Recruitment is one of the pillars of every business. Through recruitment, you can help your company move further and grow in sustainable ways.
Since the recruitment process is directly connected to your business, it is important to pay attention to all its components.
In this article, we will dive deep into the recruitment process and discuss how to make it more efficient.
An Overview of the Recruitment Process
What is a recruitment process?
The recruitment process is the steps you need to make to fill a position in your organization. It is usually led by an HR Manager or Recruitment specialist responsible for opening the role. They are in charge with promoting the position, collecting the resumes, having interviews, and choosing the right candidates.
Benefits of having a process in place
Although the benefits of having a recruitment process in place might already be obvious, we want to share with you a few more, such as
- Reduce the hiring costs
- Hire top talent
- Increase employees’ productivity
- Help with knowledge management and transfer
Recruiting vs Hiring
You might have heard about recruitment and hiring and how they are almost all the time used interchangeably. Let us clarify the difference between the two so you can better understand what you need.
Recruitment is about the process you need to follow to attract people to your organization.
Hiring is when you have a specific open role and you need to fill in the position.
The recruitment process is an ongoing set of activities you should do, whether you have an open role or not.
Full Cycle Recruiting
Another common term you might come across is full cycle recruitment, or end-to-end recruiting.
The term refers to one person, mainly a recruiter, that is doing the whole process from A to Z. He is the one in charge of defining the JD and does all the necessary initiatives to hire the perfect future employee.
Instead of having separate people in charge of different parts of the process – such as sourcing, interviewing etc.- There is only one person responsible.
This approach is common in small businesses or companies where the process is held in-house.
Stages in the Recruitment Process
Having now a better understanding of each term used in recruitment, we will go through some concepts together.
Identify the Hiring Needs
The first stage is to identify what exactly are your hiring needs. It would be best if you looked into the gaps in the skills map in your organization. Moreover, you should always be aware of the employees that are leaving, the company’s plans, and what talent you need to grow the company.
Prepare the Job Description
Once you understand what set of skills and knowledge you need it is time to draft the Job Description. Some of the elementary details include the title, responsibilities, education, benefits, location, and expectations. People will use all these details to auto-select themselves.
Search for talent
When the JD is done, the hunt for talent begins. You can look into job platforms, LinkedIn or go to career fairs or ask for a referral from people within your company.
Create a shortlist
When you start getting applicants, you move into the next stage of the process: shortlisting. Based on the criteria you already mentioned in the JD you can start selecting and preparing for the interviews.
Interview candidates
Interviews are a crucial stage in the process. Here we recommend you prepare the questions in advance, look into your candidate’s profile and tailor the process according to their experience. Pay close attention to the red flags that you might identify on their profile.
Extend Offer
Another important stage, that can be a dealbreaker for most candidates is the offer stage. Here you should pay attention to the way you present the employment offer. It would help if you gave the benefits, culture, growth opportunities, and financial gains.
Onboard
Congrats! You’ve reached the final stage of the process. Now is the time to help your candidate become your colleague and part of the company. Make sure you have a company presentation and maybe an induction buddy ready to help the new employee accommodate the environment.
Important Elements of a Recruitment Process
To increase the chances of your recruitment success, you have to consider 4 elements. Let’s dive into them:
Recruitment Marketing
As you might have guessed by the name of it, recruitment marketing represents all the initiatives that you do to promote your company and open roles to hire the best people for your organization.
Recruitment marketing refers to your company’s online and offline presence, collaborations, SEO, job platforms, job fairs etc.
Referrals
A referral program might be one of the best ways to reduce recruitment costs and bring into the company people that are culture fit.
Referral programs are mostly used to incentivize your employees to recommend your company to their friends. However, you can be creative and adapt this program for your Social Media audience as well.
Applicant tracking
When looking for ways to automate your work, an applicant tracking system should always be on your list. It helps you keep things organized, take notes on each candidate, and set up follow-ups at the right time.
If your budget can’t support a tracking system, create one in Excel and customize it to your needs. However, you won’t have the automatization that these tools offer.
Onboarding and Support process
When someone agrees to accept a job in your company, you should ensure they are well integrated. That’s why having an onboarding process and regular check-in to validate how things go are so important.
Recruitment Tips
We’ve talked about the recruitment process and its stages. This should offer you a good enough base to start setting up your own process and achieve your goals.
However, we also want to offer you some bonus tips to improve your recruitment:
- Always pay attention to your candidate’s experience
- Start with the resources you already have – check if one of your employees already has the skill set you are looking for
- Prioritize diversity
- Make the application process simple and quick
- Always offer feedback to your candidates
What else do you want to know about the recruitment process?
Recruiting vs Hiring FAQ
What is the recruitment process in HR?
The recruitment process is the steps you need to make to fill up a position in your organization.
How long do hiring processes usually take?
The duration of a hiring process depends on each company’s needs and the people involved in the process. It usually takes between 2 to 4 weeks.
What is the recruitment and selection process?
Recruitment is actively looking for ways to promote, engage and onboard candidates that will become employees.
How can I be successful in recruiting?
One certain way to be successful in recruiting is to focus on your candidates. Getting to know them, understanding their needs, how they talk and what they are looking for.