Hiring suitable applicants is one of the most critical duties of a recruitment manager. Most of the time, the final verdict is more complex and tedious than looking through countless applications and conducting interviews with the applicants. The most important bit of the process is hiring the best possible candidate.
Hiring processes may vary from one company to another. However, also keep in mind that the chances of getting a qualified candidate doesn’t only rely on how well-crafted an applicant’s resume is but also on how you carefully conduct your hiring process. This includes knowing how to write job descriptions properly, as a poorly written one won’t help get the right people to send in their applications.
Your current hiring process may be effective for now, but improving upon it can help build your company’s reputation and maintain a high rate of employee retention. Also, more talented and highly-valued employees will find their way into your offices, resulting in better outputs.
Defining a Hiring Process
A hiring process involves the guidelines and procedures in searching, recruiting, and employing applicants for a company. These include (but not limited to) writing job descriptions, posting job vacancies, conducting initial and final interviews, performing background checks on freelancers or in-house applicants, and extending job offers to qualified applicants.
Having a comprehensive hiring process will help you hire fresh talent that best suits a company’s vision and mission, values, culture, standards, and work ethics. As unique as hiring processes are to each company, they equally benefit from the same tips and tricks widely used among SMEs and large corporations. Never miss out on the advantages of suitable employees with these tips.
1. Try a Different Approach
While publishing employment opportunities in classified ads still work, most employers have shifted to posting online. Social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn have seen increased use over the years for posting job openings and the like, which can be a convenience to jobseekers. They’re also more likely to reach deeper into a user’s extensive network of friends and colleagues through sharing and reactions.
Employee referral programs are also another approach that opens opportunities to potential candidates. In this approach, existing employees may receive rewards for referring job vacancies to friends and family, higher rewards if the referral candidate is hired. Applicants going through this program are often given priority over those by other means, meaning faster processing.
Job fairs used to be another widely-used method of hiring, with the added benefit of learning and establishing connections with other companies. However, the ongoing pandemic has forced these events to go virtual to minimize physical contact. While it has some downsides, recruitment at virtual job fairs can still be effective for companies looking to hire interns.
2. Make the Process Quick and Easy
Applicants are more likely withdraw their bid for the job if the process is too tedious or takes too long. Going for quick and easy processes, such as filling out online forms, will benefit both the applicant and employer. For example, when crafting application forms, make sure that it won’t take an applicant more than 10 minutes to fill out.
Sometimes, the process has to be even way less than 10 minutes. Hiring managers go through a stockpile of job applications, often having neither the time nor resources to review them word for word. Also, in this scenario, it’s easy to for the applications to get lost in the sauce.
For this, invest in effective hiring tools such as an applicant tracking system and mobile-friendly application forms. These solutions perform most of the work, from rating applicants based on their inputted credentials to notifying managers if an applicant can’t make it to an interview.
3. Do Background Checks
It’s very necessary to conduct a background check on your applicants, however, screening them consumes time and is costly.
Several companies are refining the screening process by shortlisting the applicants first and only perform a background check on the qualified candidates. Doing this will help you focus on the important features of your potential employees such as the hard and soft skills. Thus, it’ll be easy for you to decide who the perfect candidate is for the position.
Having a tailored background checking process will make it very efficient to find an employee fit for the job.
4. Consider Hearing and Assessing Candidates’ Feedback
Keeping connections with your previous candidates who weren’t successful during the hiring is essential as they can help you save time and money by doing a practice called candidate rediscovery. This is a type of practice in which you are to look back at your resume database in the hopes of finding a candidate open for requests or feedback that can improve your hiring process.
Moreover, collecting and assessing feedback from the candidates whether they’ve been offered a job or not will give you important insights into how they’re seeing your recruitment process. These insights will help you determine what needs to be refined and why there’s a need to modify the process.
5. Enhance Engagement with Candidates
When applicants don’t hear any feedback from you, they’ll most probably drop their application and look for another employer. Thus, it’s better to keep them engaged during the entire hiring process. Keeping the applicant engaged will make your process become efficient too.
To keep your candidates in the loop, enhance your plans with regard to communication and engagement by using email automation that can give them significant updates from time to time. Personalize your emails to each applicant according to the status of their application and keep them abreast about their next step. This practice will prevent them from withdrawing their application because their expectations are being set every time they’re constantly informed.
Final Thoughts
The selection process is one of the most critical aspects in hiring potential applicants. Some steps in the process can make or break an applicant’s chance of getting hired, that’s why it’s always good to look for ways to better the system and hire the best applicants effectively. Improving and streamlining the original version of your recruitment process will make hiring much easier.
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