5 Important Aspects Of The Recruiting Process

By Danielle Wirsansky on June 21, 2018

The recruiting process is a long and hard one, and not just for employees hoping to get hired. The process is nuanced and has many layers, all of which a recruiter must navigate on their own. A recruiter’s process from a job opening up in your company to filling that position has many steps in between and is almost never immediate. It takes a lot of work!

How do you know you know that people have seen that you are hiring? How do you know that you are getting the best candidates? How do you know you can secure that best candidate once you have found them? There are so many steps to take, and even more in between these. As a recruiter, do not let yourself be overwhelmed by all the things you need to do. Take it easy and remember these five important aspects of the recruiting process to help keep you on track.

Photo by Tim Gouw from Pexels

Spreading the Word

Probably one of the most important steps to the recruiting process is spreading the word about the position you are trying to fill. The other steps are of course important as well, but without this step going well—potential employees finding out about the position and applying—none of the other steps are possible. You cannot respond to candidates, get them in for interviews, make a decision, or seal the deal if no one responds to your job vacancy in the first place.

So most importantly, get the word out! Be creative about it too. You can always make the typical job postings on sites like LinkedIn or Indeed. And you definitely should. Sites that are tried and true are tried and true for a reason. But put your ad far and wide. And a great idea is to really cater to your demographic.

Are you looking for employees looking for entry-level positions that are fresh out of college? Reach out to the Career Centers of surrounding colleges with related programs you admire and let them know.

If you are looking for graduate level employees, you can reach out to the department themselves—the department wants their students to make use of their graduate degrees and bring prestige to their program. They will often forward your ad to every graduate student in the department for you.

Social media is huge now as well, and it is a good time to jump on the bandwagon and involve social media in your process of spreading the word. Facebook now has a handy Jobs posting feature you could utilize to find interested and qualified applicants. It is still an emerging feature, but many, especially those who are competitively scouring the job market for the right position, are aware of it. Get ahead of the curve and the rest of your competition by posting there. You can also join Facebook groups that are specifically for people hunting for jobs. There are groups based on city or region, by age group, by industry. Find ones that have members that fit into your potential demographics and let it loose. You are sure to get more candidates that way.

There are other platforms as well besides Facebook. Twitter is a great way to get the word out about potential jobs. When you tweet, be sure to use relevant hashtags so that Twitter users can actually find your tweet on the web. And if you tweet out a link to your job posting, be sure to use bit.ly or another service that will condense your link for you AND let you track how many clicks your link gets (as well as where the clicks are coming from). That way you can see which posting is working most successfully for your company and make strides to improve how you get the word out while recruiting.

Infographic by Danielle Wirsansky

Responding to Candidates

So now you have gotten the word out. People are responding to your job posting and applying for the position. But we both know that does not mean your job is over. Far from it! Now that people are responding and applying, perhaps asking questions along the way, you have got to stay on top of all that correspondence and respond back to those candidates!

The first step to staying on top of your correspondence is to make sure you keep track of where you shared the job postings, like through what websites and which email address is it connected to? You want to make sure your emails are not slipping through the cracks, because you never know which application or email is from just the right candidate you have been searching so hard for.

You do not want to lose out on hiring the right process because you did not see their application in time, or even at all. You want to make sure that everyone who applies gets a fair and fighting chance to be considered for the position, and that means that everyone’s application needs to be seen and duly received.

You also need to answer questions that are sent your way. That can be annoying and take up a lot of your time, but it is an important step. Sometimes potential applicants can point out holes in your ad that you need to fix or highlight any discrepancies in it. Sometimes their questions will help you to clarify a point about the position that you had not even yet considered. It can also help you to weed out employees who do not read your posting and follow directions well, because they ask obvious questions that were answered in your ad or blatantly do not follow the instructions laid out in the ad of how to apply for the position.

And when you respond, remember to always be courteous and pleasant because you do not want to chase away a potential candidate who stops being interested in the open position because of the way that you handled yourself or addressed them in their correspondence. They could be asking the most stupid of questions, questions that would be quickly answered for them if they simply actually read your ad instead of emailing you to give them a summary of what you already said.

If a potential candidate is fighting you on a point or getting belligerent about a specific point that they disagree with but that is non-negotiable on your side of the table, just breathe. Stay calm, cool, and collected. Remain professional, even when provoked.

Getting Candidates in the Door

Okay, okay, you have got candidates applying for your company’s open position. Getting applications is just one step, and just because an application looks good in writing does not mean that person is the right fit for your company. You have got to get them through the door, whether physically or virtually, and talk with or interview them. It is almost never recommended to just hire someone simply off of their application without speaking with them any further and making sure that the claims they made on their application are true.

It could be as simple as a phone call. It could be as elaborate as a Skype interview. You can also go the extra step and do an in-person interview to really be sure that this person is the right fit for the position and your company. But it is most important to actually nail down the candidate and get them in the door.

A huge aspect of securing the right person is moving in a timely fashion because most likely, if a candidate applied for your open position, they are on the hunt. They are actively looking for a new job, and your job is probably not the only one they have applied for. The job market is a competitive place and employees have learned that it is best not to put all their eggs in one basket. They cannot afford to set all their hopes on one job only to have it all dashed when they do not receive the job in the end. They need that new job—and usually, fast!

So maybe you found a great candidate—you cannot let it sit. Because if you think that they are a great candidate, then most likely, the other places they have applied to will think that they are a great candidate as well. If this candidate is really the best option, secure them so that they are no longer a candidate but actually an employee of your company.

If you wait too long, they could get snatched up by a competitor, and no one likes that kind of ending. And why would you want to wait anyway? You want the empty position in your company filled as soon as possible. So be sure to stay on top and get those candidates in the door as soon as you can so that you can streamline the hiring process.

Making the Right Choice

You have done it. You got the ad out. You got people talking about the position. More than that, you got people to apply for the position. Now you have held your interviews, met the candidates, and confirmed their references. Everything checks out. You have a few really solid candidates and any one of them might be a great fit. But who will be the best fit? Who will you choose to move from candidate to actual employee? It can be a hard decision, but one that has to be made.

You have looked at the skills each candidate possesses. They meet your prerequisite requirements. Now you must look beyond that. Will this person’s schedule align with the hours they would need to work for the position? Has this person flitted from job to job? Because if so, how do you know that they will stay with your company for very long? Do they have a track record of sticking with and being loyal to a company? How did they do in the interview portion? Were they able to speak comfortably and capably about their work and skills? Is there someone whose vibe fits with the workplace environment best? What is their social media presence like? Do they fit the image that your company wants to present?

There are a lot of questions you can ask yourself to help you make the right decision. If asking all of these questions makes it too confusing, you can always revert to the tried and true method of a pro and con list. And often writing out your reasoning can help you to keep track of your thoughts and help show a clear path to the absolute right candidate. Even though making the right choice can be a difficult thing to actually accomplish, when you get it right, you really get it right. Not only does it reflect well on you and your own competency in being able to find the right people to fill positions at your company, it will make your company run smoother and work more efficiently. And when your company is successful, that only means brighter things for your own future.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Sealing the Deal

You have done it, you have found the holy grail—the right candidate to hire for that pesky empty position in your company! You have made the arduous journey. You made the ads, you spread the news, you emailed countless people, read numerous applications, interviewed so many applicants, and you have narrowed it down to one single applicant.

But just because you have chosen an applicant does not mean that that applicant will choose your company back and accept the offered position. You have got to handle your offer with aplomb and make sure that you seal the deal. Anything could break down in the negotiation. It could all crumble over a disagreement about hours, about benefits, about duties. Maybe by the time you made your decision they were offered another position that you now have to compete with. But you did all this work and you know that this applicant is the one. Be sure to seal the deal!

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