Compensation Strategies for Recruiting

Evidence suggests that compensation is an important aspect of any recruitment strategy, a fact of more comfort to highly profitable organizations than to less profitable ones. However, since job choices are multifaceted decisions, several strategies are available to less endowed organizations when competing for new talent. Some strategies focus on various forms of compensation, such as trade-offs among compensation levels, variable compensation, and indirect compensation or benefits. Others focus on nonmonetary aspects of the work, or on exploring nontraditional sources of recruits. Currently, due to the lack of careful evaluation in the field, recruitment strategies must be designed on a logical rather than empirical basis. However, after implementation, new strategies should be evaluated for their effect on such short-term objectives as attraction and such long-term objectives as retention and performance.