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Hands up if you’ve had a bad experience with a recruiter. Let’s be honest, who hasn’t?
Whether they’re borderline harassing you on social media or the phone to apply for a job, whether they make you jump through hoops just to get to the interview stage, or whether they suddenly disappear never to be seen again, bad recruiters give the whole industry a bad name.
A bad recruitment process can do serious damage to your ability to attract and retain the best candidates. You find your name is mud and you can’t get any talented candidates to come anywhere near you.
Having an organized, effective and efficient hiring process that prioritizes the candidate experience should play a key part in strategic HR management and planning.
This article walks you through the steps you need to take to make sure your hiring process is in order and you have talented candidates beating your door down to get a job.
The recruitment process steps start with putting together a concrete plan that explains why you are recruiting for this position, as well as how you will recruit, the hiring process timeline, plus the budget you require.
Make sure you track these HR metrics so you can see if you have met your goals by the end of the process. Also, get buy-in from the necessary departments and stakeholders before you start the process.
Whether you’re filling a vacant position after a member of staff has left, or you’re recruiting for a new role, you need to organize the process from the start.
Once you have decided to proceed with the hiring process, you need to create a job description. This description should be in line with your brand’s style and tone of voice and vary according to the platform you use.
For example, if you post it on social media make the ad shorter and more informal than the one you use for job boards.
While most ads contain information such as responsibilities, required and desired experience and qualifications, and company fringe benefits, it’s important to tailor the job ad to fit the kind of candidate you’re trying to attract.
You should already have decided which recruitment channels to use in step one, but another important step is to source candidates yourself. Some of the best candidates out there aren’t actively looking for a job, but they could be tempted to jump ship for the right offer.
That’s why you have to go out there, virtually, and get in touch with potential new hires yourself.
It’s important to find out which recruitment channels your candidates typically use so you can reach out in a more focused way, rather than trying to go to recruitment fairs, connect on social media, and scour job boards.
You need a process in place to sift through the applications once they start to come in. This is especially important if you are advertising a sought-after role, as you’ll likely get a ton of applications and you can’t look at each resume yourself.
It’s important to know when and how you are going to start screening applicants. Will it be after a set period of time or when you receive a certain number of applicants? Here is how you should proceed with screening applications.
When you’ve narrowed down your search to the top candidates for the role, now it’s time to meet them. This could be an in-person interview or via video conference. You might need to hold several rounds of interviews so everyone gets a chance to talk to the candidate and assess if they are the right fit for the role.
The number one rule when holding interviews is to respect the candidate and make sure they have a good experience, even if they aren’t right for the role. Here’s how to do that.
Finally, you’ve got a winner. And now you have to make them an offer. This may involve some negotiations around factors such as employment type: contract employee, exempt employee, at-will employment, etc., benefits, and compensation.
Be ready for some back and forth before you come to an agreement. This is also when you complete any background checks and collect references.
Don’t drag this out. Be as organized as possible to make sure you can get your new hire on board as quickly as possible by following these tips.
Best HR software for streamlining your hiring process
The human resources hiring process is hard enough without trying to do it manually. That’s why you need HR software to help you improve your human resource planning and breeze through your hiring steps. Here are our top picks to help you get to grips with the hiring process steps.
As a dedicated applicant tracking system, Workable guides you through the process of creating job ads. It provides suggestions for the right words and designs to use to help you quickly create more effective ads.
Workable also helps you target the right audience according to criteria such as location, or whether it’s a remote job.
To help you find the right candidates more quickly, Workable’s AI-powered Auto-Suggest feature searches public online profiles to find people who match the skills and requirements you’ve specified in your job description.
Workday’s talent management and recruiting module helps you handle all aspects of the hiring process from start to finish, and it ensures that your hiring decisions align with your overall human capital management and business strategy.
Using Workday, you can create job ads and application forms that align with your company’s brand, style, and voice and tone. You can also source and communicate with candidates, carry out interviews, and collaborate with coworkers to ensure the right candidate gets the role.
Workday’s pipeline management capabilities let you track how many candidates are in each stage.
SentricHR can help you create a job ad, share it on job boards, review, screen and interview candidates before making a hiring decision. The recruiting tools are organized into different pipeline stages so you can move candidates along smoothly while ensuring constant communication.
To help you find the right person for the role, SentricHR shows you any candidates, both internal and external, that have come into your system at any point and are qualified for the role. You can then use this data to invite candidates to apply.
Throughout the entire hiring process, you need to have employee onboarding in mind. Think about how you can make them feel welcome at your company, how they would fit, and how you can tailor the onboarding process for that particular candidate.
During both the recruitment process and onboarding, you need to work on creating a good impression so that you can attract top talent, make sure they feel engaged and motivated when they start at your company, and that they stick around for the long haul.
Our Small Business Expert
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