What is a Recruitment Strategy and
why is it important to have one?
Before we begin, a little about our format…
Presentation by seminar speakers (approx. 40 min.)
Followed by question and answer session (approx. 20 min.)
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Questions submitted prior to the web seminar will be addressed first
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question over the phone
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Acción Mutua is a capacity building assistance
(CBA) program of AIDS Project Los Angeles
in collaboration with the César E. Chávez
Institute of San Francisco State University
Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
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Our Presenter
Ted Duncan, PhD, is a Behavioral Scientist in the Division
of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC. He works mainly as
a technical assistance provider for community-based
organizations and health departments. Over the last
several years, one of the most common issues he has
worked with has been recruitment. Much of the material
he will present comes from that experience.
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A Road Map for Web Seminar
This Web Seminar will cover:
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A description of recruitment
Information needed to plan a recruitment strategy
Multiple methods of recruitment
How to plan a recruitment strategy
Case Studies
Some lessons learned about recruitment
Questions and Answers
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Recruitment: An Overview
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The means by which persons at risk for
HIV infection or transmission are
brought into an HIV prevention
intervention program
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Includes locating people at risk,
engaging them, and motivating them to
participate in an intervention
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Recruitment: An Overview
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An “effective intervention” alone is not enough to
bring about effective HIV prevention. There must
also be an effective recruitment strategy.
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An effective recruitment strategy is one that brings
an adequate number of appropriate high risk
persons into an intervention.
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An effective recruitment strategy plus an effective
intervention equals effective prevention.
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Recruitment: An Overview
Recruitment can take different forms,
depending on:
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The intervention
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The most appropriate approach for a specific
target population
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The needs, abilities and resources of the
organization engaging in the activity
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Core Elements for Recruitment
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Use information from multiple sources to
describe identifying characteristics of the target
population
Develop and deliver appropriate health
messages for the population and setting
Recruit for specific services (e.g., counseling,
testing, and referral services; PCM; other
prevention interventions)
Track completion of referrals to monitor the
effectiveness of the referral strategy
Revise strategies , messages, or venues as
appropriate
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Planning a Recruitment Strategy:
A Six Step Approach
Agencies developing a recruitment strategy should
answer the following questions related to their target
populations:
1.
Who is being targeted through the recruitment?
2.
Where is the appropriate place to recruit clients?
3.
When should recruitment be done?
4.
What messages should be delivered during recruitment?
5.
How should the messages be delivered?
6.
Who is the most appropriate person to do recruitment?
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Five Methods for Recruitment
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Outreach
Inreach
Agency referral
Social marketing
Peer networking
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Methods of Recruitment
5. Peer Networking: Members of high risk
networks use personal influence to bring
other members of their networks into
specific intervention services.
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Use of Peer Networking
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Enlist members of high risk networks as
recruiters
Provide recruiters with orientation and
coaching
Encourage recruiters to escort client to
service or escort service provider to client or
refer client to service
Establish mechanism for documenting follow
up on referrals
Use of incentives (stipends) may help
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Diagnosing Problems in
Recruitment
Revisit each of the six steps:
1. Are you reaching high risk people?
2. Are you in the right place?
3. Are you there when people are accessible?
4. Is the right message being delivered?
5. Are you delivering the message in the right
way?
6. Is the messenger the right person?
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Case Study #1
Problem: 23 year old male outreach worker
recruiting for prevention program for IDUs.
He was very successful in recruiting through
outreach to IDUs under 30 but was
unsuccessful in recruiting those over 30
 Cause: They did not feel the OW was old
enough to understand their needs.
 Solution: The outreach worker established
collaborations with other agencies to refer
clients over age 30 to his program.
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Case Study #2
Problem: An outreach worker found that
young African American gay men in an after
hours club would talk to him about testing,
but would not test.
 Cause: They didn’t want to be seen entering
a room in the club where testing took place.
 Solution: The outreach worker had them
make appointments to come in for a test on
another night before “prime time.”
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Lessons Learned
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Consider all methods before rejecting any.
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Choose one or more appropriate recruitment
methods when designing a strategy.
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Multiple methods often work better than one.
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Don’t try to do everything. There is a cost
connected with every method.
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Lessons Learned
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Outreach as a recruitment method may not
always be appropriate to recruit HIV+
persons for prevention case management
(CRCS).
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Assessment of a recruitment strategy should
be on-going. If things change, the strategy
may have to.
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The success of a strategy can be measured
by whether it is producing an adequate yield
of high risk people who motivated to
participate in the intervention.
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Lessons Learned
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Develop protocols related to recruitment.
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Train all appropriate staff in the use of the
protocols in conducting recruitment.
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Keep the people doing the work involved in
the planning. They are one of the best
sources of information.
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Develop procedures for quality assurance in
recruitment activities, including collection of
information.
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Lessons Learned
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Set up outreach logs, referral forms, intake
forms to capture the information to determine
whether the recruitment strategy is working.
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If the forms already exist, review them.
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Assure the consistent collection of
information.
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Lessons Learned
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Consider offering incentives for use of
prevention services. Be sure the incentives are
appropriate. Are they working?
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Cash (stipends) may be effective incentives, but
present challenges in fiscal control.
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Check with funder before using cash incentives.
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Lessons Learned
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There is no magic or complex science to
recruitment. Most of the “best practices” are
fairly obvious.
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Consistency is the key!
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Recruitment involves making evidence based
decisions about what may work and then
collecting the information to determine
whether the strategy is working.
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Keep what works; replace what does not.
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Conclusion
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Recruitment is an art and a science. It calls for
creativity, use of experience, experimentation,
and making evidence-based decisions.
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Most of what has been covered here was
learned from people who are doing
recruitment. Everything has worked for
someone.
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Your challenge is to find your own way.
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Questions and Answers
Click on the “hand” button and type
your question or wait to be called on
to ask your question over the phone
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For more information on this workshop
or to learn how to receive CBA services,
especially for Recruitment Training
contact us at
(213) 201-1345 or
www.accionmutua.org
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