Mastering the Recruitment Process: Essential Guide

How does the recruitment process work?

The recruitment process starts with acquiring new talent and ends with hiring the right candidate for the job. To find the ideal candidate, recruiters must screen potential candidates, narrow down applicants, conduct interviews, and ultimately decide who to hire.

Many companies have their own HR managers, while others outsource recruitment to specialized firms. In today's digital age, many utilize hiring software and online psychometric tests to identify the best candidates for their roles.

How a good recruitment process benefits your business

Recruitment agencies and HR managers work to find the best people for the job quickly and efficiently so companies can stay productive while waiting for a new hire. A good recruitment process can benefit your business in many ways, such as:

Saving time and money

Recruiting isn't just about hiring the right person. It's also about making sure you don't hire the wrong person. Take hiring a new salesperson, for example. In the UK, 27% of respondents said a bad hire costs more than £50,000.

However, a well-organized, streamlined hiring process helps companies find the best person for the job in a timely manner. While hiring should never be rushed, the process should also never take too long, as understaffing can overburden current employees and negatively impact company culture.

Finding the Right Person for the Job

Many people think of a recruiter's duties as finding the right person for the job. While there are plenty of talented and well-trained people out there, the right person must have the right soft skills and fit into the company culture. A candidate who fits into the company culture will have a better experience at work and be less likely to quit, saving you money in the long run.

Increased Productivity

The right person for the job will fit into the team, work independently, and be an engaged and productive employee. On the other hand, picking the wrong person from the talent pool will inevitably cause stress for both the company and the candidate and slow down productivity in the long run.

7 Stages of Recruiting

Of course, recruiting the perfect candidate is no easy task and certainly can't be done overnight. When hiring a new person, companies generally follow seven well-planned steps.

Step One: Identify Hiring Needs

As the Rolling Stones once sang, "If you try sometimes, you'll find you get what you need." This is a good phrase to remember at the start of the hiring process. Before you post your ad on LinkedIn or consult an external recruiting company, consider the type of person you need for the open position.

What type of personality fits your work culture? Are they expected to jump right in at the deep end and take on the role of an experienced employee who just left, or do you have the time and resources to train someone with a lot of potential but little experience?

At this point, you need to create a solid plan and consider many factors, such as the salary you can offer, the economic situation, whether your company is likely to grow or have to make layoffs in the near future, etc. Whatever is going on externally and internally, a poorly structured plan will lead to a poor hiring process, so always think about what exactly you want from your new employee.

Step two: write an effective job description

Now that you know what you're looking for, it's time to communicate your requirements to a pool of potential new hires. A detailed job description will ensure the right people apply for the role.

Your job description will include many requirements and skills of a new candidate, but avoid turning your ad into a long-winded block of text that will send your potential gold candidate running to the next opportunity.

A great job description should clearly define the role, include the right keywords, list your company's core values, include a jargon-free list of duties, required experience and qualifications, some information about the department, who the potential new hire will report to, desired personal qualities, and a work location. You can include salary, but it's not mandatory. In fact, more and more companies are finding it easier to ask the candidate to include their desired salary in their application.

Step three: cast a wide net

Don't let a great job description go to waste by posting it on a platform. People often search for jobs on LinkedIn and job boards, but they also find their dream job on more casual social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Asking your employees to post the advert on their personal social media profiles will also be a big help.

Make sure you don't exclude candidates who sent you applications before you advertised a position. These applicants often find your company through word of mouth or by doing their own research and may be the best person for the job. Save open applications in your inbox and send a follow-up email to gauge the person's interest when appropriate.

Also, remember that you may already have the ideal candidate. Some people may have the skills to be promoted to the new role, others may be happy to be moved to a different department, and even people who were laid off during tougher economic times may be happy to come back and fill the position.

Step Four: Creating the Shortlist

Creating a shortlist seems like the easy part of the hiring process. Finally, you now have a list of potentially great new employees to choose from. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. A survey of recruiters found that 52% of them found hiring the right candidates from a large talent pool to be the hardest part of the job.

Step Five: Conduct interviews

These days, the first interview is likely to be conducted over Zoom, Google Meet or Teams. This is generally a more casual conversation and offers the opportunity to get to know the candidate in person and share more details about the role and company. It's also a way to weed out unsuitable candidates and shortlist candidates you want to keep on.

Remember that interviews are a two-way process and also an opportunity for a candidate to shortlist or rule you out, so make sure you sell the benefits of the company, show up on time, be nice and ask direct questions to make the candidate feel comfortable.

Step Six: Make the Offer

After the ideal candidate has been selected, it's time to make the offer. This is usually the easiest and most enjoyable part of the hiring process, but it's not always without challenges.

If the hiring process didn't move quickly enough, the ideal candidate may have given up waiting and moved on to other jobs. There could also be issues with salary offers and start dates. In this case, you'll need to extend your offer to your second choice. However, someone who comes second among dozens or even hundreds of applicants is probably just as good a fit for the job as the first in line.

Step Seven: Onboarding

While onboarding is the final stage of the hiring process, it's certainly not the end. Most new employees need about three weeks to feel welcomed (or unwelcome) in their new workplace, which explains why 22% of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days. A good onboarding process helps a new employee start their career on a positive note, build good relationships, and understand their goals.

For more information on successful onboarding, check out our onboarding report. It relies on individual responses to personality profiles to give managers personalized information so they can provide the new employee with a tailored support structure.

The Bottom Line

An effective hiring process can save companies time, money, and effort, and ensure they hire the right person for the job. When you hire the ideal candidate, you reduce staff turnover, keep your company running smoothly, and make top talent feel welcome and comfortable in their new role.

However, when companies follow a poorly planned and rushed hiring plan, they often find themselves in a worse situation than a mild staff shortage.

An effective hiring process, like that provided by IceHrm, saves time, money, and ensures the right fit for the role, reducing turnover and boosting productivity.