A recession is a bad thing for the majority of businesses, but recruitment doesn’t have to stop.

All businesses have cycles — periods when you're unbelievably busy, periods where you can take a bit more time to breathe. It stands to reason that your recruitment plans will closely follow these cycles.

When a recession hits, or when the busy periods become less and less frequent, your recruitment plans will undoubtedly be affected and it's important for all businesses to have plans in place to work through the period in as smooth a way as possible.

Due to the recession creating issues in recruitment one possibility is to look at how you can shift talent internally. Liaise between departments to ensure an even balance throughout the organization.

You will obviously need to discuss any possible changes in career paths with employees, but it's often possible to adjust roles and responsibilities if they're attractive enough (and almost anything is more attractive than the prospect of unemployment).

Try to find the root cause behind your businesses current downturn. Aim to set triggers in advance that could show if bad times lie ahead. Whatever you do, make sure you don't just give up!

• Resist a blanket hiring freeze - Invest in the sector you think could pull your business up, especially if there is a lot of good talent in the market due to other companies making redundancies.
• Review your suppliers - whoever you use to assist in your recruitment efforts (creative agencies, staffing firms, advertisers, etc), you should look to assess how safe your agreement are with them.
• Revise recruiting targets - observe your cost per hire, time to hire and retention rates to determine how you can display that you are having positive results despite the general downturn in business.
• Focus priorities - looking at the various recruiting methods you use and working out which have returned the best results can help make improvements at low costs.
• Prepare for more applications - a recession means more people are out of work, which means you will generally see a higher number of applications per vacancy.
• Combine resources - if you work for a large business that generally manages hiring needs on a local level, it's wise to look at ways you can share both knowledge and resources
• Show you're a secure option - if you're trying to attract new employees during a recession it's important that you show in your job adverts that if someone joins your business, they won't be made redundant before they finish their probation.

How do I use the company brand to attract candidates?

To best leverage a company brand, you first need to leverage the creators and gatekeepers of the brand – your marketing department.

To ensure your corporate brand magic is included in recruitment strategies you need to think about your potential candidates like a marketer would think about their potential customers.

Take a look at the current media advertising your company conducts. How does it come across? What are the key messages being put out? Who are they trying to attract?

It goes without saying that people often want to work for the companies who produce or provide the products and services they use.

Prior to your promotion, understand what your audience wants. Talk to your current employees about what they like about working for your company and how they would sell their job to others.

Once you have the attributes of your target market you can work to create your recruitment brand. The marketing department should have the expertise to position the recruitment brand; use them to help you reach the right candidates.

• Describe the benefits - this isn't about number of holidays they get a year; it's about the prestige of having a “XYZ Widgets” business card with their name on it.
• Describe your values - products bought and used say something about the values an individual holds. Work out the core and non-core values that make up your recruitment brand and determine the images, symbols, language and media to portray the values to others.
• Show your personality - alignment between the personality of the business and the personality of the work environment is essential. Make sure your reception, canteens, workstations, meeting rooms and other communal areas are branded to create a consistent brand message.
• Make yourself available - using the internet, encourage your employees to talk about the positive aspects of the business and if there are any negative comments, try to approach them in a rational way.

As well as using your marketing team to help you plan your recruitment strategy, find out from them if there is a way of combining your efforts.

If you're able to get a mention of your current vacancies on all their activity, you'll go a long way towards syncing ‘buying the brand' and

‘working for the brand'

What benefits can I use to tempt my candidates?

Once upon a time, perks were special favours granted to the chosen few, such as corner offices with a window, and a key to the executive wash room.

For more and more candidates, money and flashy perks are no longer the siren call they once were. The offer of real benefits, such as a better work-life balance and more flexible working practices, are becoming increasingly desirable.

Plans for perks may need to be reduced or re-prioritised depending on current company circumstances, however always remember your employees are your most important asset.

Keeping them happy and engaged is more important than ever when budget cuts and the threat of redundancy cast a long shadow over the working day.

Whatever benefits you decide to offer, it makes sense to both micro and macro-monitor their ROI. Benefits take-up is easy to measure. Remember though, low take-up of a benefit doesn't necessarily mean it should be scrapped.

Perhaps it just needs to be communicated better both internally, and in your recruitment campaigns.

There are plenty of other creative and low/no-cost perks that can make employees happy and appeal to new recruits:

• Casual dress policy - if employees don't have to buy a separate wardrobe for their working week, this could turn into quite a money saver.
• Company discounts – by getting in touch with other businesses offer your employees, as well as their friends and family, the chance to buy products at discount prices.
• Interest-free loans - set a limit on the value of the loan which could be used for anything from a yearly train ticket to a new conservatory.
• Business cards - amazingly, personalised business cards still offer an emotional appeal and letting your employees get creative with their job title could give them an ego boost.
• Company car - as well as the usual procedure of offering car allowances to employees who work on the road, you could make additional vehicles available for employees personal use
• Gym memberships - a healthy workforce is generally a happy one so get connected with a local gym to offer discounts.
• Massage - many companies now offer regular on-site massages treatments that help relax their employees.
• Redecoration - it's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do to a working environment, and whilst a nice office is not necessarily a benefit, a nasty office can certainly affect morale.

How do I use online job advertising effectively?

The Internet allows you to reach a wider range of candidates than ever and in increasingly inventive ways.

The benefit with online advertising is that you can afford to test which approach works best and the tracking facilities are in place to let you know exactly that. Perhaps the biggest differentiator is the access you can buy to CV databases.

Your online presence is made up of three main aspects:

• Job advert - be sure to choose a job title that the majority of candidates would search for and result in increased search results. Your job description should summarise the role and opportunities involved.
• Banner advertising - you can get as creative as you like to try and portray your brand to your target audience and you can selectively target certain keywords or locations with specific messages.
• Company profile - aim for an overview of the company instead of essays. Focus on opportunities and the major plus sides of working in your organization. Employee testimonials can help add personal flair.

As a relatively new medium, the internet is constantly evolving and there are new opportunities to utilise to increase the reach of your recruitment campaign.

•Multimedia - video and audio are becoming increasingly important tools for businesses and internet users are often referred to as the YouTube or iPod Generation.

Companies are embracing the technology by offering video tours of their offices or downloadable discussions with current employees to offer an insight into their brand.

•Blogging - a great way for you to show the human side of your business. You could get one of your employees to blog on a training course they are undertaking or write about the various social gatherings your company holds.

However, it takes a certain level of commitment to use it properly. Starting a blog and then leaving it untouched for 6 months could actually have a negative impact on your recruitment efforts.

•Social networking - perhaps the biggest online revolution since the Internet entered the mass market, social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook allow people all over the world to connect and share their thoughts and ideas.

How you enter this world with your recruitment campaign is up to you, but do it right and you can get access to a very attentive audience.

How do I write an effective job advert?

There are a few simple rules that every job advert should follow to help attract the right candidates for your role.

The most obvious way to increase the number of people who view your job advert is to make the job title alluring. Try and stay away from names used to specify jobs internally as chances of a candidate searching for such a specific term are very low

There's no set format to how you describe the job role, but you should look to include these elements:

• Short introduction - aim to keep this to around 40 words and talk about the job rather than the company. This will help the reader quickly assess if it's an appropriate role for them.
• Role responsibilities - list between three and seven main tasks the successful applicant will be expected to undertake.

Keep in mind this is not a job description, therefore should not include every element of the role.

• Person specification - what skills, qualifications or attributes are you looking for in your ideal applicant? Try and divide these up between what is necessary and what would be an advantage. A recession may call for being extremely specific in these details to allow only the closest candidates to apply
• Rewards - as mentioned in the use of benefits article, all rewards along with salary should be clearly outlined as something candidates can look forward to.
• Location - giving additional information on the location of the job (transport links, leisure facilities, and travel opportunities) can help sell a job over competitor positions.
• Your company - what's your business? If your company isn't a well known brand name you'll need to provide an explanation of what kind of industry you are in. Relating the company to the role offered can help attract candidates looking for work in that particular sector.
• Next steps - if the reader is interested in your vacancy outline clearly how to apply for the position, be it online or offline (phone and mail address can be included). If you need detailed information, notify candidates to include a cover letter.

Job seekers value their skills and experience, and if you want them to apply, approach them as you would a customer. Long adverts give a mundane impression of your organization.

Aim for a witty advert with informal language, while staying in the second person, using “you” and “your” instead of “we” and “our”

For every job advert you place, resist the temptation to just copy and paste the description you used for the last time you hired for this position. Responsibilities of person specification may have changed.

Ensuring your jobs rank highly on search engines is vital to the success of your recruitment campaign.

SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) is the art of ensuring a web page appears within results when a user searches for a certain keyword or keyword phrase. Popular search engines have changing algorithms that pick up on keywords. Ensure you’re optimized by following the tips below.

The main thing people look for in search results - and the link they will hopefully click on - is the title tag. All jobs posted on Monster have an automated title tag which is made up of:

<Job Title> Jobs <Location>

The location you provide in your job listing is combined with the job title to make up the page title. Never be tempted to enter the location within the job title field otherwise you will end up with a title tag that looks like:

Sales Manager — Docklands, London Jobs Docklands, London

This will be considered as keyword spamming and push your job lower down the rankings.

Search engines also take into account how relevant the main content of the page is by counting the number of times keywords and key phrases appear.

The first 155 characters of your job description is highly important for the success of your job posting. Provide a condensed overview repeating the job title once, location and key skills. It is important to remember search engines reward well constructed opening content

There are hundreds of other page elements that go into deciding how well your job listing will rank, but there are some quick steps you can take to improve your ranking.

Put yourself in the shoes of the jobseeker. What words would they search if they were looking for the job you're advertising? If you use terms that job seekers would actually search for, you increase the chances of them being spotted.

Keyword terms also appear in bold on the search results page, increasing the chance they will be noticed and clicked on by the user.

• Don’t use — Tier 2 Policy Implementation Architecture
• Use — Senior Policy Advisor

Add a key skill to your job title to help it appeal to an audience.

• Don't use — Web Developer
• Do use — Java Web Developer

Steer clear of using job titles that are cryptic or in question form.

• Don't use — Want to work in a bank?
• Do use — Bank Cashier

Finding the perfect employee is never easy, but if you use the right tactics, pulling the needle from the haystack needn’t be an impossible task. Our series of eBooks brings together expert advice to help you improve your hiring processes..

For more useful tools and tips, visit hiring.monster.co.uk