How many employee fallouts have you had over the years? If you can’t count them, perhaps it’s time to revise your recruitment process!
Digital transformation and employee expectations have altered the hiring landscape. No business can afford to bleed money by making poor hiring decisions.
A company is only as strong as its people and the key to building an exceptional workforce is having a strong recruitment process in place. Whether crafting it from scratch or optimizing the existing one, the following 7 steps are the core ingredients for successful recruitment.
Table of Contents
Table of Content
- Define Your Hiring Needs
- Create an Ideal Candidate Profile
- Spread the Word That You Are Hiring
- Start Screening and Shortlisting
- Conduct Interviews
- Make the Offer
- Ensure a Smooth Onboarding
Let’s dive in
1: Define Your Hiring Needs
It’s almost impossible to find an ideal employee if you don’t know what your organization needs. Start the hiring process by taking the time to define and analyze the job specifications to determine the type of candidate required for the role.
Conduct a skill gap analysis of your personnel and identify the skills that might be lacking, and which you want to hire for in future. Once done, compare the current skills with desired skills and devise a plan to fill the gaps.
Your company’s business goals should also influence every hiring decision. Prioritize the candidate who perfectly fits into the company’s business plan.
2: Create an Ideal Candidate Profile
The right candidate will always introduce his or her own expectations into the process – it’s only natural. To eliminate any confusion or miscommunication from the outset, prepare a job description defining the duties and responsibilities of the role. A comprehensive description will accurately reflect the unique recruitment and personnel needs of your company. It is typically comprised of the following points:
- Duties and responsibilities
- Qualifications and skills required
- Compensation, benefits, perks
- Location
This description will also serve as a checklist that potential prospects can review and consider in detail before applying.
3: Spread the Word That You Are Hiring
Leverage job boards, local news classified ads, career fairs, campus placements, and social media to publicize a job opening. If you have a website, utilize the career page to formally announce the vacancy.
It’s equally important to notify your current employees of the new opening. Ideally, you should do your best to give preference to your internal employees. There are cases where promoting an existing employee is more fruitful than hiring a new one. This strategy not only saves precious time and cost but also helps foster a culture of loyalty. Through training and education, you can convert an already loyal employee into an ideal candidate taking care to provide the right circumstances for knowledge and success.
If you fail to find the right candidate from your existing pool, it’s fine to move on to external prospects. Remember: headhunting is not for faint of heart. If you are picky about candidates when it comes to your specialty roles, it’s best to reach out to niche specialist staffing partners for your staffing needs.
4: Start Screening and Shortlisting
With any luck, by the time you reach this step in the process, your inbox will be filled with resumes. This is where things start to get challenging, however. Review each resume carefully and shortlist the deserving candidates. Consider these tips for effective screening:
- Check the minimum qualification first
- Look for relevant experience, certifications, domain expertise, technical and soft skills required for the role
- Take note of all queries on the respective resume, in order to present those questions during the candidate’s interview
Once screening is complete, it becomes time to call or email the shortlisted candidates and schedule their interviews. Remind your HR team to compile a list of general interview questions relevant to the position.
5: Conduct Interviews
As a best practice, always have two people (or more) conducting every interview. At least one interviewee must be from the department in which the role will sit. Not only does this tend to make the interview more detailed and immediate, it also makes eliminating candidates easier.
Ask specific questions that would encourage candidates to freely offer more insight into their skills and abilities. Use expressions such as “what are your strengths?” or “can you give an instance of…”.
You may also need to schedule two interviews (or more) for each candidate depending on your needs and the complexity of (or competition for) the role. At the end of the interview, ask each candidate to provide two or three references. Speaking with the prospect’s reference is imperative if you are interested in hiring him or her. Remember to double-check the date of work tenure provided by the candidate to ensure credibility.
6: Make the Offer
You’re nearing the final stage of the process! Select your ideal candidate and send them a formalized job offer. The offer must include all relevant details in writing, including but not necessarily limited to, start date, work hours, and compensation. Most candidates will negotiate over compensation and paid time off, or remote work opportunity. For those candidates you’re highly interested in, do your best to accommodate their requests. Don’t lose sight of the fact that some candidates will reject an offer if the employer doesn’t show flexibility.
As all good recruitment agencies do, notify all of the candidates who were interviewed but are not being hired. This is important if you want to maintain a good rapport with your potential talent pool.
7: Ensure a Smooth Onboarding
The way in which you welcome the new employee radically affects whether you would be able to retain him or her in the future. Be ready with a warm welcome and follow with an introduction to the whole team. It’s equally critical they perceive an open and hospitable welcome from their new co-workers. Make special arrangements for lunch – it doesn’t have to be something big, just a team get together to serve as an icebreaker. Equally important, be sure to assign a mentor to ease the new hire into the role.
Conclusion
The process of selecting a new employee is by no means straightforward. However, with a well-defined strategy and a commitment to all the aforementioned recruitment process steps, you will find a candidate as committed to success as your organization is.
Image Credits: katemangostar
