The recruitment process can be a lot more complicated than hanging a “help wanted” sign in your window. But, just because it’s complicated doesn’t mean it has to be hard. Creating a good, straightforward process can increase your candidate portfolio and help you fill positions quickly. Here’s how to to get started.
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What Is A Recruitment Process?
A recruitment process is the steps by which you find new employees. While it can vary from business to business and job to job, there are some basic steps. Sometimes you’ll hear this called a “recruitment funnel.” Why? Because you start wide at the top and narrow down until you have one person you hire (per position).
Having a set process helps your recruiters and hiring managers work together and understand the steps and procedures. It also allows you to inform candidates of where they are in the process and when they can expect a decision. It makes the candidate experience better.
Without a defined process, you can end up with confusion and candidates backing out as you ask them to come into an unplanned third round of interviews. A solid process helps everyone.
What Makes An Effective Recruitment Process?
Any effective recruiting process has three core principles that help guide your company’s recruitment effort.
Planning
You may be fully staffed today, but you can be assured that you will have turnover, or a need to expand. Many companies have cyclical hiring. Planning includes evaluations of current employees and looking at skill gaps. Remember, internal promotions are part of an effective recruiting process.
Understanding skill gaps and predicted vacancies allows recruiters and managers to plan for the future and build a solid candidate pipeline. Remember, this is not posting fake job postings, but networking and building relationships with people who may be good fits in the future.
Communication
Hiring managers need to communicate with recruiters and together, they need to put together a clear job description. Everyone needs to communicate with applicants and candidates. Automated messages to applicants that you received their resume are sufficient. But, once you’ve had personal contact (whether by phone screen, video call, or in-person meetings), that person becomes a candidate. You need to communicate with all candidates so they know precisely where the hiring process stands.
Onboarding
Hiring doesn’t end when the job offer is accepted. The hiring process extends into the first 90 days or more of a new employee’s tenure. Is the onboarding process sufficient to integrate the new employee? Does it give the employee the technical support needed to do their job? Do you have a plan for helping people meet and work with each other? Part of an effective recruitment process is onboarding.
Steps Of A Recruitment Process
While the best process will differ from organization to organization, using the recruitment funnel model can help everyone. Here is what an effective hiring funnel looks like.
Name Recognition and Company Reputation
There are some companies everyone wants to work for and some that people will reject before they know about the position or compensation. By increasing the visibility and reputation of the company, you’ll have a wider hiring pool. This can include your company website, a company LinkedIn page, other social media, and monitoring your comments on Glassdoor.
Related: How To Create A Great Career Page
Candidate Recruitment
You can do this through many methods--job postings on your company website, posting on job boards, job fairs, or advertising on social media. You can also give your current employees bonuses for referring their former colleagues. This is the part that most people think of as hiring, but it’s only one small step of the recruitment process.
Screening
At this point, the recruiter or hiring manager screens applicants. This can involve using applicant tracking software to help narrow the field, or personal reviews of all applications. The personal review helps avoid the limitations around keywords. Some companies have applicants take personality tests, skills tests, or do short videos answering questions as part of the screening process.
Interviewing
Before you start interviewing candidates, agree on the process. Is it one round of interviews and then an offer? Or will you have two or three rounds? The fewer rounds, the more likely you are to keep your best candidates. Whatever it is, communicate it clearly to candidates so they can plan accordingly.
Related: The Best Interview Questions To Ask Candidates
Offer and Negotiations
The best way for companies to approach an offer is with your highest and best offer first, with no negotiations. But, many companies continue to negotiate job offers. When you come to an agreement, then you come to the last part of the recruitment process.
Onboarding
Make sure the new hire has everything they need to be successful at your company. Onboarding is a crucial step in the recruiting process because it sets the tone for new employees' experiences within the organization.
Effective onboarding helps new hires feel welcomed, supported, and prepared to contribute to the company. It can also positively impact employee retention, job satisfaction, and productivity. By providing new employees with the necessary information, resources, and training, onboarding helps them integrate into the company culture and understand their roles and responsibilities. This ultimately leads to better engagement and performance, making onboarding an essential part of the overall recruiting process.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the steps of recruitment process?
The above article gives you a great grasp of the recruitment process and how it works.
What are the 7 steps of recruitment? Or What are the 5 stages of the recruitment process?
Not every company has the same number of steps. The above process is actually a six-step process! Your company may have more. For instance, background checks, security clearances, or skills testing. The important thing is to have your recruitment process match the needs your company has.
What is recruitment process in HR?
This is the steps that recruiters and hiring managers go through in order to recruit and hire new employees. Each company can have slightly varied steps, but they need a clear process to make things efficient. An important part of the process for all companies is clear communication with everyone involved.
The Bottom Line
Every business needs to recruit employees from time to time. Make sure you follow solid processes and use great communication to help find the best new hires. Now that you’ve refined your recruitment process, you may be ready to hire your next employee. Consider posting your job opening on ZipRecruiter.
