7 Steps to Build a Successful Recruitment Process

The recruitment landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, requiring well-thought-out strategies that enable recruiters to identify the best fit for a job role. The war for talent has imposed various challenges on companies, making it hard for them to land qualified candidates.

However, most encounter more difficulties when looking for entry-level job applicants, as these job seekers often lack relevant experience and skills. Even though employers are often picky and only consider individuals with extensive industry knowledge, candidates are also selective and have a higher number of demands than before the pandemic.

These roadblocks erode the recruitment process and extend the time to hire the best match. On top of that, employees are more willing to quit workplaces that fail to meet their standards and needs.

For instance, 47.4 million people voluntarily left their job in 2021, a phenomenon known as the Great Resignation or the Big Quit. Although that shows workers feel more empowered to seek changes and express their demands, high turnover levels can bring business stability into question.

As a result, many employers believe nothing is more significant than recruiting and developing workers and nurturing their satisfaction. Nonetheless, hiring talents is often unpredictable and challenging.

But that doesn’t mean recruiters can’t nail this undertaking and overcome the recruitment process steps.

What is a Recruitment Process?

Recruitment is the process of finding the most suitable job applicant for a job opening. It includes various steps and activities, such as crafting the job description, sourcing candidates, conducting interviews, selecting top talents, hiring, and onboarding the best fit.

These phases may include a team of HR professionals or only one individual. However, the hiring process typically depends on the effort of multiple recruiters and departments.

Some companies opt for in-house recruitment, while others collaborate with a third party, such as headhunters and hiring agencies. The majority also use modern technology to speed up their efforts and reinforce data-driven decision-making. 

POPULAR: A Fun Definitive Guide to Recruitment ATS for a Better Recruitment Process

The recruitment process has various touch points. HR professionals must assess staffing needs and skills gaps to justify the job requisition. 

They must also identify efficient candidate attraction strategies, how the interview stage will unfold, and what they need to screen job applicants. But companies should also consider the ethical implications of recruitment and ensure transparency, fairness, and inclusion. 

Even though this process can be short, it takes a few weeks in most cases. However, a fast selection stage and onboarding improves the candidate experience and makes job applicants more willing to stay a part of the recruitment pipeline. 

Hiring efforts are more efficient when recruiters and HR managers consult relevant departments before writing the job ad and deciding talent attraction strategy. As a result, they develop well-defined expectations and identify critical interview questions and onboarding specifics.

Consultation with other units is crucial when hiring employees for creative and IT job roles. However, every company has a unique recruitment process, and its steps depend on business size, structure, industry, and objectives. 

But the phases and requirements may also change depending on the job role. For example, junior positions are less strict than those in management and leadership.

How does a Well-Defined Recruitment Process Benefit Business?

The recruitment process represents a standardized approach to finding compatible candidates for available job roles within a company, reinforcing equality. It ensures recruiters follow fair and equitable principles and strategies and vet job applicants based on meritocracy.

In a nutshell, here are the crucial advantages of introducing a well-defined hiring process within an organization:

Enhances Productivity

The goal of every recruiter is to identify a candidate who shares similar values, objectives, visions, and expectations as the company. That increases the odds of a new employee feeling at ease in the workplace and with their everyday responsibilities.

Recruiters also strive to hire individuals with significant potential and relevant skills and knowledge, as these are more likely to thrive in future job roles. That also boosts healthy competition in the workplace, eliminates complacency, and increases productivity.

Prevents Overspending Resources

Companies without uniform strategies and clear recruitment objectives typically spend more resources than they should. That could affect the cash flow and business continuity in the long run.

On the other hand, consistent and pre-defined initiatives and efforts guide HR professionals and recruiters and limit the number of activities. Thanks to that, they rarely overspend and take more time than needed for decision-making and employee onboarding.

Cultivates Larger Talent Pools

An efficient recruitment process includes developing candidate sourcing strategies and a significant talent pool. That way, recruiters establish a network of qualified professionals looking for jobs or transfers.

Moreover, stable talent pools enable a faster turnaround when hiring new employees and filling available openings. These candidates passed the screening stage, accelerating the recruitment process and making integration into the workplace smoother.

Enables Faster Filling of Job Openings

Besides encouraging recruiters to develop a large talent pool, well-defined recruitment process steps make their efforts more efficient. HR professionals often learn crucial tricks and tips on how to engage job applicants and identify whether they're the right cultural fit.

That leads to a higher accuracy level when short-listing candidates and lower turnover. With time, that also improves the company's reputation and boosts job satisfaction and talent attraction, as recruiters learn to identify the most suitable job applicants and prevent complications.

YOU MIGHT LIKE: How to Streamline Your Recruitment from Job Posting to Day One

Leads to Clearer Outcomes

Employers expect the candidates to be honest about their abilities, experiences, and knowledge. But job seekers have akin expectations from the companies and hope to land a job that aligns with what recruiters described in the job description.

Uniform recruitment strategies make it easier for HR professionals to anticipate the hiring outcomes and accomplish desired results. They know not to oversell the job positions, company, and workplace, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

7 Recruitment Process Steps HR Professionals Should Follow for the Best Results

1. Identify Your Business Needs

Every job requisition starts with the hiring manager having to address a specific need. Their team might struggle with an increased workload, an employee resignation, or industry changes that require professionals with unique skills and experiences.

Businesses scaling up are also a common reason to look for new workers and get extra help. Whatever the cause, hiring managers must know why they’re hiring, as that’s the only way to know the ideal candidate profile.

Thus, they must justify every new job role and understand how it would contribute to the team and company. Perhaps it would close a skill gap or take over the responsibilities of an employee who just retired.

However, it is not always easy to identify business needs and understand whether recruitment is necessary. But hiring managers can answer a few questions to make their decisions data-driven and justified.

• What problem will recruitment solve?
• If we look into the future (e.g., six months) and see the team performance thriving, what caused that, and how does it look?
• What key metrics to transform to reach that outcome in six months?
• What behaviors and attitudes the company needs? What should the ideal candidate know to do?
• What abilities, experiences, and knowledge should the job applicant possess to help the company accomplish that objective?
• If we look at our existing teams, what areas and skills are missing?
• Does someone in the company have these abilities and could transition to the new role? Or must we hire someone with compatible skills and experiences?

Answering these questions should give the hiring managers a better idea of the business needs they aim to address. They will also identify the abilities, attitudes, goals, experiences, and knowledge their ideal candidate should have to perform well in their future job role.

However, hiring managers should also get a buy-in from the C-suite and consider their recruitment budget before planning the next steps. Some companies may approve limited resources for the hiring process, leaving HR professionals with fewer talent attraction and advertising possibilities.

2. Write a Realistic and Concise Job Description

Job descriptions are typically the first encounter between the company and candidates. Hence, they should be honest, concise, and informative.

Job ads should reflect what employers expect from their future employees. However, they should also include what the workers get by working with the company.

Hiring managers and recruiters should clarify non-negotiable skills, experiences, and knowledge and highlight nice-to-haves. They should also explain everyday responsibilities and assignments to ensure people know what to expect.

Stellar job descriptions should include compensation and employee perks and benefits information. After all, it isn’t only about what workers should give but also what they could get.

They should know how their days in the workplace would look, what objectives they could accomplish, and whether the company offers L&D opportunities. But the job ad should also match the organizational culture and have a friendly yet professional tone.

Here is the information every job description should include:

• Job title and company department
• Location (e.g., remote, on-site, hybrid workplace)
• Working hours (e.g., full time, part-time, flexible schedule)
• Job position summary and requirements
• Preferred qualifications, knowledge, and experience
• Company description, including its culture, mission, and values
• Salary and perks & benefits

Even though this example includes various points, every company can adjust the description to their needs and preferences. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to be concise and exclude skills and qualifications that wouldn’t impact one’s ability to perform the job role.

USE THESE TEMPLATES: Browse through hundreds of job descriptions templates (and interview questions) in our resources hub.

3. Establish Your Recruitment Plan

HR professionals should develop a hiring plan before moving on to the next recruitment process step. Thus, companies save resources and time that way.

This phase includes deciding the talent attraction and candidate sourcing strategies and how to promote the job ad and ensure people hear about it. Hiring managers should determine how they’ll structure the career page, where they can find qualified candidates, and how to approach them.

They should also decide what job boards they will use (if any) and how much they can spend on this promotion. However, hiring managers and recruiters shouldn’t forget about social media and what networks their target audience frequents the most.

Finally, they should consider whether they will attend job fairs and events and organize campus visits and webinars. Although recruitment includes multiple steps, recruiters shouldn’t find them overwhelming, as crafting a concise plan helps them prioritize.

4. Start the Candidate Sourcing Stage

The next step is to start building a talent pipeline and networking. Hiring managers should identify their ideal candidate profile, needs, struggles, and objectives.

But they should also use the same platforms as their job applicants and understand how to reach them. For instance, companies can leverage technology to import candidates directly from LinkedIn and add them to the ATS.

They can use the same software to share their job ads on high-profile job boards and store all incoming resumes in a single dashboard. That makes candidate sourcing more accessible and efficient.

5. Evaluate Candidate’s Job Applications

After receiving enough relevant job applications, it’s time to assess them. The goal is to narrow down the list of qualified candidates and determine who to invite for an interview.

Hiring managers can do that by comparing the resumes and cover letters to the job requirements and short-listing those who seem to fit the most. But they can also invite top candidates for skills assessments to determine whether they can perform everyday tasks.

At this stage, it’s good to have an ATS and centralized access to job applications. Some of these platforms, such as Manatal’s, also allow recruiters to send questionnaires and tests to the candidates and make more data-driven hiring decisions.

ALSO POPULAR: 3 Ways Recruitment Automation Will Change the Way You Hire

6. Conduct Interviews

Some companies may prefer traditional, in-person interviews, while others would rather choose video meetings. This decision also depends on a company’s tech infrastructure and capabilities.

However, it’s advantageous to make this step flexible and allow candidates to participate in interviews online if it’s their preference. But it’s necessary to decide before the recruitment process starts as it gives recruiters enough time for tweaking if necessary.

The typical interview structure starts with scheduling a meeting with the candidate, performing the interview, scoring the results, and deciding who to invite for another conversation or hire. After choosing the most compatible individual, it’s time to send them an official job offer and agree on details.

A successful interview leaves a positive impression on candidates and will likely make them more eager to work with the company. Thus, they might recommend the employer to their friends and acquaintances.

7. Provide Stellar Onboarding

The last but not any less significant step is employee onboarding. It allows the new worker to meet their workplace, team, and supervisor.

It also gives them time to integrate into their work environment and have a glimpse of their daily assignments. This phase might affect future retention levels, even though HR professionals often disregard the importance of welcoming employees to the workplace.

A thorough onboarding program also makes recruitment more well-rounded and prepares employees for their job roles.

‍

Every company must pass various recruitment process steps to ensure they’re hiring the most suitable job applicant. Thus, it allows them to provide a good candidate experience and onboarding, encouraging higher job satisfaction in the future.

Hiring managers and recruiters can accelerate this process by using modern technology and ensuring all the activities are accessible in a single dashboard. Manatal is a multifunctional, cloud-based HR platform that helps HR professionals run the recruitment process more smoothly.

‍

Start your 14-day Free Trial and discover how Manatal can transform your recruitment and enable you to get the best result.