Recruitment Process: The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Top Talent

As Steve Jobs put it rightly, “Quality is more important that quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles”. But hiring top talent can be a challenge. To ensure that this happens, the recruitment process needs to improve by leaps and bounds.

What is Recruitment Process in HRM?

The process of recruitment is the entire process of identifying and sourcing the right candidate from a pool of eligible candidates who have applied for a job.  The type of recruitment process depends on the organization, the company who is handling the requirement, the level of seniority required for the job, and the job requirements.

What is Recruitment and Selection Process?

Recruitment and selection involves steps like identifying a vacancy in a department or team in a company, understanding job requirements and candidate eligibility criteria, drafting the job description before posting, shortlisting candidates, and then conducting screening rounds and interviews to determine the best candidate for the job.

What are the Types of Recruitment Processes?

Recruitment can be classified into two broad categories but they are subdivided into further types of recruitment. The two broad categories of recruitment with several recruitment types are:

Internal

In internal recruitment, the recruitment happens within the organization and the person is hired in one of the following ways:

1. Transfer:

A person is transferred to another location or branch.

2. Promotion:

A person is promoted within the organization.

3. Ex-employee employment:

A person who has left the organisation is requested to return to fill a vacancy.

4. Referrals:

An employee can refer a candidate they know for a job. Referrals are encouraged by offering a handsome amount in exchange for suggesting the right candidate.

5. Talent pool:

A person may not be selected for the job and his/her name may be added to the database. In such a case, the recruiter sends out the mail informing the candidate of a vacancy he/she is eligible for and can apply.

While the first two happens generally through internal job postings, the third type of internal recruitment happens through a reference(s). Referrals happen through internal campaigns.

External

In external recruitment, the selection happens externally, and can again happen in a number of different ways.

1. Job boards and website:

The advertisement for the vacancy can be promoted through job sites, social media, the website etc. This way the company can directly reach the candidates and interact with them via phone or e-mail.

2. Employment exchange:

Employment exchanges are not mandatory in every country, but where they are, they definitely help with providing jobs to the unemployed. Unemployment exchanges maintain a job history for the unemployed and this is particularly useful for people who work as artisans or in agricultural industry.

3. Recruitment agency:

This is a great option when you need to hire for senior positions or when you do not have the resources within the organization for the hiring process. Recruitment agencies can handle the full recruitment life cycle beginning with a job posting and ending with onboarding. They cost a lot more than having a team in-house, but this might be the only way if your search for an ideal candidate is to include passive candidates as well.

4. Word of mouth:

Don’t discount this type of recruitment. Though a lot of people may tend to overlook this one, it does not diminish its importance. When a video shows how great the work culture is in your organization and it goes viral, then you can expect both graduates fresh out of college and seniors to take notice and apply for jobs in your company.

5. Bulletin boards:

These could be offline or online, and they are still in use especially for jobs in factories or as artisans. People who wait days outside a factory may just get lucky with a job advertised on a bulletin board.

6. Recruitment events:

Events such as career fairs also find a large following. Ardent jobseekers especially mark the date and attend recruitment events such as career fairs where they get to interact with peers from the industry and company personnel in person.

Importance of a Strong Recruitment Process

A strong recruitment process is the precursor to hiring great talent for your company, which will in turn transform your organization and bring in more people who are a great cultural fit, thereby making your office a great place to work.

What are the Stages of the Recruitment Process?

1. Preparing:

The recruiter talks to the hiring manager and makes notes about the vacancy, what its requirements are, and then crafts a job description based on the notes. A job post is then prepared by the copywriter for external use.

2. Sourcing:

The sourcing process now begins, with the recruiter reaching out to potential candidates after posting the job online. The recruiter will reach out to the candidate over specific sourcing channels.

3. Screening:

The screening of candidates can take place in several ways. Some of them are resume screening, phone screening and other cognitive tests that are often used for screening.

4. Selecting:

Selecting the candidates happens in this step where messages are sent out to the candidates confirming selection or further assignments are shared for them to complete.

5. Hiring:

The hiring manager and the recruiter sit together and then shortlist one to three candidates for the final round of checks, which include background and reference checks.

6. Onboarding:

The selected candidate is then onboarded into the organization through an onboarding program, where the candidate is introduced to organizational policies, the job role and the work environment.

Advantages of a Good Recruitment Process to an Organization

A recruitment process is the foundation for ensuring that your company earns accolades and improves customer satisfaction in the long run by providing great quality products or services designed by the fresh talent you recruit. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. A strong recruitment process brings with it several benefits for the organization. Some of these benefits are:

1. Ability to meet time-constrained challenges in recruitment
2. Experience and networking capability to recruit senior leaders
3. Transparency for and cooperation between all the stakeholders involved
4. Employee data is secure and handy insights can be drawn from it
5. High-quality candidates can be sourced in a shorter period
6. Promotes business growth and innovation within the organization

How to Measure Effectiveness of Recruitment and Selection?

There are several metrics to measure the effectiveness of recruitment. Let us now look at 10 of them so you have a reasonably good way to measure how successful you are as a recruiter.

1. Site analytics and social listening:

Analyse the number of visitors, number of registrations, and positive reviews etc. on recruitment sites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Indeed. Also analyse the impressions and the reach of social media copy where the jobs are advertised.

2. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) and engagement:

Measure how engaged recently recruited employees are. You can measure this through pulse surveys and other detailed surveys.

3. Time to fill:

How much time does it take to fill a role? This will vary from one job to another, but it will give you an idea of how good your employer brand is. The lesser the time, the stronger is your brand reputation.

4. Submit-to-interview ratio:

This is the ratio of the number of applications submitted to the number of people who attend the interview finally. This is an indication of the seamlessness of the process, how easy it is for the applicant to move from one stage to the next.

5. Number of interviews to offers:

How many people you interview are finally getting the offer? A ratio of 3:1 is ideal. Anything less could indicate that the recruitment process is not good enough. You need to examine the quality of the candidates you are shortlisting and if there is any bias involved.

6. Offer acceptance rate:

This is a crucial point, and it indicates how strong the brand reputation is. If you have to offer a lot for the candidate to accept, then the reputation of your organization needs to improve as does the impression that candidates have of the work culture.

7. Cost per hire:

This is a measure of the effectiveness of your hiring process and the reputation of your brand. Ideally, when your organization has reached a stage where your recruitment process is highly streamlined and improved, most of the cost must be toward sifting through applications, on the applicant tracking system.

8. Source of hire:

Which sources are delivering the best talent? How can you manage them better? Can you divert more job postings to those sources?

9. Quality of hire:

Have a discussion with the department manager to understand the quality of the hire and if they have been able to adapt to the work environment and the challenges associated with the role.

10. Applicant satisfaction:

How satisfied were the applicants with the recruitment process? What were their inputs on how to improve it? Making a note of these will help improve the recruitment process a lot.

How to Improve the Recruitment Process?

Every hiring manager tries to improve the recruitment process because that’s the core of what they do. When that becomes more streamlined or few steps get automated, then everyone can focus on other tasks. Here are eight ways to improve the recruitment process.

• Use an applicant tracking system
• Prioritize communication with the candidates
• Include only relevant information when crafting job descriptions
• Ask your current employees to spread the word and share referrals
• Meet candidates where they are
• Enhance your employer branding strategy
• Make your interview process friction-free
• Attend and host industry events

Closing words

Are you trying to improve the effectiveness of your recruitment process? Have you already implemented the tips we discussed or are you finding it difficult to do so because of the size of your team or shortage of resources?

Talk to Alp Consulting, one of the Top HR consultancy companies in the world to address your recruitment challenges.

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