What is the recruitment process? 

If you are looking to recruit within your business this should be your next read. This blog will benefit you by helping you understand the recruitment process as well as giving you additional tips for you as an employer/recruiter for hiring the best candidates. 

What is recruitment?

The recruitment process is the procedure a recruiter or employer undertakes to find candidates that would be a good fit for their company. Having an effective recruitment process is crucial for businesses to find the perfect candidates. 

This process can be conducted by different people within the business, such as human resources, hiring managers, or department managers. This process can also be done by outsourced recruiting companies. However, in smaller companies, this process is usually done internally, usually by the owner. 

The 7 steps of recruiting

1. Planning

Within this stage, you need to understand what positions you need filling, write the job descriptions ensuring that they include everything about the job you are wanting filling, and what qualifications and experience the candidates need to be successful within the position.

Within this stage, you should also describe the requirements that are expected of the candidates, such as emotional, behavioral, physical, and mental. Noting these will help you determine what you are looking for in a candidate.

2. Strategy Development

Within this stage, the recruitment team needs to determine if the candidate needs prior experience or any training for this position. Determining these factors will ensure that the company is listing the correct requirements, and what resources they may need for training the candidates.

Another important factor to think about in your recruitment strategy is what type and source of recruitment you will use. For example, you may want to go to a jobs fair or post about the job online. By understanding this you’ll then be able to list which resources you need for recruiting, how much this might cost and how much time advertising the position will take.

3. Searching

The searching stage is the process of looking for candidates. This could be internal transfers, promotions and even reaching out to former employees. This can also be done externally, such as by looking at employment agencies, advertisements, campus recruiting, and direct recruiting.

4. Screening

Within the screening stage, you start narrowing down the applications, to find who you’d like to interview. This process involves reviewing resumes and cover letters to find who is suitable and qualified for the position. Within this section of the recruitment process, you should consider education certifications, experience, and career progression.

Many companies complete this stage differently. Some run psychometric tests on the candidates, this helps the recruiter evaluate the candidate's skills, personality traits, problem-solving, and communication skills. Other recruiters use screening software to help them eliminate candidates that don’t meet the minimum requirements.

Once this is completed, you then have to contact the candidates to discuss when they are available for an interview. However, before even offering an interview, many recruiters conduct a short phone interview verifying the candidate is interested in the position.

5. Interviewing and Selecting

Stage five is where the candidates are interviewed, this can either be in person or on a video call. Within the interview, the questions asked should vary to get a large understanding of the candidate, allowing the recruiter to see if they are a correct fit for the company. From this interview, you should then be able to select a final candidate. 

Once selected, a background check on the candidate should be completed, to ensure their employment details and contact references are correct. Checking this information is correct will illustrate there has been no miscommunication regarding the candidate's education or work experience.

6. Job Offer and Onboarding

Once you have found your preferred candidate, you are then able to offer them the position, and if accepted, you can then start the onboarding process. The onboarding process allows you to welcome your employee to the team, through this the new hire can learn more about the company's culture, how to prepare to start work and what they should be expecting for their first day.

7. Evaluate the Recruiting Process

This stage is sometimes forgotten, but it is as important as the others. Within this stage you can evaluate the positives and negatives of the recruitment process, meaning they can highlight where they need to improve and what went well. An important part of this process is asking the new employee of the recruiting process, from start to finish, to understand if you missed anything or could do anything differently.

Tips for Recruiting

• Recruiting internally can save you time, and money and means the candidates already know the ins and outs of the company.
• Go to job fairs. Speaking to potential candidates in person will allow you a sense of who they are before they even apply. It also helps get your company's name out there.
• Advertising the job opening on the correct sources. Yes, publishing the position on both online and print media means you’ll reach a larger audience, but make sure to think about whether it’s the audience you want to apply for the position.

If your company has open positions and is wanting to start recruiting but needs additional support, visit our website or have a conversation with us today to understand how we can help you.