Recruitment is a key responsibility of the HR department. While HR works in many areas including employee engagement, employee development, statutory compliance, data management and many others, one of the key areas of focus for HR is to attract, select and onboard suitable candidates for the organization.
Why do we need an appropriate Recruitment and Selection process?
Recruitment is the process of attracting qualified candidates for a job role and Selection is the process of identifying and selecting the right candidate for that job.
The contributions of each employee play a pivotal role in the sustenance and growth of a business. Hence it is extremely important to select the right person for the job. The same way as a square peg does not fit in a round hole, a bad hire can affect the overall business outcomes.
The impact to your business when you hire the wrong candidate is often much more than not hiring a person at all! Recruitment is not only an operational activity but a key strategic activity for the business.
Hence there is a need for developing a strong recruitment and selection process.
The right process reflects on your company’s professionalism and portrays your organization’s maturity in attracting and hiring the right talent. An effective process helps in creation of a talent pool in a proactive manner, thus assisting in meeting the medium-term and long-term business objectives.
Recruiting involves multiple stakeholders including senior level employees in your company and can cost a lot in terms of time and money. Hence one needs to ensure that the process is well defined and optimized to meet the needs of all stakeholders.
Enablers of a good Recruitment Process
A few things to keep in mind to enable a smooth hiring experience:
Integrate job postings with job description
Create a database of job postings and link vacancies to well defined job descriptions and skills. This makes it easier for the recruiter, the hiring manager and even the candidate.
Simplify the application process
You want to excite a candidate and sell the job to them. A complex application process puts off most candidates. The application process should work on all devices including mobiles, allow a seamless experience and candidates should be able to register once and submit their resumes to multiple positions.
Display job postings on your website
Publish the jobs on the career page of your website along with postings on other social platforms. You want to be visible everywhere – especially the social sites where a majority of your prospective hires spend their time.
Manage previously submitted resumes
Old submissions often get lost. Build a database that allows easy tagging and searching. Keep track of applicants and inform them of new positions.
Manage your candidates effectively
Assign interviewers to shortlisted candidates and automated reminders to candidates and interviewers.
Streamline the applicant tracking process
Allow recruiters to accept, review and manage resumes at a single location.
Maintain touchpoints with candidates
It is important to remain in touch with candidates on a periodic basis. They may not have succeeded in the existing job position they applied for but may be suitable in the future. Keeping in touch with them often builds relationships and can reduce the time-to-hire for future recruitments both for these candidate as also their referrals.
Have a robust onboarding process
Improve day-one readiness of new hires by seamlessly onboarding new employees.
Maintain data on the recruitment process
To iteratively improve the recruitment and selection process, meticulously maintain data related to different parts of the process. Different recruitment metrics that you can manage include resumes received, resumes shortlisted, interviews, no-shows, offers, accepts, time-to-hire, time-to-fill and so on.
Concluding thoughts
Selecting the right employee is an important goal for the recruitment team and establishing the correct process can enhance the experience of the Candidate, Interviewer, Hiring Manager and the HR Department. It can also help increase the effectiveness of your business.
The whole recruiting process is already being altered by technology. Everything is being digitized, from shortlisting resumes to conducting interviews to employee onboarding.
HR professionals should ensure that they follow the correct Recruitment and Selection processes and attract the best workforce for their organization.
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