days to Forty-Five: A Recruitment Plan With Internal and External Strategies, a Rewritten Job Description, Employer Branding and Measurable Goals for a Composite Orthopedic Device Maker

Purpose

The labor shortage analysis at Ridgeway Orthopedics, a composite implant component maker in a small Midwestern city, found that its inability to fill engineering and quality roles stems from inflated requirements, a weak employer brand, a slow hiring process and uncompetitive engineering offers, on top of a tight regional labor market. This plan addresses those causes with internal and external recruitment strategies, a rewritten job description, employer branding actions and goals measured with defined recruitment metrics. It covers the next 18 months, during which Ridgeway must fill about 30 quality and engineering roles, including 14 for its second production line.

Internal Recruitment Strategies

Quality technician pathway: Ridgeway has 60 production associates, many of whom inspect parts informally as part of their work. A 16-week paid pathway will train up to eight associates a year as quality technicians, combining classroom modules on measurement and documentation with mentoring by senior technicians. Associates who complete the pathway move into open technician roles, and the company pays for their certification after one year.

Internal posting first: all quality and engineering openings will be posted internally for five days before external posting, with a guaranteed response to every internal applicant. Promotions from within show employees that growth is possible, which also supports retention.

Employee referrals: referral bonuses will rise to $2,000 for engineers and $1,000 for technicians, paid after the new hire's 90th day. Research using personnel data from nine large firms found that referred applicants were more likely to be hired and to accept offers, had similar productivity, were substantially less likely to quit and produced higher profits per worker, mainly through lower turnover and recruiting costs (Burks et al., 2015).

External Recruitment Strategies

University partnerships: Ridgeway will offer paid summer internships and co-op positions to engineering students at the local university and two others within four hours, with engineers serving as campus ambassadors. Interns who perform well receive offers before their final year.

Targeted sourcing of passive candidates: a recruiter will search professional networking sites for quality and manufacturing engineers in medical devices within 300 miles, particularly people who grew up in the region, since candidates with local ties are more likely to relocate.

Relocation and competitive offers: engineering base pay will move to the regional market median, and relocation assistance of up to $8,000 will be offered for engineering roles.

Industry and veteran channels: postings will be shared with regional manufacturing associations and with military transition offices, where many service members bring quality and maintenance experience.

Rewritten Job Description: Quality Technician

Position summary: Quality technicians make sure every implant component Ridgeway ships meets the specifications surgeons and patients rely on. You will inspect parts using precision measuring tools, record results, investigate problems with engineers and help improve our processes.

Responsibilities: perform in-process and final inspections using calipers, micrometers and coordinate measuring machines; document results accurately in our quality system; identify and report nonconforming parts; support investigations of quality problems; and participate in process improvement teams.

Required qualifications: high school diploma or equivalent; two years of experience in manufacturing, inspection or a technical military role, or completion of Ridgeway's technician pathway; ability to read technical drawings; and attention to detail.

Preferred qualifications: experience in a regulated industry; a quality certification, which Ridgeway will pay for after hire.

What we offer: day shift schedule with no mandatory overtime, the pay range for the role, tuition support and a clear path to senior technician and quality engineer roles.

The rewrite removes the degree and certification requirements that shrank the applicant pool, describes the work rather than listing requirements, and states the pay range, schedule and path forward, the information candidates use to judge fit.

Employer Branding

Employer branding shapes what candidates know and believe about an organization as a place to work, which influences whether they consider it at all (Theurer et al., 2018). Ridgeway's branding plan has four actions: rebuild the careers page with short videos of engineers and technicians describing their work and the patients it helps; respond to online reviews, acknowledging past overtime problems and explaining what has changed; share stories of internal promotions on professional networking sites; and ask new hires after 90 days to describe their experience, using their words in recruiting materials. Research on applicant attraction indicates that perceived fit and impressions of the recruiting process strongly influence job choice (Chapman et al., 2005), so the branding aims to give candidates an accurate, specific picture.

Goals and Recruitment Metrics

Short-term goals, within six months: reduce time to fill for technicians from 71 to 50 days by setting service standards of screening within three business days and a decision within five days after final interviews; and double referral hires.

Long-term goals, within 18 months: fill at least 85% of approved openings; reduce engineering time to fill from 104 to 60 days; and fill at least a third of technician openings internally.

Metrics will be calculated consistently. Time to fill equals the number of days from requisition approval to accepted offer. Fill rate equals positions filled divided by positions approved, multiplied by 100. Offer acceptance rate equals offers accepted divided by offers made, multiplied by 100. Source of hire equals the share of hires from each channel. Quality of hire combines 90-day retention and hiring managers' performance ratings at six months. Cost per hire equals total internal and external recruiting costs divided by hires. HR will report these monthly by role and source, and channels that produce hires who stay and perform well will receive more of the recruiting budget in the following quarter.

Conclusion

The plan attacks the causes of Ridgeway's shortage that the company controls. Internal pathways, referrals and internal posting grow talent from within; university partnerships, targeted sourcing and competitive offers widen the external pool; a rewritten job description removes needless barriers; and employer branding gives candidates an honest reason to choose Ridgeway. Defined metrics and goals will show which strategies work.

References

Burks, S. V., Cowgill, B., Hoffman, M., & Housman, M. (2015). The value of hiring through employee referrals. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(2), 805-839. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv010

Chapman, D. S., Uggerslev, K. L., Carroll, S. A., Piasentin, K. A., & Jones, D. A. (2005). Applicant attraction to organizations and job choice: A meta-analytic review of the correlates of recruiting outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 928-944. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.928

Theurer, C. P., Tumasjan, A., Welpe, I. M., & Lievens, F. (2018). Employer branding: A brand equity-based literature review and research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(1), 155-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12121