As a recruiter, having an efficient recruitment process means you can quickly find the ideal candidate to join your company. Indeed, following an optimized recruitment procedure helps you maximize your chances of recruiting the right profile right away, and save an enormous amount of time.
Would you like to set up a good recruitment process? Intuition Software gives you the 10 key recruitment steps to help you find the right profile quickly and avoid mistakes that could cost your company dearly.
Step 1 – Correctly define recruitment needs
There are many reasons for creating or recruiting a new position: a vacancy, the need to expand a team, the need for a new service or skill, a structural change in the company, etc.
It is the company’s needs that will shape the definition of the position, and therefore the recruitment. Depending on the need you’re recruiting for, you’ll be able to draw up a job profile and target a suitable candidate.
A vacancy within the company
Due to promotion, internal mobility or departure, a position may become available. In this case, the position is already established (workload, tools used, tasks to be carried out, etc.) and it will be easy to draw up the job description later.
Team expansion
In this situation, there are usually other people in a similar position who can help to establish the requirements and prerequisites for the rest of the recruitment process. It’s important to consult with teams and managers to find out specifically what needs they have on a day-to-day basis.
New service or skill required
This is a more complicated case of clearly defining the position, given that there is no pre-existing equivalent in the company. You’ll need to rely on the managers who are best placed to identify the need and discuss with them the objectives of the position and the skills required. This analysis is crucial to the recruitment process.
Structural change within the company
During major structural changes (new working methods, takeovers, mergers, process changes), job definition must be a collective effort involving top management, managers and teams. This collective analysis is essential to effectively adapt structure and roles to new requirements.
Step 2 – Create a detailed job description
Once the needs of the position have been identified, it’s time to draw up the job description, which will serve as the basis for an effective job advertisement and will be very useful in the recruitment process.
For your job description to be optimal, there are several key points to consider:
- Job title,
- Position (to which department will the position be attached?),
- Position hierarchy (do you have superiors or a team to manage?),
- Job contacts (with whom will the profile come into contact? In-house, customers, prospects, etc.),
- Main tasks and responsibilities,
- Development prospects (if any),
- Work environment (in situ, travel, telecommuting, specific conditions),
- Expected working hours (quarter-time, half-time, full-time, one-off assignment)
- Skills required of the candidate (hard skills, soft skills or mad skills),
- Level of experience required (junior, confirmed, senior, expert, etc.),
- Diploma(s)/certification(s) required,
- remuneration.
It’s very important to clearly define your needs in the job description, as well as the profile of the candidate you’re looking for, to be sure of attracting the right candidates.
Step 3 – Sourcing during the recruitment process
There are two types of candidate sourcing:
- Internal: to promote internal mobility by calling on existing employees within the company;
- External: to attract talent from outside the company.
During the recruitment process, both options should be analyzed:
- Internal sourcing reduces recruitment costs, encourages employee commitment and improves the employer brand. However, depending on the situation, it may not be advisable, as it can generate tension within the team;
- External sourcing, on the other hand, is best suited to recruitment in a growth context, when there is a need to upskill teams with expert profiles.
Leverage a candidate pool
Using recruitment software such as Jobaffinity, you can easily build up a pool of candidates, i.e. a set of sorted and organized profiles, ready to be consulted when filling a vacancy.
These profiles can come from a variety of sources:
- Unsolicited applications,
- Responses to previous advertisements,
- Extracts from social networks,
- Supplied by recruitment agencies or headhunters,
- Internal recommendations (cooptation or sponsorship).
Having a good pool of candidates greatly facilitates the recruitment process, as it enables you to quickly find suitable profiles without having to resort to external sourcing methods. Even if the person is currently in post, it may be worth contacting them, as they may be open to new opportunities.
Using this pool of candidates saves you the time of advertising vacancies, sorting applications and conducting numerous interviews. Although not all the profiles in your pool are always available or suitable, ignoring this resource could cost you time and efficiency.
Step 4 – Writing an effective job advert
The job advert is a very important step in the recruitment process, especially when sourcing externally, as it must highlight not only the position, but also the company and its culture, in order to attract qualified candidates.
A well-written job advertisement is therefore essential, as it is one of the first points of contact between the candidate and your company. It can’t simply be a job description; it has to appeal to candidates and make them want to apply.
That’s why you need to emphasize the benefits of the opportunity, without overselling the position, the company or the working environment. Be clear, be precise, include only relevant information and aim for transparency.
Mention, for example, details of the workplace, nearby means of transport, the surrounding environment for lunch breaks, so that the candidate can really get a feel for the position. The job description will serve as a basis for writing the job advertisement.
Step 5 – Advertise effectively
During the recruitment process, the aim of publishing your job advert is to reach a large number of candidates, attracting those most suited to the position you are offering.
The main distribution channels are :
- Job boards,
- Your own websites,
- Social networks,
- Recruitment sites.
In all cases, you need to disseminate the job offer via different channels, targeting those that will attract the most qualified candidates. To save time and simplify your life, use our recruitment software, which enables you to multiply your job offers in just a few clicks.
Step 6 – Receiving and sorting applications
During the recruitment process, you will inevitably have to sort through the applications. This stage of the recruitment process can be very time-consuming, as it involves receiving, sorting and analyzing applications received by various means (e-mail, forms, post, telephone, etc.).
This stage need no longer be a headache. Simplify your life by using our Jobaffinity ATS software, which centralizes all applications and enables efficient sorting of CVs, rapid extraction of CV data by parsing, seeing your scores added to hiring questionnaires, etc.
To select the right candidates for the job, managers and recruiters need to work together in the best possible way. Collaborative recruiting speeds up the recruitment process and reduces the risk of hiring errors, by providing complementary perspectives:
- The manager can check that the candidate has the technical skills required for the position,
- The recruiter can check that the candidate matches the company’s culture and values.
Here again, a suitable tool such as our collaborative recruitment software will help you save precious time during your recruitment process.
Step 7 – Arranging interviews
Once the CVs have been analyzed, the next step in the recruitment process is to organize interviews.
Pre-selecting candidates
You can start by pre-selecting candidates by telephone, in order to assess which profiles are most interested in the position. At this stage, you’ll be able to demonstrate your transparency by detailing the recruitment process, providing rapid feedback between each stage, specifying your deadlines, and so on.
According to various studies, the lack of communication on the stages and deadlines of a recruitment process is one of the main reasons why candidates give up, feeling that their profile has not been retained and turning to other positions.
To avoid this, our recruitment software can automate certain stages of the recruitment process, such as sending messages and organizing appointments.
Conducting job interviews
At the heart of any recruitment process, job interviews enable you to validate the information on the CV, assess the candidate’s skills (know-how vs. interpersonal skills), measure the match between the profile and the expectations of the position and the company, and take references.
Following an initial selection, you can organize one or more face-to-face interviews, either alone or in the presence of other stakeholders (line manager, employee, human resources, business expert, etc.).
As the recruitment process can be stressful for candidates, you need to establish a climate of trust right from the start of the interview. This will not only reflect well on the employer, but also help you get the best out of the candidate. You should also prepare yourself well: presentation, motivation, qualities required for the position, general and technical answers, etc.
There are several tools you can use to make your interview a success:
Applicant follow-up
Good candidate follow-up is also essential during the recruitment process. Whether a candidate is unsuccessful, admitted to a second interview or retained, your duty of transparency continues.
For unsuccessful candidates, you must send a rejection e-mail; for candidates selected for a second interview, you must communicate precisely the date, expected duration and content of the interview (personality test, role-play, meeting with a line manager, etc.), etc.
You can keep unsuccessful candidates in your CV library, in case another need arises.
Step 8 – Selecting the right candidate
Once the interview stage is over, you need to select the right candidate for the job. To do this, organize a meeting with the team concerned (employees, line managers, business experts) and make a decision together, based on their feelings, expectations, etc.
Once the candidate has been chosen, you can announce the good news with a personalized message. You’ll then need to complete the formalities associated with any new hire, including :
- The promise to hire,
- Pre-employment declaration,
- Signing the employment contract,
- scheduling the medical examination.
Step 9 – Preparing the candidate’s integration into the company
Although often overlooked, onboarding is a vital part of the recruitment process. In fact, it’s a decisive stage in determining whether or not a candidate will fit in with the company’s culture. To optimize candidate onboarding, you need to :
- Prepare the arrival of the new recruit,
- Encourage teams to welcome them,
- Support the new recruit during the first few weeks,
- Set aside time for training,
- Allow the new recruit to bond with colleagues.
Step 10 – Use software to optimize your recruitment process
To optimize your recruitment processes and gain in efficiency, equip yourself with recruitment software like Jobaffinity. Designed by recruitment professionals, this tool eliminates repetitive tasks (such as multicasting job offers, sorting CVs) and frees up your time for higher value-added activities such as job interviews and candidate integration.
You now have the keys to optimizing your recruitment process. For more advice on your recruitment procedures, read all our Intuition Software blog articles.
