Recruitment process steps for any company should be designed around the premise of treating all applicants equally. These procedures are often tempting to break if you spot an applicant that you wish to hire on the spot, or one whose application you’d like to immediately discard. The following steps or similar variety of steps should be followed to ensure a fair process and good results.
Plan and Set Up Search Criteria
Once you gain approval to search, you can begin forming a plan and set up search criteria. What kind of position is this, and what education and skills are needed for it? Does the position require prior experience? Determine what is necessary in the new employee before you begin dealing with applicants.
The Advertisement
When you know what you are looking for, create an advertisement. Be specific in what your requirements are. If you want your employee to have a masters degree, than say so. If multiple years of experience is more important to you, than list a certain year minimum of experience required. The hiring process will proceed much more quickly if you can keep applicants away who do not meet the most basic requirements. Also make sure not to leave your advertisement active for very long. If people see an ad of yours for months in a row, they will doubt your seriousness. Even if you have not found anyone for the job yet, pull the ad after a few weeks and give it a rest. Repost your ad after a break, and you will generate fresh interest.
Processing Applicants
Now that the advertisement is running, you will need to begin processing applicants. As you process the applications, you will probably come across some candidates who don’t match your listed criteria at all. To save yourself time, file these separately. Wait to pick favorites until you have reviewed all of your applicants and pulled your advertisement.
Narrowing of Your Applicant Field
Next in the recruitment process steps is the narrowing of your applicant field. By this stage, you should be choosing from similarly skilled candidates. You can be more particular now about how you think the specific job will fit these people. Once the field has been sufficiently downsized, begin the interviewing process. When you have settled upon a chosen applicant, you need to get approval to hire.
The Letter of Offer
Once you have received the green light to hire this candidate, you can prepare the letter of offer. Wait until you have confirmed the applicant’s acceptance of the position to break the news to the other applicants. You do not want to dismiss your other qualified applicants only to learn that your first choice has accepted another position. Once the chosen one has accepted, you can draft and send your rejection letter to the others. Now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor and welcome a new employee to the team.
When these recruitment process steps, or ones similar, are followed, you can be assured that the hiring process will run as smoothly as possible. Keep your process fair and functional. In this manner, you cannot help but find success.
