[Free Template] Your 2025 Guide to Writing a Recruitment Policy
Organizations with structured, well-defined, and aligned recruitment processes are better positioned to attract, hire, and retain top talent. The first step? Writing and implementing a sound recruitment policy.
A solid recruitment policy is indispensable if you want to attract the right candidates, especially when competition is tough and top talent is scarce. In fact, 70% of hiring professionals believe there’s currently a talent shortage. As organizations struggle to find suitable hires, over half have shifted to skills-based hiring.
This has led to 74% of companies evaluating candidates’ skills in new ways, 68% rewriting job descriptions, and 20% removing degree requirements altogether.
This article discusses how to write a recruitment policy and what to include in one. It also provides a free recruitment policy template to help you strengthen your organization’s recruitment process.
Contents
What is a recruitment policy?
Why is a recruitment policy important?
11 things to include in a recruitment policy
The benefits of using a recruitment policy template
Key elements of a recruitment policy template
Free recruitment policy template
9 steps to write a recruitment policy
4 recruitment policy examples
What is a recruitment policy?
A recruitment policy (or recruitment and selection policy) is a formal document that defines how a company attracts, evaluates, and hires new employees. It acts as the blueprint for every stage of the recruitment process, from identifying talent needs and advertising vacancies to evaluating candidates and making final hiring decisions.
Why is a recruitment policy important?
A recruitment or hiring policy defines how an organization gains new hires by mapping out a straightforward, consistent process that guides every step, from identifying vacancies to making informed hiring decisions. Instead of letting each department or manager navigate these steps individually, it provides a standardized approach that supports efficiency and good judgment.
A good recruitment policy ensures that the company treats all candidates fairly by using the same objective criteria to assess them and treat them with respect and integrity. Having a detailed recruitment policy to follow also helps hiring managers and recruiters comply more easily with relevant labor laws and treat all applicants equitably.
This policy also supports organizational culture, values, and reputation. Also, it makes sure hiring decisions are based on merit and objective criteria, creating a more inclusive workplace that values diverse perspectives.
Without a good recruitment policy, hiring can be inefficient and fragmented due to unclear expectations, inconsistent evaluation standards, bias, and misaligned decisions. This raises the risk of unfair treatment or discrimination, which negatively impacts the candidate and employee experience and employer brand. This can also expose the organization to legal risks.
11 things to include in a recruitment policy
Here’s what you should include in your recruitment policy to ensure it covers the entire recruitment process:
- Scope and objectives of the policy: State the policy’s purpose and the hiring activities it covers. Explain how it supports goals like workforce growth, diversity, and talent development so HR, hiring managers, and candidates understand its role.
- Roles and responsibilities: Define what HR, hiring managers, and others are responsible for. For instance, HR might write job ads and post them, while hiring managers handle interviews and make final decisions.
- Legal and ethical hiring guidelines: Follow employment laws and ethical standards. Reference relevant labor laws and international hiring guidelines to ensure fair and legal practices.
- Steps in the recruitment process: Outline key steps in the hiring process. You don’t need to include every single detail, but include an overview with key points and a link to guides or templates for more information.
- Equal opportunity and DEIB commitment: Show commitment to fair hiring, diversity, and inclusion. This can include diverse interview panels and inclusive job ads that go beyond just meeting legal requirements.
- Use of recruitment tools: List the required systems for job postings, tracking applicants, and assessments. Provide training or guides so that all hiring managers can use them confidently.
- Internal versus external hiring considerations: Clarify when to post roles internally, externally, or both. If you intend to prioritize internal candidates, state so clearly to support transparency and internal mobility.
- Data protection and candidate privacy: Explain how your company will collect, store, and delete candidate data in accordance with relevant data privacy laws and organizational ethical standards.
- Pre-employment checks and assessments: State which checks are required (e.g., background, references, or skills tests) and explain that you’ll obtain express candidate consent beforehand.
- Use of external recruitment partners: Set rules for working with external recruiters. Make sure they follow your legal, ethical, diversity, and privacy standards.
- Appeals or candidate feedback process: Offer a way for candidates to request feedback or raise concerns. This builds trust and helps HR and hiring teams improve the process.
The benefits of using a recruitment policy template
A recruitment policy template can offer HR professionals practical advantages and long-term value, including benefits such as the following:
- Saves time and effort: A solid template gives you the full structure, so you can focus on tailoring the content to your organization instead of starting from scratch.
- Ensures consistency across HR teams: A shared template keeps recruitment processes consistent across departments and locations.
- Helps smaller teams start faster: Small teams can adopt a structured approach more quickly without having to rely on ad hoc methods.
- Reduces legal risks by covering essential components: Good recruitment policy templates cover legal basics, helping you stay compliant and avoid missing key rules.
- Easier to tailor to company-specific needs: Because templates are customizable, you can easily adapt them to fit your company’s culture, industry, and goals.
- Supports training and onboarding of HR staff: New HR team members can quickly get up to speed using the policy as a guide, flattening the learning curve and driving a seamless transition during onboarding.
- Encourages regular policy reviews: When laws or hiring needs change, you can update specific sections easily without redoing the entire policy.
Learn to develop and implement a solid recruitment policy
Learn how to create and roll out a robust recruitment process to attract top talent, increase retention and engagement, and minimize turnover and hiring costs.
AIHR’s Strategic Talent Acquisition Certificate Program teaches you how to align, attract top talent for critical vacancies, create impactful candidate experiences, and analyze recruitment costs and speed to improve recruitment efficiency.
Key elements of a recruitment policy template
If you’re keen on using a template to help create your recruitment policy, here are the essential components of a good template you should know about:
The company’s recruitment philosophy
The recruitment philosophy sets the tone for an organization’s talent acquisition approach. It reflects the company’s beliefs about its people, how it evaluates potential, and how it balances skills, experience, and cultural fit. Write a concise statement reflecting your organization’s definition of great talent and the qualities it prioritizes in team-building. 
Recruitment framework
This outlines the structure for hiring activities, detailing the steps, stakeholders, and decision points involved. It brings consistency to the recruitment process while allowing flexibility for different roles and departments. Develop a visual or written process flow mapping all the recruitment stages, so all involved parties understand their responsibilities.
Job requisition and approval process
Formalizing how the company identifies, documents, and approves hiring needs ensures precise business requirements, not ad hoc decisions, drive its recruitment process. This helps control costs, maintain headcount, and prioritize critical roles. Create a standard requisition form and approval workflow, including justifications for each role and necessary budget approvals.
Advertising and sourcing channels
Specifying channels and methods for attracting candidates promotes efficiency and reach. Depending on the role and target audience, these may include job boards, professional networks, or recruitment agencies. Refer to an updated list of preferred job boards, sourcing platforms, and recruitment partners tailored to different role types and seniority levels.
Interviewing and selection procedures
Develop and link to structured interview guides and scoring rubrics aligned with your recruitment framework’s competencies and values. Standardize interviewing and selection processes to ensure fair, consistent candidate assessment. Lay out clear procedures to guide interview formats and selection criteria, reduce unconscious bias, and improve hiring quality.
Background and reference checks
Incorporating checks into the recruitment process adds due diligence, verifying candidate qualifications, experience, and suitability. Clear guidelines also protect the organization from compliance risks and poor hiring decisions. Define roles needing specific checks and their timing, and ensure you obtain candidate consent beforehand.
Offer management and documentation
A transparent process for preparing, approving, and delivering job offers ensures accurate, consistent terms aligned with company policies and promotes a positive candidate experience. I recommend the use of a standard offer letter template reviewed by legal counsel and the establishment of a procedure for internal approvals before extending offers.
Equal opportunity and anti-discrimination clauses
Include these clauses to reinforce the organization’s commitment to fair hiring practices and clear compliance with legal and ethical standards. Review the clauses to ensure they reflect current legislation and are consistently applied throughout recruitment communications and procedures.
Review dates and policy ownership
Assign ownership of the recruitment policy and set review dates to ensure the document stays updated and meets the organization’s needs as it grows or adapts to market changes. Identify a policy owner—typically an HR leader—and schedule a formal review annually or biennially (or whenever significant changes occur in employment law or business strategy).
Resources
List and link to available resources relevant to the recruitment process, such as your company’s employee referral program or the application process for current employees looking to fill open roles via internal hiring.
Free recruitment policy template
If you need a starting point to help create your recruitment policy, download AIHR’s free recruitment policy template. It’s also customizable, so you can tailor it to match your organization’s hiring requirements.
9 steps to write a recruitment policy
Here are nine steps you can take to write a solid recruitment policy:
Step 1: Define your recruitment goals
Clarify what you want the recruitment policy and process to achieve for the organization. Setting clear, measurable goals will shape subsequent decisions. Align goals with business priorities, consider practical objectives, and engage leadership to confirm that the goals align with long-term organizational needs.
Step 2: Gather input from HR, legal, and leadership
Collaboration ensures the policy is comprehensive, practical, and compliant. Consult your HR team for insights on recruitment challenges, and involve legal advisors early to ensure compliance. Ask for leadership input to align the policy with company values and strategic objectives, and use structured interviews or workshops to gather meaningful feedback.
Step 3: Map your existing hiring process
Familiarize yourself with the current recruitment framework before making improvements. Document every stage, from job requisition to onboarding, and identify who makes decisions for each one. Additionally, create a process map or workflow diagram to visualize the full recruitment cycle and note any variations between departments or teams.
Step 4: Identify gaps or compliance risks
A clear view of weaknesses will help you address potential problems using the new policy. Look for inconsistencies or delays in the current process, identify potential bias or unfair practices, and ensure legal compliance. This will allow you to identify and address areas for improvement in the current process and refine it in the new policy.
Step 5: Choose a recruitment policy template
A good template provides structure and saves time. Select a recruitment policy template that includes essential components like recruitment philosophy, approval processes, and compliance standards. Look for templates recommended by HR professionals or industry bodies, and ensure the template allows easy customization.
Step 6: Customize the template to fit your company’s values
Tailor the template to reflect your organization’s hiring approach. Adapt language and tone to suit company culture and clarify procedures for key steps like job requisition, advertising, and selection. You should also incorporate DEIB hiring commitments and ensure consistency with other internal policies and documents.
Step 7: Review with stakeholders
Collaborative review leads to a stronger, more practical policy. Share the draft with HR, legal, leadership, and hiring managers, and request specific, constructive feedback from them. Based on this, revise the policy to address concerns and suggestions while maintaining clarity and consistency. After this, all stakeholders should approve the final version before implementing it.
Step 8: Train hiring managers on the policy
Training ensures the policy is understood and applied correctly. Provide training sessions or workshops to explain the recruitment framework and hiring policy, with practical examples and scenarios to clarify expectations. Additionally, they distribute written guides or quick-reference materials and offer follow-up support for managers who may need further guidance.
Step 9: Update the policy regularly
Keeping the policy current maintains its relevance and effectiveness. Assign responsibility to someone in HR leadership to oversee this and set up a review schedule (annually or after major legal or organizational changes). Update the policy to reflect new laws, technologies, or strategic priorities, and be sure to communicate these updates clearly to all relevant teams.
4 recruitment policy examples
Below are four real-life company examples of successful recruitment policies:
Example 1: The University of York
The University of York’s recruitment policy revolves around meritocracy, equal opportunities, and professionalism, ensuring an inclusive recruitment process. It bases its recruitment decisions on merit, with structured procedures to identify the best candidate for each role. It also supports candidates with disabilities, making necessary adjustments for a fair recruitment experience.
Example 2: CUTS International
CUTS International emphasizes a transparent, merit-based recruitment approach, ensuring equal opportunities for all candidates. The organization has established clear procedures to ensure it provides equal employment opportunities and avoids discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, and other immutable personal characteristics.
Example 3: Google
Google’s recruitment process aims to identify and hire individuals who are aligned with the company’s mission and values, emphasizing fairness, consistency, and a commitment to diversity and inclusion. It also handles candidate information per its Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy, ensuring confidentiality and compliance with data protection regulations.
Example 4: Microsoft
Microsoft’s recruitment process is designed to identify individuals who not only meet technical and behavioral requirements but also align with the company’s disciplined, systems-focused approach to problem-solving. Hiring at Microsoft plays a critical role in reinforcing a data-aware culture driven by leadership accountability and structured collaboration.
To sum up
In light of the shift toward skills-based hiring, HR leaders must ensure their recruitment policy reflects current realities. A well-defined policy supports consistent decision-making, compliance, inclusivity, and a stronger candidate experience, especially in hybrid and remote environments where processes can easily become fragmented.
Your policy should go beyond just listing steps — it should reflect your organization’s recruitment philosophy, clarify responsibilities, and integrate compliance, equity, and digital tools. When built correctly, it provides the structure needed for high-quality, bias-aware hiring decisions and helps your HR team scale talent acquisition strategically.
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