Commonsensical Approach to Better Hiring
People, they say are the most important success driver for any company, yet the first step in on-boarding the best people i.e. recruiting process seems to be flawed in many companies, be it start ups or large MNC's.
In my 15+ years of corporate journey, I have dealt with a lot of recruiters as a job candidate and later as a hiring manager which helped me learn lots of best practices and some "worst practices" to improve my hiring skills as I moved on and how? By learning not to repeat the same mistakes while recruiting a new team member, quite simple!
While I am sure many of the suggested points are followed in many companies, I wanted to share my views as a refresher on correcting some of the shortcomings that not only ruin a candidate's experience but also has a negative domino effect on the company's recruiter branding. It is interesting to note that these shortcomings are not only prevalent in the traditional companies or start ups but also in some of the top companies with greatest HR structures in place.
1. Hiring process schedule - Just like a proper business dealing, recruiters must share a detailed hiring process with the candidates complete with all the fine details like dates, agenda, timelines, expectations etc (& stick to it) to enable a professional evaluation process
2. Job Description with prioritized tasks - Clarity and simplicity are the hallmarks of good resume, same applies to the JD. Especially in a start up environment the job roles have tendency to expand quickly and recruiters must be able to share this scope with prioritized day to day tasks. For example if there are 10 KRAs for a role, it makes sense to enlist it in the order of priority with respective weightage for the candidate to align accordingly.
3. Information on hiring manager/ interviewer - The best interviews are two way processes and information about hiring manager helps candidates accustom better
4. Friendly interview session- The first job of the interviewer must be to ease out the candidate and set the stage for a genuine, natural discussion instead of what may sound like an interrogation
5. Post interview feedback with areas to improve - The candidate invests time and efforts on the hiring process just like the hiring company, the hiring manager must ensure providing an objective feedback along with improvement areas, as an amicable sign of empathy. Post evaluation status are often in black, white or grey, recruiters must convey timely to the candidate as a professional gesture.
6. One click apps - A lot of large companies have tedious online application websites which are repulsive to many potential candidates, therefore it makes good sense to have one click job portals / apps and use a mandatory cover letter as qualitative measure for filtration of best matching profiles for the interview.
7. Recruitment Audit - 1000+ people organizations must have a recruitment auditing process to ensure qualitative aspects of this function.
I hope this post helps you hire better, pls share your thoughts.