6 key steps to Align your Recruitment Process

Hiring employees is one of the most important HR functions in any organizations and undoubtedly the first step towards building a competitive and successful organization. An effective recruitment process ensures that right people are hired in a timely manner and predictable costs and they deliver as per expectations.

You may be surprised to know that most recruitment processes do not achieve the desired results and companies continuously struggle to identify the right reasons. An incorrect process leads to recruiting the wrong people, who may not perform suitably. A poor selection of candidates may also result in absenteeism, work related accidents, lost morale, and higher training costs besides the loss of time and opportunity. It is therefore important to align the recruitment process to the objectives and vision of an organization.

In order to increase the efficiency in hiring and ensuring that the new employees are productive quickly, you may explore the following steps:

• Developing the Job description: Writing the correct job description for each job position is one of the core tasks of a successful recruitment process. A well written job description ensures that hiring managers, recruiters, consultants and candidates understand exact job requirements and job responsibilities. A clear job description attracts best candidates for the job, optimizes search engine for the key skills, and assists in establishing performance objectives.
• Identify the need and approval process: Before initiating a job request, it is important to identify the need for the new employee. Is it missing skill(s) in an existing employee, or an exit of an employee in a critical position. Is the role budgeted for, what would be the challenges if this job is not filled in time, and what would be the approval process. A well designed job request form ensures all these questions are addressed and answered accurately.
• Identify the sources of recruitment: For the identified job vacancy, you can consider multiple sources of recruitment such as internal candidates, external candidates, employee referrals, former employees, and previous applicants. Each of these sources have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, the advantages of considering the internal candidates for a job include low hiring cost, morale building and career plans for employees, familiarity with the candidates, and a healthy competition among the employees in the organization. The disadvantages can be the availability of limited candidates for the job vacancy and the absence of diverse applicant talent pool.
• Selection of Assessment Methods: The assessment methods used to select the right candidates may be different for different organizations. In addition, the level and the type of position also influence the assessment method to be used. However, the written tests and face to face interviews and interview panels are the most common assessment methods used widely in the organizations. The other methods include telephonic screening and virtual interviews as an alternative to face to face interviews and in some senior level positions may involve board level interactions too. An unambiguous method allows all teams to plan their schedules appropriately.
• Scheduling interviews and tests: This is one of the most challenging tasks in an organization because it requires the coordination amongst candidates, interviewers, hiring managers, recruiters and other stake holders such as office staff, HR etc. Most managers have many tasks at hand at any given time and there are bound to be last minute changes and reschedules. The recruiter has to juggle between availability, dates and need on a continuous basis. In a multi-location environment, sharing the job requirements, candidate details and capturing feedback from various interviewers requires significant coordination.
• Initiating the job offer: The selected candidates may be offered the job as per the salary norms. If possible, the best offer according to the prevalent market trend should be made the first time. This ensures good faith in the applicant. While making an offer, it is important to discuss the total compensation package including all salary heads, paid time offs and retirement benefits.

Empxtrack Recruitment solution allows you to have a complete control over your applicant tracking process. It not only allows you to create job vacancies and link them with the job descriptions but also allows you to schedule tests and interviews, capture assessment feedback, make job offers, and generate offer letters. ESS (leave, travel, training) access ensures that the recruiter can view vacation, training and travel plans for the interviewers and then schedule the interviews accordingly.