What are the 7 steps in the selection process?

The recruitment process is upgrading with time, as after the outbreak of COVID-19, the recruitment procedure turned into a digital recruitment process. While conducting the recruitment process, recruiters have various questions, such as: What is the recruitment process? What are the steps in the recruitment and selection process? What are the different recruitment steps? What are things included in the recruitment process?

The recruitment process is the backbone, starting point, and core element of every Human Resources department. It ensures a company's success by providing them with marvellous talents and ensuring their retention. There is no HR if there is no recruitment, and there are no well-performing enterprises without carefully chosen employees.

Even though 2020 was a year that altered many priorities, procedures, and industries, it didn't change the fact that recruitment is still of paramount importance for a healthy bottom line, workplace, and staff connections. Regardless of whether being a young startup or a veteran that wants to improve its hiring strategy, it is essential to prepare for 2023.

We are taking you on a profound journey that will give you all the insights and data you need about recruitment to tweak your processes and enhance hiring outcomes. With our all-encompassing guide, you will get all the necessary information and must-know statistics.

Let's start with essentials and cement your recruitment knowledge or introduce you to the process by presenting its purpose, action steps, and time flow.

What is Recruitment Process?

Here is the quick recruitment process definition that clarifies your thought about recruitment.

Recruitment is seeking, identifying, and hiring the most qualified candidates for a job position. However, there is so much more that makes a part of the process, including talent acquisition and attraction, crafting job ads, background and social media screening, shortlisting, and interviewing. 

It depends on the company's size and how many employees will participate in the recruitment process steps. The larger the company, the larger number of good recruiters. Some will even employ entire teams of hiring managers to conduct the pursuit of a new employee.

Small businesses or those entering the market will perhaps have only one recruiter who will take full responsibility for the hiring process. Besides, some companies prefer the recruitment process outsourcing from outside agencies, firms, and headhunters. The decision about who they will hire also depends on the goals of the hiring process. Some organisations want recruiters with in-depth knowledge and expertise in a particular industry, which is when they usually hire head-hunting recruiters.

Recruitment always requires thorough marketing campaigns that will help reach the most compatible job seekers. For that, recruiters will use job ads and boards, advertising, social media channels, and visual material, such as flyers, infographics, etc. 

Executives and recruiters also use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) or recruiting software to enhance the process and increase the odds of a good match. It shows that recruitment is an innovative process that is continuously evolving and it requires keeping up with the trends.

What Does HR Recruitment Process Involve?

The recruitment process involves a broad range of stages and steps, but the organisation includes the steps according to its hiring methodology. Here are some essential steps that the recruitment industry mainly considers.

• Determine the hiring needs and requirements

• Form a recruitment strategy

• Draft a creative job description

• Post the job opening on various platforms

• Attract the candidates

• Discover or source the candidates 

• Review the applications

• Telephonic interview

• Face-to-face interview

• Background checking

• Decision

• Reference checking

• Sending Job offer to top candidates

• Hiring

• Onboarding process

7 Steps in the Recruitment Process

Though hiring is a process that each company will tailor to its needs, corporate goals, and values, the recruitment life cycle has seven essential steps.

1.  Identifying the needs

No well-thought-out recruitment process steps start with writing a work ad and posting it on social media. Instead, there are myriad insights one needs before jumping to job boards. Just like anything else in life, recruitment also starts with identifying what it is that you need.

To find who you need, start by detecting what the gaps in your team are. Are there any new requirements, personalities, or performances that you need? Consider whether current positions cover what the company requires and if everything aligns with the present moment.

Check if some of the employees are bearing unreasonable workloads, which might be affecting their performance, productivity, and mental health. Is there anyone else who can alleviate their obligations by taking them on them? If not, would a new job position cover the emergency?

While conducting research is necessary when considering new vacancies, it is recommendable to regularly track available abilities, skills, and performances and note what's missing. Try to foresee a need before it emerges and starts affecting the workplace.

Once you decide to open a vacancy, evaluate all the existing job positions and specifications. Compare them with the set of skills, qualifications, and experience the company demands for the one you are opening. If none of your existing employees could fill that position with training or re-skilling, it's time to move on to the next step.

A successful recruitment process also depends on managing it because one wrong step could harm the whole company and its brand. Hence, a well-performing team can precisely detect the need, job position, and what's ideal candidate. Make sure that you are choosing the right recruiters for each task and equip them with all the necessary appliances.

2. Write a captivating job description

After identifying what skills, knowledge, and education the new vacancy demands, you can move on to finding what will be the obligations and responsibilities of the new employee. Write a concise job description with your ideal candidate in mind and ensure that you are articulating what the abilities and traits this person should possess are.

If you want to make the process easier for the candidates, provide them with a checklist of characteristics so that they can compare themselves and discover whether they would be a good fit. Thus, don't forget to include all the elements that make a clear and effective job ad: the organisation's name and details, job title, obligations and responsibilities, qualifications, location, remuneration, perks and benefits.

Make your job ads more engaging with extra elements because 51 per cent of job seekers would be more attracted to a company if their job postings contained photos or videos. Also, the odds of your job ad getting more clicks will increase by 75 per cent if you add the salary range.

3. Developing a talent pipeline

Sourcing and talent attraction are among the most challenging and also most engaging segments of recruitment. However, most recruiters still rely on traditional methods to search for talents, such as company careers pages, job boards and platforms. Some also turn to referral programs to increase their efforts.

If you opt for a careers page, you should ensure that yours is attractive, clear, and user-friendly. Keep every piece of information up-to-date, add all relevant data, and ensure that you offer a mobile version. Nine in ten job seekers use their mobiles to seek job offers.

Make your job application process easy and fast. Don't demand candidates to go through a tiring process of writing redundant information before being able to submit their resumes. Finally, ensure that your career page reflects the company's culture and that you are making use of photos, videos, testimonials, and your mission facts.

For many companies, referral programs are the most rewarding as they reduce cost and time to hire. Thus, employees are those who know the company's values best, so they are a safe way to reach high-quality talents.

4. Candidate screening

Once you build an extensive library of candidates, it's time to perform screening and shortlist the most compatible job applicants. Although it's among the most challenging steps, you can make screening more efficient by conducting it based on minimum qualifications and then selecting those that have preferred traits.

Shortlist both the job applicants with minimum necessary characteristics and those with preferred credentials. Detect if any doubts or questions are emerging from resumes and use interviews to clear everything out.

Many companies also perform background and social media checks at this stage to ensure that a candidate doesn't possess suspicious behaviours, criminal records, or a history of misconduct.

5. Interviewing the most qualified candidates

As you approach the end of your ideal candidate pursuit, you will conduct interviews with the shortlisted candidates. In the new, post-COVID-19 realm, most recruiters will perform telephone or video interviews to identify the right person.

Yet, others will still conduct face-to-face interviews or implement psychometric testing to discover whether their new hire will stay for a long time, be productive, and be efficient.

6. Evaluating and making an offer

Although you might be sure that a candidate will accept the offer, be ready for unexpected scenarios, and prepare for a negotiation. However, before making the final proposition, check all the job-relevant references and ensure that your future employee is someone you can trust.

When sending a job offer, make sure that it includes all the necessary details: start day, job conditions, work hours, and salary. Avoid leaving anything ambiguous because it might deter a candidate from signing the contract.

Also, once the candidate accepts the proposition, let other shortlisted candidates know your decision because it fosters good connections and reputation.

7. Employee onboarding

The final stage of recruitment occurs when the new hire signs the contract and becomes a new member of your team. That is when the onboarding stage starts, which is the crucial part because 69 per cent of employees say that they are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they have a good induction.

Hence, ensure that you provide the new employee with all the necessary details, a warm welcome to the team, and support throughout the process.

Top 3 Strategies to Hire Top Talents in 2023

As 2023 approaches, companies have to re-evaluate their recruiting trends and align them with the aftermaths of what was a hectic, uncertain, and life-changing year. These are some of the ways to lead the war for top talents.

1. Offer remote work

Work from home is more than likely to stay, and companies that don't provide their employees with the possibility of teleworking won't be able to keep up with the competition. It is recommendable to show the candidates that if they choose you, they will have the opportunity to work from home because 99% of people want that option.

2. Use small online groups for candidate sourcing

To reach top talents, turn to smaller virtual communities to attract and engage both passive and active candidates instead of posting on high-traffic platforms that can trigger too many incompatible job applicants.

Build an online presence on LinkedIn and its job opportunities groups, and leverage other social media channels and various relevant associations to attract fitting talents.

3. Emphasise perks and benefits

With remote recruiting, traditional methods and sales pitches might not work anymore. That's why you should tailor your communication to the virtual world. Use the job ad to highlight what are the unique employee benefits your company offers that can ease their work from home and enhance life during the pandemic.

Recruitment Process Statistics recruiters must Know

The best way to ensure that your recruitment is up-to-date and in harmony with global events is to pay attention to statistics and tweak your strategies accordingly. These are the highlight recruitment process information you should know.

• 66 per cent of Millennials are thinking about leaving their current organisation
• 57 per cent of candidates consider benefits and perks as the top factor
• 80 per cent of people prefer receiving employee perks over a salary increase
• More than 80 per cent of Millennials and Gen Z believes business success should go beyond making a profit.
• 55 per cent of job seekers will abandon a job application after reading a negative review of the company

Final Thought on Recruitment Process steps

Indeed, the recruitment process has evolved after the covid-19 pandemic. Recruiters and staffing agencies are using online tools to automate the hiring process. This way, they will get time to pay attention to more important tasks in the recruitment process. Also, In this blog, we have covered the meaning, strategies, and steps for recruiters to conduct an effective and efficient recruitment process. 

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