It is a fact widely accepted that a company is known through its employees. The more efficient the staff, the more successful the company is likely to be.
Hence, recruiting candidates is crucial to your company as your success will largely depend on their output.
Therefore, to grab the talent one must go systematically; with an efficient recruitment strategy. Before moving further, let’s understand what a recruitment strategy is.
A recruitment strategy is a well-developed recruitment plan that deals with critically identifying an organization’s needs, and streamlining the findings to hire top-notch candidates. These strategies are required at every step of the recruitment process to ensure the hiring manager does not miss out on talent.
The article brings to you 7 phases of the recruitment process that range from analyzing an organization’s needs to finally hiring the candidate.
Let’s dive right in!
1. Identify Your Needs
The first step to be followed in the recruitment process is to analyze the areas where hiring needs to be done. If you do not know where the requirement is, you won’t be able to hunt for the ideal candidates. How to identify your organization’s needs? This can be done in the following ways:-
The hiring process must begin by developing a well-planned recruiting strategy. This includes identifying and listing job descriptions. Educational qualification, experience, and skills required should be carefully drawn and described.
No doubt, a strong recruitment team is the hallmark of a strong recruitment process. A strong recruitment team should be able to do all the above-mentioned tasks with utmost perfection.
2. Create a Job Description
Once you’ve critically analyzed your requirements, it’s time for the job description to be prepared. Make sure, your job description lists all your requirements precisely.
The idea behind preparing a job description is two-fold. First, you will have a better idea about what you’re searching for in a candidate. Second, the candidates will know if they are a fit for your job or not.
Following things need to be kept in mind while framing a job description:
- Titles should be specific.
- Talk about all the necessary skills and abilities required.
- Using appropriate keywords will be helpful.
- Don’t be monotonous.
- Make the job description concise.
- Avoid jargon.
To prepare an appropriate job description, focus on the following things:
- Name of the organization and its description. Keep it concise.
- Benefits associated with the job profile.
- Location.
- Title of the job.
- Department.
- Compensation.
- A brief description of the job responsibilities.
- Demand in terms of skills and abilities. (minimum credentials)
- Abilities that would add advantage to the job post. (preferred credentials)
Note: While drafting cold email templates for recruiters, the same format for the job description can be followed.
3. Search for the Talent
Attracting potential candidates is equally important for the success of the campaign. But, how to reach out to them? To grab the talent, there can be two recruitment sources, namely:
Internal Sources
- Promotion: A vacancy can be filled by raising the employment position of an ideal candidate already working in the company. This will lead to an increase in salary as well as responsibilities of the worker.
- Transfer: In case, there’s a shortage of staff in one branch of the company, organizations tend to fill it by transferring candidates from one branch to another. This benefits them because there is no change in the job post or salary.
- Employee Referral Program: Advertise your recruitment program through existing employees. They can spread the word and get you the perfect fit for your job.
- Retired Workers: Retired workers can also be asked to come in case of urgent need. This will fill the vacancy for the time being until another employee is hired.
- Past Applicants: Always keep a record of the previous applicants. Sometimes, potential candidates are not able to make it in the first round due to some unavoidable reasons. They can be considered again for a suitable job post.
External Sources
- Advertisements: The advertisement is an important tool to build an employer brand and attract talent. Conventional methods of advertising can be followed to make our campaign efficient and less costly.
- Online Portals: Growing technology brings you an amazing way to attract ideal candidates. You can list the demand for candidates on the internet.
- Company Page: Having your company site will help you enhance your employer brand and help the job seekers. It will be easy for job seekers to apply. You can also share your work culture with the applicants.
- Job Fairs: Job fairs often get you a bunch of talented candidates. They also help you connect with established professionals who can benefit you a great deal.
4. Shortlist the Candidates
Once you have spread the buzz about the hiring, you’ll be receiving applications. However, sometimes it may be you who will have to approach the candidates or initiate the conversation. Therefore, focussing on composing cold recruiting email templates is equally essential.
You’re receiving job applications, and most likely, these candidates are waiting to hear from you. But, you can’t interview all of them. . So, here’s the next task for a recruiter—to handpick the candidates and shortlist them. This can be a bit difficult. But, here’s what we can do to make it easier—let’s go step by step:
- First, depending on the amount of time available, decide the number of interviews that can be conducted.
- The next step will be studying their resumes. Keep in mind, discrimination against the candidates based on their gender, religion, age, or any other irrelevant characteristics is highly discouraged. Moreover, it is illegal.
- Select those applications that qualify the minimum requirements.
- In the next step, move on to those that are up to the preferred credentials. Go through their experience, certifications, and other skills and abilities.
- Make a list of candidates who have passed both—the minimum and the preferred credentials.
5. Interview
After shortlisting, you can call the applicants for an interview. To make the interview process time-saving, one can opt for a telephonic interview. Telephonic interviews are less time-consuming.
However, face-to-face interviewing should be the last stage before the company makes the job offer. It is meant for outstanding candidates.
We’d like to present some tips regarding an interview:
- Be Humble: Just like you're evaluating the candidate, they too, are analyzing your organization’s work culture and brand ethics. So, be good to them. Disrespectful behavior towards the candidates can be a huge loss to your company.
- Questions: Prepare a set of questions beforehand to critically evaluate if the interviewee is ideal for the job post. Avoid asking questions that are personal to the candidate. Your motive is to hire a candidate for a post, keep things relevant to it.
- Treat Them With Respect: Be available for them. Provide them with the necessary information. Asking them for a cup of coffee will create a positive impact. Good hospitality is always appreciable.
A face-to-face interview should always be done by higher management. It is recommended to involve someone already working for the same or similar job post.
Below are some questions that can be asked in an in-person interview :
- Why do you think we should hire you?: The candidate can answer by addressing all the skills and capabilities relevant to the job post. Assess them.
- Tell us about your past work experience?: Look for answers that show how competent the candidate is. Don’t focus only on the success of the candidate. In case if the candidate failed, pay attention to the strategies and improvements done after the failure.
- What made you apply here?: This question will help you get an idea of the research the candidate has done about the company. Look for answers that go by your organization.
6. Make the Job Offer
Now that you’ve found an ideal candidate, it’s time to extend the job offer. At this stage, you may want to speed up. Your desired candidate might not take much time to change his mind. But, don’t dismiss all the interviewed candidates without doing a background check.
Your job offer doesn’t need to be accepted by the desired candidate. They can reject it considering other factors like better payout by some other organization. Here arises the need for backup candidates.
Go for a referral check before extending the job offer. This is a verification step. This will bring forth if there are any odds in the candidate’s employment references.
Once you’ve verified with employment details, and everything comes clean, you can make the job offer.
A job offer letter is crucial to the hiring process. The two main purposes of composing an offer letter are:
- It is a legal document that prevents any chances of fraud from both parties.
- It comprises all the essential information about the job post—job role, salary, start date, policies of the organization.
While framing a job offer letter, keep the following points in mind:
- The candidate should have been verified by all the parties involved in hiring.
- Check your tone. Be professional.
- Don’t explain the job post in detail. Be concise. Details can be listed in the employee diary.
- Be comprehensible in your language.
7. Onboarding
After your job offer is accepted by the candidate, they are officially a part of your company now. It is but natural for a newbie to hesitate in a new working place.
But, the way you deal with them onboard reflects your employer brand. You need to spend time with the employee and train them for the job role.
You can do the following to assist them once they join the company:
- Make them visit your office. Introduce them to their colleagues and employer resources.
- Provide the new employee with an overview of the company. It will be helpful to them in understanding the work culture of your organization.
- Get detailed with the responsibilities. Much of this might have already been discussed. But, it’s important to dig deeper into it once you’ve hired them.
- Introduce them to people performing a similar job. They will be helpful if and when the new employee needs assistance.
- Be available for them. It does not stop at the candidate accepting the offer letter. The new hire is likely to have questions regarding the work. Communicate with ease.
Conclusion
The article discussed all the required steps that are followed in the recruitment process along with some key strategies. Important to note, do not to limit yourself to any specific strategy. You may have to apply multiple of these.
It is also recommended to keep searching and experimenting with different recruitment methods. A recruitment process that is liked by one recruiter may not be preferred by the other. That’s because these strategies may work differently in different sectors.
Hence, continue your research and opt for the one that works best for you based on your experience.