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The Hiring Process - A Step-by-Step Guide

The Hiring Process – A Step-by-Step Guide for Recruiters

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This article is part of the Hiring Process Guide. Read our related articles on improving the hiring process, identifying your hiring needs, and how to create a hiring process timeline.

Hiring candidates might easily win the title of ‘’The most complex and difficult HR process’’. It requires business and hiring decisions, non-biased perspectives, and clarity regarding the company’s direction.

Sometimes the hiring process might seem like a big elephant in the room. You might feel overwhelmed and not sure how to start. Should you start with the head or with the tail?

We know the struggle, so we decided to share, in the article, the step-by-step guide to hiring an employee.

Buckle up because we have a few things to go through.

Hiring process basics

Why you need a process

Let’s start with the head of the elephant, shall we? When thinking about a hiring process, the first question in everybody’s mind is: Why do we need this process? Shouldn’t we do things and figure them out while doing them?

The answer is quite straightforward: a hiring process is a fast track to hiring people that match your business’s needs. If you hire the right people, they will deliver the right results and help your business grow.

Don’t worry! You will still have plenty of room to experiment and figure things out while doing them, but you need to have a set of guidelines that serve as a compass.

Identifying Your Hiring Needs

One of the basic things you should consider regarding the hiring process is your hiring needs.

You need to know what roles you need to fill before starting to market them.  We know that sometimes you get plenty of time to clarify the opening positions and, other times, you are in a firefighting mood. No matter the circumstances, keep in mind that you should always meet your manager and discuss the expectations about the role and what the best fit looks like.

Disclaimer! This also applies when you are opening a position as a replacement for an ex-colleague. You have to check if the initial requirements are the same or if you have to make some adjustments.

Common Hiring Timeline

When discussing the hiring needs, there is one key aspect that should always be on your agenda: the hiring process timeline. According to the Society of Human Resources Management, the average timeline for human resource hiring is 42 days. However, keep in mind that this is an estimate. You have to adapt the timeframe to the business needs and plans. It would be best to look into the average time you spent on previous similar positions, decide the urgency of filling that role and plan accordingly.

From our experience, we recommend you add a buffer period to your estimates. Unfortunately, things don’t always go as we want them to and recruitment is no exception to the rule.

Hiring Process Checklist

So far, we have discussed the basics of hiring process. We want to offer you a hiring process checklist to help make your work more efficient.

There are 3 phases you should always review when thinking about steps to hiring an employee:

  • Pre Hiring Process
  • Interviewing Stage
  • Post Selection Process

Pre Hiring Process

The first stage is related to what should happen before the hiring process.

At this stage, you should have clarity regarding the role you will recruit for, the timeline, and the recruitment marketing strategy.

The latter should take into consideration the following aspects:

  • Creating the job description
  • Agreeing on the promotion channels
  • Writing the copy that will follow the Social Media job opening posts
  • Timeline for marketing tactics

Interviewing Stage

Interviewing stage is one of the most important of the whole recruitment process. Now is the time to get to know the candidates, better understand their background, and sense their behavior.

There are different types of interviews:

  • Face to face
  • Phone interview
  • The panel interview

The most common one is face-to-face interview. It usually has a behavioral and competency-based approach where your focus is on understanding how the candidate would react in different situations. This is the place for the famous: What would you want to do in 5 years? Or What would you do if you delete the whole document that your manager needs in 5 minutes?

You should choose the one that is the most suitable for your hiring needs and that allows you to get better insight into your candidate’s skills.

Post Selection Process

The last stage is the post-selection process.

Once you had the interviews and decided which of the candidates are suitable to become your next colleague, you should consider following the next steps:

  1. Run a background check
  2. Double check with your HR Manager about his profile
  3. Create the employment offer
  4. Sign the contract
  5. Send the documents to payroll
  6. Prepare the onboarding

Also, don’t forget about the candidates you didn’t hire. Always try to come back to them with feedback and improvement points.

Improving Your Hiring Process

Understanding the stages of the hiring process is one part of the elephant we talked about at the beginning, but improving the human resource hiring practices is another important aspect of it.

We have 5 ideas for you that will accelerate the quality of your hiring process:

Tip 1: Collect and analyze feedback from candidates

This one is pretty self-explanatory. To learn more about how you can make things better, you should always ask for feedback. Ask your candidates, employees, and even those who rejected your employment offer.

Tip 2: Make sure you have a fantastic careers page

Your career page is where your candidates will screen for information, open roles, and look for clues if they are the right fit or not. Make sure you keep it up to date and infuse it with your company’s unique flavor.

Tip 3: Write the perfect job description

We mentioned before the job description and its importance. Please pay attention to the way you write it. It should reflect the role, opportunities, and even a Not suitable for you if section. Try to personalize it, and don’t use buzz words.

Tip 4: Use tools to eliminate bias and boost efficiency

Tools make things easier and luckily, we got you covered on this one. With LinkMatch, we save you up to 2h of work per day. We even got a formula and we noticed that you are losing 60 new potential candidates by doing manual work.

Tip 5: Understand how important the onboarding process really is

Your job doesn’t finish when the candidate accepts your offer. You should pay as much attention to his onboarding process. That’s how you make sure he starts with the right foot in the company.

Let us know if you find this helpful, and check our blog articles covering more about recruitment challenges.

Hiring Process FAQ

How long do hiring processes usually take?

It usually takes up to 42 days. You can adapt the timeline based on your industry, resources, and project.

What is a hiring process flow chart?

It is a visual plan of how the company plans to recruit their talent and what steps they follow.

How do you reduce bias in the hiring process?

You can reduce biases by:

  • Making data-driven decisions
  • Avoiding using gender wording
  • Having an interview panel
  • Holding a structured interview

Who makes the final decision in the hiring process?

Usually, the Hiring Manager is the one that is making the final hiring decision. Based on the company’s dimensions, the CEO might also get involved.

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LinkMatch Team