Free Template: How Should Recruiters Prioritise?

Why are we talking about effective prioritisation?

Understanding how to prioritise our time and effort between the demands of different roles, hiring managers & hiring teams can be extremely challenging.

As recruiters, we don't have an endless supply of time or resources. Yet every hiring manager request is articulated as a top business priority, requiring our immediate attention.

Developing an approach & structure that helps us manage both hiring manager expectations & direct our own focus is something that’s an incredibly powerful business partnering tool.

We’ve all been in a conversation like the one outlined below I’m sure? You’re syncing up with one of your hiring managers & they’re concerned about progress & prioritisation of their role.

How should we be thinking about prioritisation?

Before we get into the example further, our mindset is as important as any information gathering or its application to a particular prioritisation technique.

Our approach to prioritisation should be as objective as possible. We should focus on the business first, optimising for return on investment of our time & ultimately business impact.

We need to be in tune with the business, its goals, how it creates customer value & ultimately how it makes money. This way we can talk in the language our stakeholders do to each other.

As recruiters it’s unlikely that we will have all of the answers to hand, but we should have relationships with relevant hiring managers & business leaders that can provide it to us.

How can I use this information to evaluate priority?

There are a number of prioritisation techniques that you can apply & during our learning session we go through four of them, using real life use cases.

For this example we’ll focus on the RICE method. RICE is a framework that lends structure and objectivity to product managers, but it works really well in the context of recruitment.

Using a specific methodology demonstrates that you have a structured approach, gaining stakeholder credibility & giving confidence in articulating where your time is being spent.

You calculate a RICE score by rating it on reach, impact, effort, and confidence in your ratings. Then you multiply your reach, impact, and confidence scores and divide by effort.

How do I apply this information to the RICE method?

When Intercom created this method, they built the tool for Product teams. With that, there has been a level of adaptation to illustrate this in the context of recruitment.

They have a great post on RICE you can look at here, but with some tweaking I’m sure that you can create something that works for you & your unique environment.

Reach

Question to ask: How many people does this open role effect?

How to quantify: Company (4 points), Team (2 points), Individual (1 point)

Our example: This role not being hired affects the entire sales team & the whole company as it relates to revenue achievement (4 points)

Impact

Question to ask: How big an impact will hiring this role have?

How to quantify: High (4 points), Medium (2 points), Low (1 point)

Our example: Without this role the company could lose 500k EUR every month in revenue opportunity, which is 50% of our overall revenue target (4 points)

Confidence

Question to ask: How confident are you in the answers to the first 2 questions?

How to quantify: High (100%), Medium (80%), Low (30%)

Our example: We know the impact is company wide as missed revenue targets could result in cost cutting. The ability for new hire to generate 500k per month we cannot guarantee. (80%)

Effort

Question to ask: How much time investment will this require to hire (per head basis)?

How to quantify: 12 months (4 points), 3 months (2 points), < 3 months (1 point)

Our example: When we made this hire previously, the time to hire was 6 weeks. Candidate volumes are lower currently so forecast 8 (1 point)

How do I apply the RICE method at scale?

Calculating a RICE score for a single role is just the start of the exercise. Scores will need to be applied to multiple roles to paint the full picture.

Having a document like this visible for everybody involved in hiring, as well as wider senior leadership, is a powerful communication & expectation management tool.

Whilst the scenario we articulated with Emily was reactive, RICE can be used in a more pro-active mode, creating a score during role intake to set expectations early in the process.

You’ll likely find a centralised prioritisation record will create healthy debate amongst the hiring community, not just about prioritisation but TA resource overall. Grab a copy of the template here.

Interested in learning more?

✅ That’s it for this week, we hope this was helpful! Please reply to this email with any feedback, we’d love to hear it.

💜 If you’d like to watch this full training session or continue learning from other TA leaders, check out PURPL.

💬 If you’re a TA leader who would like to contribute or learn about Purpl for your team, book in a call with me here.