Hiring the right people for your company is essential to ensure the success of your business. Not only do you want to make sure that the people you are hiring align with your ethos and values, but they also need to blend well within your existing team and have the relevant skills to thrive in the position to fulfill.
In most cases, the potential candidates applying for a job are numerous, which can make it difficult to assess the skills of potential employees. The best way to make sure you choose the ideal candidate for the job is to have a foolproof hiring process and leverage psychometric and assessment tools. In this guide, we explain what a hiring and recruiting process is, why it is so important and how to improve your recruiting process in order to optimize the success of your business.
What is a hiring process?
The hiring process refers to the period in which prospective employees are vetted for a new role within a company. It involves identifying potential candidates, screening applications, testing skills, and interviewing candidates.
It is the time during which company owners, managers and those in charge have the opportunity to look for new talent and select who they think is best for a particular job position. There are different ways in which a company can approach a hiring process, and how they do it depends on the type of business. While big companies rely on head-hunting agencies to bring forward the best job candidates, smaller companies use other methods such as posting ads on LinkedIn to attract job seekers.
How long should the recruitment process be?
The duration of the recruitment process depends on different factors, but on average, it takes anywhere from 33 days to 49 days to complete. The industry that is hiring is a big determining factor in how long the recruitment process will last. For example, retail and hospitality jobs have a much shorter recruitment time than big tech companies.
According to findings by LinkedIn, the engineering industry has the longest recruitment time, as it takes 49 days to find the right applicant. In contrast, administrative jobs have the shortest recruitment time, as it takes an average of 33 days to fill a job position. When accompanied by HR specialists that use valid and reliable tests, recruitment processes can be as short as 7 to 10 days.
In the current context of staff shortage, it is imperative that organizations optimize their recruitment process. However, hiring the wrong candidate will cause more issues than the ones needing to be solved. After all, hiring the wrong candidate can incur significant costs. Do things properly. Timeliness is a factor, but it is not the only one. Organizations should take their time to thoroughly vet all the qualified candidates and find the perfect fit, otherwise they will have to repeat the entire process again.
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Benefits of getting your hiring process right
The main advantage of developing an effective hiring process is that companies find the perfect candidates.
Here are other key benefits to getting the recruitment process right:
- Maintain a healthy working environment;
- Improve efficiency and productivity;
- Do not have to waste time or money rehiring if you get the wrong person;
- No risk of a bad hire damaging your company’s reputation;
- Better employee retention.
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What steps are involved in the hiring process?
The hiring process follows a specific structure in order to find the ideal candidates. Below are key steps that are involved in the hiring process:
- Analyze your company’s needs;
- Describe your ideal candidate (skills, experience, personality, etc.);
- Post the job opening on the medium that best suits your company;
- Contact or set in motion alternative hiring methods. Third parties can help you find the perfect candidate;
- The screening process. This is when you review all the applications you have received;
- The testing process. This is when you administer standardized tests to candidates to make sure that they have what it takes to do the job;
- Begin the interview process by bringing in candidates whose applications were promising;
- Check the references and background of the individual you want to hire;
- Present your favourite candidate with an offer.
This is a generic hiring process template that most companies follow when looking to find new employees. It is an effective process, but it should be personalized according to the specific needs of your company.
5 tips for improving your hiring process
1. Know what you want
Having confidence in what you are looking for is the first step in improving your hiring process. Before the talent acquisition process even begins, you need to have a clear idea about the mission of your company, its corporate culture and its values. Otherwise, it will be hard to find individuals who fit within your work environment.
Before hiring new employees, you should look at your current employees and your company as a whole and identify the characteristics that they share that makes your company what it is. You want to look for candidates who display similar characteristics to ensure they will fit well in your company.
2. Be specific in your job descriptions
In order to streamline the applications that you receive, it helps to be extremely specific in your job description. This way, you will avoid receiving applications from unqualified candidates. The selection process is already draining enough as it is, no need to muddy the waters with incompatible candidates. When you create descriptive and personalized job ads, you only attract people who have the specific skills needed for the job.
Your job description should include the following information:
- Job title,
- Job experience needed,
- Main duties and responsibilities,
- Location,
- Required qualifications,
- Preferred qualifications,
- Work environment,
- Employee benefits,
- Company culture,
- Working conditions,
- Compensation (this is optional).
All these details will help streamline your hiring process.
3. Use psychometric and assessment tools
There is only so much that your hiring team can do to find the ideal candidate. Thankfully, you can use assessment and psychometric tools to go a step further in your hiring process and determine whether candidates possess the skills required for a job position. HRID has a range of different tests adapted to the specific needs of your company, whether you want to test leadership skills, emotional intelligence, personality, project management skills, etc.
Through years of careful development and collaboration with HR professionals, academics and psychometric testing experts, HRID has created a vast catalogue of over 60 psychometric tests for employers. This is a great way to minimize the risk of hiring incompetent employees.
4. Personalize your recruitment process
The old days of posting an ad for a job and letting candidates roll in are long gone. HR departments and recruitment teams have to put a lot more effort nowadays if they want to find the right person for a job position. As the digital age has taken over, it is essential that employers adopt and follow the new trends in recruitment.
For example, many companies hire headhunters to find passive candidates who are perfect for the role, but are not necessarily currently looking for a job. Moreover, since social media has taken the world by storm, it is a brilliant way to find potential employees, especially if you are in the content creation or marketing field. Make sure to explore all the different recruitment options to personalize your recruitment process and find the strategy that works best for your company.
5. Be open
The most important tip that we can give you is to be open. Although you should have a clear idea of what you are looking for in a candidate, use this only as a template and do not be afraid to go off-road. It might be the case that a candidate possesses all the qualities you seek in an employee, however, they wish to work remotely. Even though you may not currently be hiring remote employees, if you can adapt, and it’s not too much of an issue for you, this could be a great opportunity.