A 2023 study indicated that there are around 3.4 billion people employed globally. With the socioeconomic instability, the rate of employment will keep changing and affect the recruiting process. Therefore, industries must be well-equipped with an efficient recruitment process.
A recruitment process is a procedure that involves a step-by-step guide and needs to be followed by the organization when recruiting new employees.
A thorough understanding of the recruitment process is essential for any talent acquisition agency. Many recruiters outsource their recruiting needs, and with today's technological advancement, these sources come as recruiting software.
Many options for such software platforms are easily available in the market. However, choosing the right platform is crucial, as it makes the recruiting process much easier and faster such as WeCP.
This article presents a detailed guide to the recruitment process, why it needs to be implemented, and the steps to be followed.
What is the Recruitment Process?
The process that involves all the key steps from identifying job needs, advertising the job, screening new candidates, analyzing, evaluating, and conducting interviews followed by selecting, hiring, and onboarding new employees is called the recruitment process.
The entire process of recruitment requires a detailed account of the organization’s staffing needs, various skills needed to fill the positions, and further knowledge of the company’s work culture. Therefore, specialists in the Human Resources (HR) department are given the tasks to handle these needs.
Teams can be formed for specific tasks in the hiring process that can vary according to the roles, whether big or small.
Although, nowadays HR teams are opting for various recruitment software that are easily available, it is very difficult to choose the right platform. Complete research must be done before outsourcing these recruitment platforms.
Several elements make up the recruitment system of any organization, such as -
- Size of the company
- The sector or area it works in
- Growth rate
- The type of job requirement
- Salary and benefits it provides
- Workplace requirements (offline, remote, or hybrid)
Benefits of an Effective Recruitment Process
An efficient recruitment process is the core of any recruitment agency. Such a system manages to provide numerous benefits that aim to achieve the company’s goal, along with improving the company’s profile and simultaneously gaining the right kind of candidates while saving resources contributed during the recruitment.
“Hiring is the most important people function you have, and most of us aren’t as good at it as we think. Refocusing your resources on hiring better will have a higher return than almost any training program you can develop.”
- Laszlo Bock, Co-founder and CEO of Humu and Author of Work Rules
Any recruitment process has its benefits, such as -
Identifying and Selecting the Right Talent
Since the task of the recruitment process is to search and find the right talent suitable for the industry, a good selection process such as an application tracking system (ATS) can be helpful.
Such an recruiting automated system if implemented further aids in interview and evaluation processes.
Reduces Time of Hire and Cost of Hire
The recruiting agency's major goal is saving resources, and an effective recruitment process can be beneficial.
With strategic planning in place, an agency can efficiently fill in vacant posts as well as gain attention from qualified potential candidates, thus, reducing hiring costs and time.
Improves Employer Branding
Around 62% of companies and 86% of recruiting managers state that the current job scenarios are entirely directed by candidates.
Such candidates focus not only on companies’ workplace culture but also on how their recruitment system is when deciding about any job offers. Therefore, an efficient hiring process is necessary to implement employer branding.
Increases Growth Rate of the Company
The growth of any organization is very much dependent on its employees. Therefore, a dedicated recruitment process ensures qualified and skilled candidates enter and contribute to the workforce, which eventually leads to the growth of the industry.
Recruiting Culturally Fit Candidates
When an employee is deemed culturally fit in an organization, it benefits both the employer and the employee as well as its coworkers.
An effective recruitment process aids in hiring such candidates, thus, ensuring employee satisfaction further reducing employee turnover, and increasing the retention rate.
Step-by-Step Recruitment Process
The entire workforce of any organization depends on its employees, and the hiring of these employees is dependent on an efficient recruitment agency that follows the steps of the recruitment process effectively.
A well-structured recruitment plan can help gain potential employees from a pool of candidates. Therefore the step-by-step process is crucial to achieving this efficiency. They are:
Identifying The Hiring Needs
A recruiter must be aware of any job developments in the industry, and according to the needs, the recruitment process should begin. They should initiate by identifying whether there are any job openings in the industry by:
- Analyzing whether there are any gaps in the organization or any requirements regarding skills and abilities. This will enable the recruiter to understand the need for hire.
- Keeping a record of the workload, and whether there is a need for more employees due to an increase in workload gives the recruiter an idea of the need for hire.
- Being aware of any vacancy due to existing employees leaving will guide the recruiter toward a hiring need.
👉 Read More: How to Identify Hiring Needs in Your Company?
Developing A Strategy For The Process
The next step is to create and design a plan of recruitment where the requirements, source, and how to implement it are listed.
- The requirements such as the skills and knowledge applicable to the job role should be noted down. The recruiter must also identify whether there is a training requirement for the candidate.
- The source of recruitment is another important part of the recruitment process. Here, the team should determine from where the candidates can be selected, it can be via campus hiring, online recruitment, or recruitment agencies. The source depends on the different resources available, for instance, for online recruitment, the team needs to access assessment centers.
Preparing Job Description
Once the plan is developed, the next phase is to market it, and for that, a well-prepared job description is the key.
A comprehensive job description that includes the details of the job requirements, responsibilities, and expectations, along with the required qualifications, skills, and experience must be included.
Apart from these, it must also include a summary of the company’s background that will give the candidate a gist of the workplace. The whole point of a job description is to communicate with the candidate during the application process.
Marketing The Job
The next phase is the advertisement of the job description to attract and motivate potential candidates to apply for the job.
The advertisement can be conducted internally or externally depending on the availability of the resources.
Internal Marketing:
Events like transfer, promotion, or demotion can generate job vacancies, which then creates opportunities for the existing employees to apply for the post. Internal marketing of such job postings can be conducted via referrals.
An internal recruitment process is beneficial for both the employer and the employees in terms of reduction in cost and time, as well as attrition rate. Companies recruiting through existing employees’ networks have seen 10x expansion in their talent pool.
It is also reported that 35 % of employees refer to help their friends, while 32% do it to aid their company’s growth, and 26% do it to be seen as a valuable colleague. Such drives motivate the employees to be more productive, which then enhances job satisfaction and a sense of security.
External Marketing:
Recruiters have a much wider scope in the recruitment process when jobs are marketed externally. Such marketing strategies give ample opportunities such as hiring through a large number of qualified candidates, and simultaneously moving faster in the process while eliminating bias-based hiring processes.
Jobs can be marketed using several methods that include social media, online job boards, company career sites, recruitment agencies, job fairs, and campus recruitment. A study indicated that tools like company websites (68%), online professional networks like LinkedIn, and social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are the most effective talent branding tools.
Several online assessment tools, such as WeCP, are easily available which are affordable and reliable for any recruitment process. These tools aid the recruiter by providing assessments according to the job requirements, where the candidates are then evaluated and analyzed. This process provides the best talent to the industry in a convenient way.
Screening and Shortlisting Candidates
After advertising the job needs, the next phase in the recruitment process is to go through the applicants, which is screening them followed by selecting the potential ones. This step is very important and should be conducted accurately and efficiently, as this is where the potential employees emerge and are identified.
This process might be slightly difficult and taxing, but with an effective strategy, it can be resolved such as -
- Applicants can be screened based on minimum qualifications.
- Skills assessment test can help recruiters & hiring managers identify the right candidate technical competencies, and any other specific skills required.
- After the screening, shortlisting the talent is another crucial step. Here, both the required skills and knowledge as well as the minimum qualifications need to be examined thoroughly.
- It is said that the candidates are likely to consider your company 4x more for any future work opportunities when productive feedback is given. Therefore, if there are any concerns or questions regarding the resume arise, they can be further clarified in the interview.
Often this step is found to be time-consuming, a simple solution has been provided in the form of an ATS (applicant tracking system), skills assessment tools, where automation is involved in the screening & ensures that the screening process is unbiased and gives equal opportunity to the candidates as well as filters out the best candidates in a short time.
👉 Read More: Methods for Screening Candidates to Hire the Best Talent
Interviewing Phase
After shortlisting candidates, the next phase in the recruitment process is conducting an interview for the selected individuals.
Interviews are an important part of recruitment process, as this is the stage where the recruiter gets to know the candidate and further get an in-depth understanding of their skills, knowledge, and experience.
The interview process is crucial and should not be ignored. It is here that the recruiter can get a final look at the candidate, analyze their potential and credibility, as well as their inter-personal behaviour can be observed.
Interview process also works the other way around, where the candidates have an opportunity to get closer look at the workplace culture, that will aid them in making informed decisions regarding the offer of employment.
Similar to resume feedback, interview feedback is expected by 94% of talent, where only 41% received feedback before. Therefore, providing with either positive or negative criticism should be advocated by the organization.
Interviews conducted can be via telephone, video, or in-person. The number of stages in an interview may vary depending on the size of the hiring team and their specific requirements.
Telephone or video interviews are mostly preferred by the organizations as they are quick, easy, and provide a convenient way to assess the candidates and their potential.
These interviews must be conducted as briefly as possible while simultaneously screening the individuals for appropriate requirements.
An in-person interview can also be effective, as it gives a lasting impression for both the interviewer and the interviewee. These interviews may take longer time, but prove beneficial in the hiring process.
On the other hand, interviews when conducted must be well-planned and should consider factors like availability of resources, the understanding of the job requirements, etc.
It is said that 75% of all the interview techniques HR members use are structured interviews or planned interviews. Such structured interviews are effective in many ways, as they provide with unbiased and healthy recruiting processes.
Evaluation and Offering Employment
Evaluating the candidates is the final step after conducting an interview followed by providing an offer letter to the candidate. This step should be carried out with patience in a calculative way.
Once the candidate is selected there are certain steps to follow. They are -
- Look into the references provided, where the candidate’s professional references are verified. Once they are found to be accurate an employment contract is drafted to make the offer.
- While providing the offer letter, the recruiting agency must corroborate everything written in the letter, including the start date, conditions of employment, work hours, and the compensation package.
- After making the offer and once the new hire joins the company, onboarding or welcoming the new employee should be done. Here, after going through the workplace conditions, they should be introduced to other team members and further get to know them.
- After welcoming the new employee, the recruiting agency must go through the entire recruitment process from the beginning to get an understanding of whether the process was effective and also identify areas of improvement.
Employee Onboarding Phase
Once candidates accept the letter of employment, they officially become employees of the organization. The onboarding phase is also a crucial step in the recruitment process, as it improves the experience of the new hires.
Investing in proper communication and engagement strategy during the pre-boarding process can help improve onboarding experience up to 83%.
The entire team are formally introduced to them followed by the induction process where the workings of the company are explained. After the induction process, the last and final step is signing the contract, and thus, the recruitment process is ended.
Conclusion
To conclude, the recruitment process is an all-purpose procedure and should be conducted with strategic planning for effective recruiting of employees. It is a process where combination of recruitment tools and Human Resources team is applied to identify and engage talent pools.
With the introduction of technology, recruitment process has stepped up making it faster and easier for the organization.
Recruitment assessment tools are one of the handy tools to make effective hiring decisions. WeCP is a platform where recruiters get the opportunity to assess and evaluate potential candidates, thus, aiding them in making informed decisions.
Thus, giving the recruitment process the top priority, organizations will be able to build a strong talent pipeline, improve employer branding, and eventually gain overall growth in this competitive recruitment market.
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