Primary Components of an Efficient Recruitment Process
Before jumping directly into the basic parts of an effective recruitment process, let's find out what a recruitment process is and how it works.
Zoha Siddiqui
Product Designer | Frontend Developer

The Recruitment Process

A hiring or recruiting process is a process that involves all the necessary series of steps taken from planning, identifying, attracting, and screening, to hiring top candidates for the open position in an organization. These recruitment process steps further have sub-processes to select suitable candidates for employment, which we will further discuss in this article.

The objective is to find and hire candidates that have all the necessary experience, skills, education, and personality traits to fit the role and culture of the organization.

A whole department of the hiring team, having the HR, hiring manager, interviewer, and other parties such as the department manager, team lead and sometimes the CEO are involved in carrying out the process.

Hiring

The nature, time, and cost of the process entirely depend on the size, structure, and requirements of the company and additionally the needs of the open job position.

What is an Excellent Recruitment Process?

An efficient recruitment process is one that targets finding the perfect candidate for the open job role at the right time, ultimately the one that requires minimum hiring cost, time, and effort. It aims to encourage the maximum number of possible applicants to apply for the job, who can help the company grow. It consists of steps, whose count entirely varies from company to company depending upon their structure, size, nature of operations, existing processes, and needs. The recruitment process of any organization needs to be efficient, standardized, and optimized, for the company to grow and stand out from its competitors.

Efficient vs non efficient recruitment process

Outline of the Key Elements of the Hiring Process

The goal is to implement a hiring process, that ensures finding and hiring the best candidates for the open roles, that too quickly, with minimum cost.

As mentioned above that any recruitment process of a company is broken down into several components, whose count varies from organization to organization, but here, we've collected the most basic but important steps, which further include parts, and without them, the efficiency of the process is incomplete. Read all these steps below, gathered all in one place, and click on the links provided inside the topics if you want to explore more about them.

5 Sections of the recruitment process

For your clarity, we have divided the hiring process into 5 different sections, and below is a little detail of every section.

5 sections of the Recruitment process

1. Planning and Preparing the Hiring Process

This is the initial section of the recruitment process, without which you can start the process and the result is obvious, that is failing to hire the right talent at the right time. So in order to have the top talent onboarded in your organization, you need to have a successful recruitment process, which is possible through proper planning, structure, and preparation. The goal is to build a talent pool with the maximum number of candidates and hire the right candidates in the minimum time period. So you must write down all the necessary measures and steps, to achieve the goal.

2. Sourcing for the right candidate

There are several ways to source targeted candidates, through different mediums and tools. You need to attract active and passive candidates to hire current openings and build your talent pool for the future respectively. Write effective job descriptions and share them on different platforms and within your network. Visualize the picture of your ideal candidate and search accordingly.

3. Screening candidates

After gathering a good number of talented candidates, the next phase is to screen them according to the open job and the needs of the company. There are plenty of methods, platforms, and tools available out there to screen candidates in an optimized way. Strategize and devise methods, be clear and write down the requirements and evaluate candidates according to them.

4. The offer

Draft an efficient offer letter to the selected candidates, that is easy to understand having all the necessary policies, job details, rules, values, and aims, and at the end provide them with multiple contacts in case of any query

5. Data analysis and optimization

Any hiring process cannot be efficient 100%, there are weak points, bad experiences, and much more, probably in every stage of the process, but the goal is to identify, understand and overcome them and make sure they are not repeated in the next hiring cycle. You can use several methods such as reviews, feedback, meetings, data analysis, and much more to identify the issues within the process.

Jumping into all the components one by one

Below are the 5 Recruitment sections and their components

1. Planning and preparation

Planning every stage before starting them is very crucial, you don't just need to plan before starting the process, it is an ongoing step and is important at every stage of the hiring process. You need to determine your goals, address the needs of the job and the organization, and develop a standardized plan according to it.

Long-term goal and planning of the hiring process

This includes the preparation of the hiring process on a broader level. What are the long-term goals, and requirements that need to be considered? This can include questions such as:

Q1. How can we increase the efficiency of the process?

Q2. What needs to be achieved at the end of the recruitment process?

Q3. What is the estimated time and cost required for the overall process?

Q4. What is plan B, if the process does not go as expected?

Q5. What members should be actively involved in the process?

Q6. What and how many stages should be involved in the recruitment process?

There can be multiple questions, depending on the needs of the organization and the requirements of the open position, above mentioned are just samples for your clarity.

Mid-term goal and planning of the hiring process

Mid-term goals are those which serve as stepping stones to help you get closer to your long-term goals. You need to define proper procedures and deadlines for these goals. The planning of these goals includes preparation of the recruitment process on-stage levels. These stages collect up to build up the hiring process, if these stages are not optimized or planned, they will spoil the overall hiring process. Following are a few sample questions that you can include in your mid-level hiring planning:

Q1. What should be expected at the end of the interview stage?

Q2. What type of reviews or feedback should be conducted in the hiring optimization stage?

Q3. How much maximum time should be allotted to the marketing of the job opening?

Q4. What precautions should be adopted while screening the candidates?

All these questions, requirements, their solutions should be documented properly. You can use several documentation tools available online and minimize your effort.

Short-term goal and planning of the hiring process

In this type of planning, goals are defined for a shorter time period. They involve digging down into the stages of the hiring process and setting goals related to the processes involved in each stage. These goals are the most basic, yet important as if they are not set and planned properly, they will destroy the base of the whole recruitment process. You need to focus on every minor detail at each step of the process. Below are a few sample questions, that might help you while planning short-term goals:

Q1. How much maximum time should be spent on writing the job description?

Q2. What keywords should be observed, while screening resumes?

Q3. How many social media posts should be posted during the cycle?

Q4. Which platforms or means should be used for targeting passive candidates?

Long-term vs Mid-term vs Short-term goals of a hiring process

Now it's time to prepare your hiring team to start the recruitment process. You can't start searching for candidates until you have cleared in your mind, what are the requirements and responsibilities of the open positions, what skill set is required in order to fit the role, and for this, we have job descriptions.

a. Job description

Usually, the HR or hiring manager, with the help of the team lead writes a job description. It is a document that includes the experience, responsibilities, qualifications, a defined salary, and much more. The goal is to write efficient job descriptions that are clear and realistic.

Checklist to write perfect Job Descriptions

Following is a checklist to help you write a job description that covers all the necessary details related to the job role and some working conditions.

  1. Write a brief job title.
  2. Write the name of the department, that has the job opening.
  3. Mention all the direct job duties and responsibilities.
  4. Write down the required education and experience.
  5. Include the expected skills and abilities.
  6. Write down the not-necessary but nice-to-have skills.
  7. Also mention the benefits that will be provided, once hired.
  8. Include all the necessary and basic working conditions.
  9. Mention the company's aims, values, and culture.
  10. In the end, write a job summary to summarize the job and company requirements.
Checklist to write perfect Job Descriptions

After crafting the job description, you now know your targeted audience, but still, you want to have a picture of your ideal candidates, you want to know who are the best fits, this means you should have certain criteria, planned before searching candidates. You need to know what skills, expertise, qualifications, and personality traits, are required by the candidate in order to be accepted in the organization. This is where we have candidate personas.

b. Candidate personas

Candidate personas are generally a guide that includes the requirements of what type of person you need for a particular open job role. It is used to define detailed skills, experience, education, and qualities that an ideal candidate should possess. Plan and craft a clear picture of your ideal candidate, so that you target candidates according to that.

2. The search

After creating the job description and candidate persona, you now know your targeted audience, the next step is to search potential candidates and gather a pool of top talent. You can search candidates through different means and platforms, but make sure not to spend too much time of the process, searching for more and more best candidates, else you'll ultimately lose a perfect candidate for the open role. For example, if you have a job opening for an 'Associate Software Engineer', and you have defined a special skill set required by the candidate in order to get hired for the position. You found a candidate that matches 90% of the skill set but you are still searching for a candidate whose skill set matches 100% or even more, with the defined skill set. This may result in the loss of a potential candidate, whose skill set might not be 100% but he may have the potential and can turn out to be a great cultural fit, this can eventually result in a waste of both, hiring cost and time.

Make sure you estimate the time and cost required beforehand, in the planning phase, and work accordingly. Whenever you open a job position in your company, there are generally two types of job seekers.

The two types of job seekers

Active and Passive Job seekers
Active job seekers:

These are the candidates who are actively looking for jobs, taking an interest in them, and then applying for the open jobs. They reach out to hiring managers or recruiters directly and are generally more responsive.

Passive job seekers:

Passive candidates are not actively looking for jobs, they are already employed, but they could be open to new opportunities if offered to them. They are skilled and need a little convincing that the role and the company are the perfect fit for them. The passive recruitment process involves searching, locating, and securing talented individuals and requires specialized methods.

Importance of hiring passive candidates

Passive candidates are skilled and experts in their domain, they don't apply to the open roles, because they are already employed and are ready to switch only if presented with an excellent job offer. As they are not available to switch immediately, you can create a talent pipeline and contact them later when the hiring need arises.

Where to find and contact passive candidates?

As a recruiter, you need to reach out to passive candidates yourself, using the power of social recruiting tools, job boards, advertisements, job ads, building your network, optimizing your careers page, and much more. You can craft a detailed message and send them on their social profiles such as LinkedIn or emails, mentioning all the necessary details about the position and the company.

The goal is to reach out or attract as many potential and qualified candidates as possible and that too effectively.

Here are a few ways, means, and mediums to source and attract candidates at different platforms or in different ways:

c. Social media

When it comes to candidate sourcing, social media proves to be one of the most effective methods for finding and attracting top talent. Posting jobs on social media recruitment platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube and etc helps grab the attention of both active and passive candidates as these platforms keep them updated about the current open positions within the organization.

Social media
Advantages of social media

Unlock the power of these social platforms, as they have a lot of advantages and a few are mentioned below:

  1. Most of the job seekers are actively looking for jobs on social media.
  2. You get a great chance of reaching passive candidates, who aren't actively looking for new jobs, but they get a chance to see your job posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
  3. It doesn't only help in finding top candidates but also increases and strengthens your brand's visibility and promotes the employer brand.
  4. You can showcase your company culture on your LinkedIn or Facebook company profile, and it can help you create interest in your targeted audience.
  5. Recruiting on social media serves to be more efficient as compared to traditional recruiting, as most of the talented candidates match their skills with the required skills and then apply for the role.
  6. You get to know more about candidates, from their social profiles and cover some other details that might not be mentioned in their resumes.
d. Job postings

Create efficient job posts and mention all the necessary details in them, don't forget to leave your or your company's contact information at the end of the post. You can post the job openings on different mediums, depending upon where your maximum target audience lies.

e. Job ads

Promoting job ads, help generate awareness about your company, its open positions, culture, aims, and value and reaches the potential candidates. For example, if a candidate is open to any offer, but somehow couldn't reach it and misses the opportunity, here if job ads are implemented, will grab the attention of the candidate, if not the first, maybe the second time and he might eventually apply for the role.

f. Small online groups

There are several online groups, generally created for posting job openings. Several job seekers and recruiters are part of these groups. The recruiters get a quick glance at the candidate's profile and reach them through several means with the help of the candidate's contact mentioned in the profile. On the other hand, job seekers look for opportunities that match their skill set and qualifications and contact the respective person or apply for the individual role. One example of such a group is a small group created on Facebook.

g. Employee referrals

Employee referrals mean asking your current employees to refer or recommend candidates, that they think are fit for the open job role within their organization. As employees of your company are more familiar with company culture, its aims and values and clearly understand the requirements of the job role, they always recommend someone they find suitable for the role, saving the candidate searching cost in the hiring process. It can prove to be an essential source of talent for organizations and can develop trust among the company and employees. Employee referrals are usually carried out through a whole employee referral program, as discussed below.

Employee referrals
Employee referral program

An employee referral program is a structured method, carried out by the hiring team to motivate and encourage employees to refer suitable candidates for job openings within the organization. As existing employees are familiar with the job and company requirements, they can help you find the right fit, and facilitate sourcing candidates faster, improving the retention rate and optimizing the hiring process.

Benefits of the employee referral program

A successful referral program has plenty of benefits, some of which are mentioned below:

  1. As employees understand the skills required for the job, they refer candidates that might be the perfect fit for the role, increasing the chances of top hire.
  2. It reduces the time to search for the ideal candidate, ultimately reducing the time and cost of hiring to a great extent.
  3. It increases employee retention, as referred candidates are more excited and passionate to join your company and tend to stay longer with the firm.
  4. Candidates with more cultural fit are hired, because the employees referring these candidates are fully aware of the company culture, and they refer people, they know might fit according to the organization's culture.
  5. Employees are given referral bonuses at the end of the process, on a successful onboarding of their referral, developing a sense of appreciation, motivation, and trust among the.
  6. It improves your employer's branding as your employees spread the word about the open positions, bringing a lot of traffic to your company's career page and wanting visitors to know more about your company.
Rewarding the referral bonuses

You know that your current employees put in a lot of effort, searching for the ideal fit within their network and they try to refer applicants that they find fit for the role. But you need to keep them motivated, in order for them to take full interest in the process and stay motivated for presenting quality candidates.

So, to encourage employees to find and refer suitable candidates, employee referral bonuses are provided to the employees. These referral bonuses do not necessarily mean cash prizes, they can be anything, from gifts, trips, vacations, prizes, and appreciation to certificates, depending upon the organization.

These bonuses encourage employees to go the extra mile, searching for the ideal fit, ultimately optimizing the hiring time and cost.

h. Careers page

A company's career page is usually a site that showcases or represents a company's culture, aims, values, and current job openings within the company.

Most job seekers visit the company's career page, to apply for the current job openings, so your career page must be creative, and engaging and should grab the attention of every visitor.

What to include in your company's careers page?

As the company's careers page is the first page, which candidates will interact with, in order to look or apply for the open position or to know more about your company, it better be informative, and clear and should stand out from the rest of the company's career pages.

While visiting the career page, they'll have several questions in mind, and you should be providing answers to all those questions. Following are a few samples, drafted for you to keep in mind while creating your company's career page

Q1. What are your company's mission, aims, and values?

Q2. What is the company's culture or what kind of activities are held here?

Q3. What is the look of the office?

Q4. What is the number of staff in the company?

Q5. What positions are open currently in the organization?

Q6. What are the working conditions in the company?

Q7. What are the benefits of working here?

Q8. How this organization is different from the rest of the organizations or what makes this organization stand out from the rest?

Q9. What are some impacts of the company on a community, industry, or the world?

Q10. What does their recruitment process look like?

Make sure to use clear language and be honest. Your tone should not support a single group or community based on their color, caste, religion, etc. Don't forget the use of keywords, to maximize the reach of your audience.

Link to your career page

Craft an effective career page, but how will your audience know? They won't randomly search for your company and apply for the role or why would they want to know details about your company?

You need to grab their attention and for that, you can post articles, videos, job openings, images and etc, on several social recruiting platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube and etc, that can have the link to your company's career page.

sample career page
Benefits of having a good-looking careers page

The more effective your career page, the more streamlined your recruitment process becomes, as the benefits include:

  1. Having all the information, clear and transparent is a go-to for every person, they get answers to their queries all in one place, leaving a positive image of the company and increasing its reputation.
  2. You can also mention instructions and prerequisites of the recruitment process, making them more confident to apply for the open position.
  3. Showcase your company culture on your career page, which can include pictures, videos, or posts of group activities, games, seminars, career fairs, events, etc, organized in your company or by your company.
  4. By mentioning clear instructions and requirements of the hiring process, only qualified candidates are likely to apply for the open position, minimizing the effort required to screen the candidates and saving the company time and cost.
  5. Candidates feel motivated when they are instructed beforehand, eliminating the fear of confusion, they feel more thrilled to apply for the role, thus enhancing their candidate journey.
  6. A user-friendly career page, with a beautiful design, helps candidates to understand and navigate through the page easily, enhancing the candidate experience and creating a positive impression of the company.
i. Career fairs

Career fairs or campus recruitment are the meeting organized by the universities, to help job candidates reach the recruiters or hiring managers of the company, eliminating the barrier of search for both, the candidates, by helping them interact with multiple companies at a single platform and helping recruiters communicate with a pool of several talented candidates.

Career fairs
How career fairs are helpful?

Job fairs are helpful for both, the recruiters and the job seekers.

Helpful for job seekers:

  1. They help job candidates connect with multiple employees from different organizations, all in one place.
  2. Job seekers get to know about a company's aims, values, objectives, and mission more accurately when an employee discusses them in more detail at career fairs.
  3. Job seekers tend to explore more opportunities and companies, in minimum time, as all organizations are located in one place.
  4. Candidates feel more confident and motivated, applying for the open position after a face-to-face conversation with recruiters.
  5. Candidates get more insights regarding industry trends, required skills, and how they can map their career paths, through these fairs.

Helpful for the recruiter's

  1. They help recruiters find and attract active job seekers, who are actively looking for jobs and connect with them on a personal level.
  2. Face-to-face conversation with candidates helps recruiters assess the personality, communication skills, and cultural fit of the job seekers, even before reading their resumes, which can save a lot of their time.
  3. As there is a large pool of talented candidates at career fairs, recruiters can interact with a number of qualified candidates within a short period, making the recruitment process more efficient and optimized.
  4. Through career fairs, companies get a chance to showcase their brand, stand out from the rest and attract a targeted audience.
j. Build your employer's brand

The most important element in the recruitment process is that helps in convincing top candidates to join your company. The stronger the employer brand, the more strong pool of quality candidates.

Importance of employer brand for a company

If no one knows about your brand, you might want to change that. Aim to create awareness among candidates regarding the products of your company or what services you’re offering. Improve your employer brand and create a forward-thinking organization that recognizes the value of its employees.

How to improve your employer brand?

Following are a few tips to help you improve your employer brand:

  1. Showcase your company culture, through posting articles or pictures on different platforms.
  2. Keep your career page updated, highlight employee benefits, activities held at your company and etc.
  3. Offer meaningful perks and benefits.
  4. Upload 'behind the scenes' or game videos of your company at your career site.
  5. Write articles related to employee journeys, career paths, or videos featuring 'doing what they love' and etc.
The aim is not to promote that you’re a good employer; it's about being one.

After finding and sourcing candidates, it's not obvious that all the candidates that you reach or reach your company are top candidates. You need to define certain criteria and select candidates that match that criteria, also you have a specific number of job openings that you have to fill, the number of job openings can vary a little, depending upon the quality of the candidate pool.

3. Screening

Screening, also called filtering applicants is done for the further selection process. It is a process that includes reviewing and finding which candidate's information, skills, qualifications, and personality traits are closest to the job description. It basically narrow down the pool of candidates by removing unqualified or irrelevant candidates, which were received through sourcing and ensuring that the shortlisted are a good fit for both the role and the company.

There are several methods and means for candidate assessment that can help you go through and evaluate candidates' resumes, qualifications, experience, and personality, which can help you identify whether they are suitable for the open position or not.

What to keep in mind while screening?

Following is a checklist of basic aspects that you should tick while screening candidates:

Important things to keep in mind:

It would be best if you never judged a candidate based on his/her personal information, this aspect is called blind hiring, in which a candidate's personal or demographic details are hidden from the recruiter, to provide equal opportunities to everyone, remove biases and promote workplace diversity.

So never include checking the personal or demographic details of a candidate.

The methods

Some of the methods and processes for screening candidates and finding the best fit among them within a short time are defined below:

k. Screening resumes

This is the phase that demands a lot of time if done manually, as recruiters or HR have to go through a lot of resumes in order to find the best fit and they further have to match the details of job seekers with the requirements of the job description.

What is generally mentioned in a candidate's resume?

A resume should generally tell a story about a candidate's education, experiences, interests, and skills. It should paint a clear picture of the candidate's journey so that you know what to expect from them.

It should generally include the following elements:

A maths teacher CV

The choice of what to include or exclude in a resume completely depends upon the applicant, the above-mentioned are just some basic but important elements to keep in mind while crafting a resume because recruiters do search for these details.

Resume fraud

There are also candidates that mention fake information in their resumes, just to get hired by chance or try to sneak out in the resume phase somehow, but it entirely depends on how efficient and planned your recruitment process is, which can minimize the chances of resume fraud.

It becomes very risky for both candidate and the recruiter if resume fraud is detected. If an applicant is caught lying on a resume, it can have a negative effect on his career and he can be disqualified immediately from consideration. On the other hand, if an applicant is hired by a company, that lied about his resume, can make fun of the hiring process, and will spread the word in his circle, related to how easily he can deceive the whole company process, that can leave a very bad impression of the company and can affect company's products or services.

l. Check with references

References help you gather and validate skill or work-related information about the candidate. If a candidate has prior work experience, references may be the only source, other than the candidate themselves, that can help you get details of the applicant's workplace performance.

There are generally 2 types of reference

References in a resume:

You can include professional references of your seniors or teachers, you have worked with, but after seeking their permission. They can help validate your mentioned education or qualifications, as recruiters call and check with the mentioned references. Keep in mind to mention references if you are required to do so, otherwise, skip mentioning them as they might provide some irrelevant or unimportant details that can affect your impression on the recruiter.

References through the employee referral :

In an employee referral, an employee of the company recommends or refers an applicant, that he may find fit for the open position within the company. Employees can refer a friend or family member for an open job at the company if they think they are the perfect match for the role. It is considered the most efficient method as employees are fully aware of the company culture and refers people who might be the cultural and ideal, reducing hiring cost and time.

m. Check with social apps

You can find out a lot about a candidate, just by looking at their social profiles, such as Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram and etc. It is worthwhile checking out a candidate on social media as it can help recruiters validate the candidate's experience from their LinkedIn profile. It can help, hiring managers to find out the applicant's previous records, whether he was or is involved in any illegal activities or any other additional information that might affect the company in the future.

What else can you find out from a candidate's social profile?

  1. You can find out a candidate's personality if they have mentioned their hobbies and interests.
  2. If there are some grammatical or spelling mistakes on a candidate's profile, this can give you an insight into their communication skills.
  3. There are also skill endorsements or references mentioned on some applicant's profile, that can help you get an additional opinion about the candidate.
  4. You can learn whether a candidate is involved in certain controversies or bad commenting about a certain person or group of people
n. Run a background check

It is important to validate and check all the candidate's background information such as the candidate's education, work history, criminal records, and other specific information, mentioned in the resume to ensure its accuracy and integrity. But keep in mind to ask for written consent from the candidate, before running a background check, to avoid any misconceptions and employers must follow rules, laws, and privacy requirements while conducting background checks.

o. Conducting tests
tests

Tests, Assignments, or assessments are the most crucial part of the hiring process and are conducted to assess the candidate's skills, education, abilities, and knowledge for the open position. These tests are the methods to help hiring managers determine whether a candidate is fit for a particular role or not. These are generally written tests that can be conducted at any time in the recruitment process. There are several types of pre-employment tests that are conducted during the recruitment process, the most important ones are the following:

  1. Job Knowledge Tests
  2. Cognitive Ability Tests
  3. Skills Assessment Tests
  4. Situational Judgement Tests
  5. Integrity Tests
  6. Emotional Intelligence Tests
  7. Physical Ability Tests
  8. Personality Tests

Keep in mind that the test should be related, valid, and non-discriminatory to avoid any biases and promote equality.

p. Interview process

The interview process is the crucial and most essential part of the recruitment process, which involves several stages to assess candidates for the open job role. The shortlisted, qualified candidates from resumes and tests are contacted for an interview for further evaluation.

In an interview procedure, the recruiters and interviewer evaluate a candidate on certain aspects and make fairer comparisons between candidates, choose who passes the defined criteria, and move them to the next stage of the recruitment process.

The interview is always planned, before conducting to avoid any inconvenience or negative impression on the candidate.

10 brief steps to the interview process:

Following is a very short 10-step guide to the interview method:

  1. Planning: The most important step before starting the interview. Keep a clear picture of the potential candidate in your mind, you can also use candidate personas. Research and write what should be done before, during, and after the interview, for example, if the interview is online, make sure you have all the necessary equipment such as a stable internet connection and device ready, on the other hand, if the interview is onsite, make sure the location is exact and someone is present before the candidate arrives. Also write down all the necessary questions about what needs to be asked, how, and when. Planning optimizes hiring time and ultimately hiring cost.
  2. Keep candidates informed: Make sure candidates are fully aware of interview details, such as location, and timings, and let them know what to expect and what is the interview about. Don't forget to let them the type of interview and how long it will take.
  3. Keep yourself updated: It is necessary that before interviewing a candidate, you have studied the applicant and read all the necessary details, as this will help you engage better with the candidate, motivating them and leaving a positive impression on them.
  4. Introduction: This is when the interview method starts practically. Start with a brief introduction of yourself and if there is more than one person, one person can introduce everyone to the candidate, instead of everyone introducing themselves one by one. After that ask the candidate about their brief introduction.
  5. About the company: Briefly describe the aims, values, and objectives of the company. Also, mention what the company expects from an ideal candidate, regardless of their job duties.
  6. Interview sections: Provide complete details about how many sections the interview comprises as it will help the candidate get more prepared and organized.
  7. Ask questions: The interviewer should ask all the relevant questions, whose answers can help them identify whether the candidate is eligible for the next stage or not. Listen to them attentively, keep your tone simple and clear, don't jump from question to question, and try to keep it like a normal conversation, also give them margin and time to think.
  8. Answer candidate queries: After asking a series of questions, don't forget to ask candidates, if they have any questions or if they would like to give feedback related to the process, till now. Keep in mind to write any improvements that the candidate has mentioned so that it can help you overcome weak points of the recruitment process.
  9. Tell them what's next: No candidates like to be hanging in the middle of the process, confused and wondering about what will be the next stage after the interview process or how long the recruitment process will take. It's better to keep them informed and updated about the next steps of the recruitment process so that they plan accordingly. It is optional to end the interview with a small and friendly note, that can leave a good impression about the employees and the company.
  10. Data analysis: The last step is to analyze all the data and information of the candidate, gathered during the interview, discuss with the other hiring team members and make the decision on whether to proceed with the candidate or not.
The interview process
Types of interview

It generally depends upon the requirements of the open position and the company, to organize how many types of interviews. But the following are some basic types of interviews:

Informational interview

In an informational, there is no specific procedure or method, as it is organized just to gather more information about a particular employer, career path, industry, or specific job role. The aim is to ask questions and learn about a particular industry from an experienced professional, working in that industry.

Phone interview

Phone interview serves as an initial screening, to evaluate a candidate's qualifications and most importantly, communication skills. These interviews are done to get a brief introduction of the candidate and narrow down the pool of candidates before moving toward the face-to-face interview.

Phone interviews eliminate the hassle of traveling, however, the recruiter cannot judge the body language during the conversation and sometimes distractions from either side can take place.

Online interview

An online interview or a virtual interview is an interview that is conducted remotely, for candidates who can't make it to the office, over different online platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Microsoft Teams. In this type of interview, the interviewer/s and candidate connect in real-time, regardless of their physical locations, allowing interviewers to assess candidates' qualifications, communication skills, and overall fit for the role.

Behavioral Interview

A behavioral interview focuses on a candidate's past experiences or behavior and assesses how they handled a particular situation, in order to predict how they might perform in the future. Rather than asking direct questions like 'How would you behave in ___ situation?', you might want to ask 'How did you handle ___ situation?'. A few more examples of such questions are:

Q1. How did you handle a situation in which you were the leader of a group presentation and one of your team members didn't want to perform?

Q2. How did you handle the situation in which your team member did not finish the task before the deadline?

Q3. Give us an example of a short-term goal you failed to meet, and how did you handle it?

Q4. Tell us how did you handle a situation, in which you were given a task that wasn't part of your job description?

Technical Interview

Technical interviews are generally conducted to assess an applicant's technical skills, knowledge, and creative problem-solving abilities related to a particular field or career, such as IT, data science, engineering and etc. The purpose of a technical interview is to ask technical questions relevant to the job description, in order to assess the understanding of the technical concepts and the depth of the candidate's knowledge in the selected field.

Task-based interview

As the name suggests, task-based interviews generally involve assigning a task to the applicant, to complete during the interview procedure. Task-based interviews are conducted to practically assess a candidate's skills and abilities. The assigned tasks can vary depending on the nature of the open position, they are applying for. A few examples of such interviews are:

  1. A software engineer may be given a task to write a piece of code.
  2. An architectural engineer might be asked to draw the structure of a house.
  3. A teacher might be asked to present a lecture to a particular class.

Stress interview

Stress interviews are conducted to assess how candidates will respond to a situation that is stressful. The interviewer intentionally creates a challenging environment for the applicant to assess how the candidate handles pressure and stress. These interviews give an idea to hiring managers, of how an applicant will respond, while dealing with challenges, difficulties, solving high-priority tasks, meeting deadlines and etc.

Group vs Individual interview

There are generally 3 approaches to conducting an interview:

One on one interview: In an individual one-on-one interview, each candidate is interviewed separately by one interviewer. It is a two-way communication interview and a visual interaction between two people. In one on one interviews, the interviewer asks questions related to the candidate's skills, experience, and qualifications, followed by a brief introduction.

one on one interview

Panel interview: In this type of interview, a single candidate is evaluated by a group of interviewers, which can include the hiring manager, a senior employee, a team lead, and other different parties. It is basically conducted to assess applicants from different perspectives. Each interviewer asks the questions from candidates one by one, and they also access an applicant's communication skills.

panel interview

Group of candidates and a group of interviewers: An interview with a group of candidates and a group of interviewers is held typically when multiple interviewers need to assess the team working abilities and collaboration of a large number of candidates with other team members, at the same time. In this interview, a group of candidates is interviewed together.

group of candidates and a group of interviewers
Top 5 Advantages of the interview process

Following are a few most important advantages of the interview method, if done efficiently:

  1. Recruiters are unable to identify the communication skills of the candidate, just from their resumes, therefore interviews are an excellent method to assess candidates on a personal level.
  2. It is essential to match whether a candidate actually possesses the skills and qualifications, he/she has mentioned in the resume. Therefore you can ask questions related to their skills and experience in the interview process.
  3. Hiring managers and recruiters can identify the cultural fit of the candidate, by observing their behavior and personality during the interview.
  4. Interviews help employers and hiring teams compare candidates on multiple factors and make informed hiring decisions.
  5. Beyond resumes, recruiters can learn more in-depth about the candidates, their personalities, credentials, and much more, instead of just relying on their CVs.
Candidate screening main agenda

The aim of candidate selection is to evaluate job applicants on specific criteria and check their fit for a specific open position within an organization. The objective is to find out the most suitable candidates, who match the job description and possess all the required qualities for the open role, from a large pool of applicants.

To screen a candidate, the following elements are checked and then the results are analyzed to make a decision about moving the candidate further in the process or not.

  1. Mindset
  2. Skills and competency
  3. Education
  4. Experience
  5. Culture
  6. Personality
  7. Character
  8. Knowledge
  9. References or recommendations
  10. Job stability

4. The Job offer

After the screening, the final step of the recruitment process is offering the job to qualified candidates, and welcoming them to join the organization for the specific position.

The job offer consists of a document, called 'The offer letter', followed by some additional things such as cards, small gifts, etc, showing a friendly and welcoming gesture to the candidate and congratulating the candidate for making it to the end of the hiring process.

q. The offer letter

The offer letter is a document that contains the terms of employment for a new hire. It is basically a contract of employment between the selected candidate, the CEO of the company, and the hiring manager. The candidate may take time, carefully review the offer letter and make informed decisions that align with their career goals.

10 important elements of the offer letter

The offer letter should be clear and to the point. It should convey all the necessary details to the candidates and leave no ambiguity for them. It should outline several aspects related to the job role and the company. The main elements of an offer letter are:

  1. Job title
  2. Responsibilities and Duties
  3. Salary
  4. Compensation
  5. Benefits
  6. Working conditions
  7. Start date of work
  8. Instructions for accepting the offer
  9. Termination conditions
  10. Privacy policies.
How to send the offer letter?

There are generally 2 ways to send the offer letter to the selected candidate:

  1. The first way is to email the offer letter to the candidate's email, mentioned in their resume.
  2. The second way is to send the offer letter to the candidate's home address, mentioned in their resume.

Note: It is important to call a candidate before sending the offer letter formally, congratulating them on their successful hiring journey and giving brief detail regarding the offer letter.

5. Onboarding and Support

The onboarding process is the process to welcome or induct the new employee, after his acceptance of the job offer. The aim of onboarding is to make sure the new employee is informed and aware of the organization's policies, processes, expectations, culture, and other important elements to succeed in their job role. The new employees are provided with a supportive environment so that they feel comfortable fulfilling their duties, seeking assistance, and sharing any concerns or ideas. Typically a warm welcome, followed by a few decorations and a brief introduction of colleagues or other employees is held on the first day of the newly hired employee.

Onboarding and Supporting the new employee

A guide or a document along with the assigned tasks and their deadlines are conveyed to the new employee, by their immediate supervisor or team lead, to avoid any miscommunication or ambiguity.

Refining and Optimizing the Recruitment Process

The aim is to have an excellent hiring process, that is well-organized, systematic, standardized, and can attract top-quality candidates within a short time period. This means that all the stages of the recruitment process should be planned and structured to avoid any undesirable effects on the reputation of an organization.

The recruitment process of an organization entirely depends upon the requirements and needs of the organization and it varies from organization to organization.

No recruitment process can be 100% efficient, there are certain aspects that are overlooked before, during, or after the process, but the goal is to learn from the mistakes, find their root cause, and try to improve them.

How to identify the flaws in your hiring process?

You can never identify the weaknesses of your recruitment process, until and unless you have documented them. Note, note and note everything! Ask and gather applicant reviews or feedback, ask them about their experience, what did they love about the process? and what did they hate about the process. Which part of the process was the best for them?

You can also have a meeting with your hiring team and ask them about the overall process, what did they feel about the process? How easy was the recruitment process? Did they face any challenges? Which part of the process was the most difficult one and why? What do they want to change in the process and why?

Answer to these questions will make half of your work done as you now have a list of the problems, the next step is to think about reducing them and what steps should be taken to do so.

How can you avoid making blunders in the recruitment process?

Following are some key aspects to keep in mind while recruiting:

r. Eliminate biases

Your tests, assignments, interviews, job description, and many other things should be organized in such a way, that they show or contain no biases or discrimination, as it will have very negative feedback from the candidates, risking the company's reputation.

What are biases?

Biasness means supporting or in opposition to a particular person, a group, a community, or an idea, in a way that is unfair and suppresses that party. It can include favoring or opposing a specific person or a group on the basis of their gender, culture, race, age, or religion.

How can you eliminate biases from the recruitment process?

It is very important to eliminate biases, promote fairness and provide equal treatment to every individual. You can do the following to eliminate biases from the recruitment process:

  1. Craft a job description that does not include any biased language and focuses only on the skills required for the position.
  2. Don't ask questions in the interview process that include words that could lead to discrimination.
  3. Provide training to the recruiters and hiring team members to increase awareness about biases.
s. No personal or demographic questions

Ask questions related to the field or personality of the individual only. Avoid any personal questions such as the following:

Q1. What's your age?

Q2. What are your personal beliefs?

Q3. What do you think about a certain caste?

These questions should be strictly restricted, to prevent bias. Also, adopt blind hiring strategies, such as Blind Resume Screening, which removes the personal information of the candidate like name, age, gender, color, caste and etc from the resume, so that candidate is judged only on the basis of his skills, qualification, and education.

t. Approproate tone

Maintain an appropriate tone, one that is professional and clear. Don't use a tone that leaves the candidate confused as it will have a bad impact on the company, and on them. Avoid a casual tone and remain serious, but not serious in a way that can sound rude to the candidate. Moreover, along with an appropriate tone, you should also listen to the applicants carefully and actively, never show that you are not interested in listening to them.

Uphold a suitable tone in the recruitment process, that can enhance the candidate experience and ultimately leaves a positive impression of the organization.

u. The collaboration

In order to have an effective recruitment process, besides planning, collaboration is the most essential factor, whether it's team collaboration or candidate engagement. Most of the qualified candidates accept the job offer, entirely on the basis of good candidate experience, they spread the word, leaving a positive image of the company. Most of the best hiring decisions are made with effective and timely team collaboration, speeding up the hiring process. As a company, do your best to cooperate with the job seekers, and leave no reason for them to reject the offer.

Hiring Team Collaboration

No recruitment process will ever be successful without a recruitment team that is best in terms of planning, collaboration, execution, and optimization. Set up the best hiring team that can make the recruitment process stand out from the rest to improve the company's reputation.

Setting up the Best Recruitment Team

In order to set up the most efficient recruitment team, keep the following tips in your mind:

  1. Define clear roles and responsibilities of each member of the hiring team.
  2. Make sure the hiring team is fully aware of the job description and the required skills for the open role, before recruiting a candidate.
  3. Provide training, in the form of workshops or seminars to employers and team members to enhance their skills and knowledge.
  4. Ask them for feedback and reviews, after every hiring cycle, for improvement and enhancement.
Candidate engagement

The better the hiring team, the more motivated and interested they will be in hiring new job applicants. The hiring team must build and maintain a positive relationship with the applicants in order to enhance their overall candidate experience.

Candidate Engagement vs Candidate Experience

Though these two terms look a lot similar, they have a few differences:

candidate engagement vs candidate experience

Craft an efficient candidate engagement plan which includes all the necessary steps to keep candidates updated. The goal is to show candidates their value, be respectful and motivate them throughout their candidate journey so that they have a positive candidate experience.

v. Effective Candidate Evaluations

Implement clear and transparent candidate evaluations to make informed hiring decisions and guarantee a fair recruitment process. Following are a few key elements to conduct effective candidate evaluations:

  1. Have a clear and understandable scoring system to rate the candidate's answers and performance.
  2. Ensure consistency and equality in the evaluation criteria depending upon the requirements and nature of the job.
  3. Draft structured interview questions, related to the required job skills and cultural fit for the organization.
  4. Involve multiple evaluators, while conducting interviews, checking test results, or in the overall process, to gain diverse point-of-view of different team members.
  5. Check and validate references of job candidates, their qualifications, and their past work performances.
  6. Analyze, document, and optimize throughout and after the recruitment process to maintain consistency and improve the methods and reputation of the company.
w. The right tools

You never want to do extra work, recruiting candidates, that's for sure! Who doesn't love to hire top talent, with minimum efforts within the planned time period? All this can be achieved, after having the right tools at your hand.

The planning tools

The initial step of the recruitment process, which is also the base of the whole recruitment process, should be done efficiently. You don't want to write your recruitment plan manually on pieces of paper? who will organize a lot of papers? who will structure or manage them? All these will require a lot of time. Multiple planning tools are available online, removing all the difficulties of manually managing notes, documents, and plans. Some of these tools are:

  1. A hiring calendar, to mark the important dates and keep you updated with the tasks, deadlines, and activities involved in the process.
  2. Test or interview guides to provide with you a structure and pattern for conducting tests and interviews.
  3. Scorecards, to evaluate and rate candidates in a standardized way on different criteria.
  4. Job description, Email, or Offer templates to send them multiple candidates, with minor changes in a very short time period.
  5. Checklists, containing all the day-to-day tasks, setup, or other minor activities.
The sourcing tools

Just like there are tools available for planning, there are also online tools available for sourcing candidates, to eliminate the manual work and optimize the time and cost of the recruitment process. Some commonly used sourcing tools are:

  1. Social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram are considered a great and valuable medium for reaching and engaging top candidates.
  2. Job boards such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other popular platforms are great for posting job ads and reaching a wide pool of job applicants.
  3. Considering employee referrals, to encourage current employees to refer quality candidates, they think that are fit for the open positions. This also maximizes the chances of hiring top talent as, employees are aware of the required skills, and company culture and they refer candidates they think are suitable within their network.
  4. Conducting or attending industry events, conferences, career fairs, or professional events to increase the chances for recruiters to connect with industry specialists, and build connections and networks.
  5. Targeting passive recruitment for the candidates, who are not actively looking for job openings but may be ready to consider a good opportunity, if presented one.
  6. Using specific keywords, sentences, and other boolean search techniques to refine candidate searches.
The screening tools

Screening tools or assessment tools are the methods used to evaluate whether the job candidate is fit for a particular role or not. These tools are used to evaluate the candidate on the basis of their skills, experience, education, and expertise. The most basic used screening tools in recruitment are:

  1. Resume reviews are done to evaluate the skills, education, work experience, and other relevant aspects of a candidate, and shortlist the candidates that match the required criteria.
  2. Interviews, including phone, online, or face-to-face are conducted to assess the knowledge and skills of the candidates, making sure that their mentioned skills are not fake, along with evaluating their communication skills.
  3. Organizing tests and assessments help to evaluate the abilities, skills, qualities, and personality of a candidate. These tests assess their proficiency in the respective field.
  4. Background checks are done to validate the candidate's personal information, credentials, work history, criminal records, and other relevant stuff, to avoid any problem in the future that can impact the reputation of the company.
  5. Employees refer candidates within their network or connection, that they think are suitable for the role, or candidates often mention references in their resumes, but its the responsibility of the recruiters or the hiring managers to verify the authenticity of the candidate's claims, by contacting their provided references and gather more information about their past performances, education, and abilities.
The right tools
x. The all-in-one: Applicant Tracking System

Isn't it remarkable if all your hiring hassle is automated? You're tired of traditional hiring? Who doesn't love to finish the recruitment process as quickly as possible, but efficiently, i.e. to onboard the maximum number of quality candidates within a short time period? Well, we've got you a magic tool, called an Applicant Tracking System.

An Applicant Tracking System or an ATS makes the recruitment process a lot easier, more comfortable, and quicker. It enhances the experience of both, the recruiter and the job seeker.

The system organizes, structures, documents, highlights, and gathers all the necessary details of the applicants, all in one place. It has defined criteria, templates, notes, filters, scoring, screening mechanisms, and multiple different features for every stage of the hiring process.

Some of the most basic features of the ATS include:

For sourcing:

Following are a few features for finding candidates:

  1. Craft an efficient and attractive career website to showcase your job openings with all the necessary requirements and details, and provide a clear understanding to job seekers in order for them to apply for the respective role.
  2. You can create and use multiple job templates while posting jobs, to minimize repetition and save your hiring time.
  3. Construct application forms, containing the questions that are relevant and to the point, to get accurate information from the candidates and later on filter on the basis of their answers.
  4. Use the power of the employee referrals portal to reach out to talented and competent candidates.

For screening:

Following are a few features for evaluating candidates:

  1. Design a simple, but efficient scorecard to rank and identify the qualified candidates. Mark and evaluate them on defined criteria, review results, and then make informed decisions.
  2. Have hundreds of candidates and can't find a particular name or can't figure out which candidate has been sent an offer? Don't worry, the filters and search candidates feature of the ATS solves these issues. Add as many filters on a list to find the required candidate, in minimum time.
  3. Collaborate with your team during an interview, using team notes. Write down all the necessary and important points that you might need to examine later after the interview.
  4. Use the Resume parsing feature in ATS to extract the key information from the resumes of applicants such as their name, email, education, experience, and much more, instead of manually filling them, saving a lot of your hiring time.
  5. The most powerful feature of an ATS is, interview scheduling can cut the maximum time of your recruitment process. Schedule interviews, add your team members, set availabilities, book slots, and much more, all on a single platform.

For offer:

Following is a feature of an ATS for sending offers to candidates:

  1. Craft offers template emails for each role and sends them to the selected candidates, with minor changes within minimum time.
ATS features

As you can see, using an ATS minimizes the time and effort required to hire potential candidates by nearly 50%. That is the reason why most companies use the power of ATS to save their hiring cost, and time and improve the recruitment budget.

One example of an ATS that covers all these key features mentioned above, is Hirecinch. Hirecinch structures and arranges all the applicant and team data, in one place, reducing the trouble to stack up multiple documents, managing records, and reducing the time to hire. It has all the basic features to source, screen, and offer candidates, additionally, you can keep track of applicants' and team's data, all at this one platform.

Hirecinch

The most efficient recruitment process is the one that identifies, targets, and hires the best among all candidates, that too within a short time period, saving the company cost.

Frequently asked questions

FAQS

Q1. Who writes the offer letter?

The offer letter is usually written by the hiring manager and the HR department and sent to the candidate selected for the open position, after their and CEO's signature.

Q2. What if I don't run a candidate's background check?

Background checks are very essential component while screening candidates as they verify candidates' information, credentials, criminal records, and other stuff to avoid any problems in the future. If these checks are skipped, as a recruiter, hiring manager, or even the company, they might leave you in trouble, if any issue occurs.

Q3. What can be awarded to employees if their referred candidate gets hired?

There is a term called "referral bonus", which can include prizes, gifts, trips, vacations, cash, recognition, and a lot of stuff that can be offered to employees who refer a potential candidate for an open position and get hired successfully.