In human resource management, “recruitment” is the process of finding and hiring the best and most qualified candidate for a job opening, in a timely and cost-effective manner. It can also be defined as the “process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating and encouraging them to apply for jobs in an organization”.
It is one whole process, with a full life cycle, that begins with identification of the needs of the company with respect to the job, and ends with the introduction of the employee to the organization.
when we start process recruiting , we immediately think of activities such as the analysis of the requirements of a specific job, attracting candidates to apply for that job, screening the applicants and selecting among them, hiring the chosen candidates to become new employees of the organization, and integrating them into the structure.
Obviously, the main reason why the recruitment process is implemented is to find the persons who are best qualified for the positions within the company, and who will help them towards attaining organizational goals. But there are other reasons why a recruitment process is important.
What is the recruitment process?
A recruitment process is an organization-specific model of candidate sourcing for the purpose of finding and hiring new employees. Typically, the ownership of the recruitment process resides within the Human Resources function, although companies also use third-party recruiting firms. Ownership can vary depending upon the specific organizational structure of the company carrying out the process.
With all of this in mind, below are the 10 basic steps in the recruitment process. (Remember, the process in individual to each organization, meaning they might omit steps, add steps, move them around, or all three.)
1.Identifying the hiring need
You can’t find what you need . . . if you don’t know what you need. It’s not enough to know that you need [insert position title here]. You must also know the complete job description. However, you must know the description as the last employee who left in the position left it, NOT the description when that person took the job. That’s because chances are good that they took on new/additional responsibilities while in the position. Now the job when they left is different than they job when they arrived.
2.Planning
Once you’ve identified exactly what you need (both in terms of hard skills and soft skills), then it’s time to put a plan together to find what you need. You know what they say: “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. except it’s absolutely correct. Make sure that you get the “buy in” of everybody involved with the hiring process on the steps that will be taken and the communication channels that will be used. All it takes is one misstep to blow everything up.
This is a case where you need to be a “hunter” and not a “gatherer.” Too many companies are “gatherers,” thinking that superstar candidates are going to rain down from the sky like so much manna. No, they are not. Once again, this is why companies hire “headhunters.” They hunt, they do not gather. Not only that, but they’re good at what they do. Hiring authorities and even companies with internal recruiters often cannot match the expertise and connections of a recruiter who “works in the trenches” of the industry day after day.
Finding candidate is also not enough. An organization (or its recruiter) must also find qualified candidates. Anybody can find candidates. They’re everywhere. But those high-level A-players, the kind of candidates your competition would kill for? They’re NOT everywhere. So searching for them, finding them, and identifying them will be more difficult if the first three steps in the process have not been undertaken.
Once viable candidates have been identified, they must be recruited. In other words, they must be sold on not only the opportunity, but also on the organization. Some organizations miss this important distinction. Top candidates are not just interested in a great new job. They’re interested in a great new job with a great new employer. If they like the job, but they don’t also like the employer, then they’re not going to take the job. As mentioned above, recruiting is a major facet of the recruitment process.
Sure, you have a batch of viable candidates, most likely passive candidates, who are interested in the position. But not every single one of them are going to make it through the process. That brings us to the first screening stage of the process, the telephone interview. Ideally, you would have a list of 10 to 15 very strong candidates, all of whom are interested in the position.
The offer stage is one of the most delicate stages of the recruiting process. A hiring manager should never take for granted that a candidate is going to accept an offer. However, if they’ve done all of the proper work beforehand and they’ve double and triple-checked everything, then the candidate should accept the majority of the time. Here’s an important note: if an organization is working with a search consultant, the hiring manager of that organization should let the search consultant extend the offer. That’s what the candidate expects, and that’s what should happen
Why are the offer step and the hire step not combined into one step? Because not every offer of employment is accepted. If every offer was accepted, then yes, we could do that. If a #1 candidate rejects the offer, then the company might extend the offer to their #2 candidate . . . or their #3 candidate, if #2 falls through. Once a candidate does accept the offer of employment, though, that’s when the official hire can be made.
