A Simple Checklist To Set Up Your In-house Recruitment Process

In-House Recruitment Process

What is a recruitment process?

A recruitment process provides a clear road map for both recruiter and potential candidates to ensure the end result is hiring the best-qualified candidate (from within or outside of an organisation) for a job opening, in a timely and cost effective manner.

5 reasons why a recruitment process is important

1. Provides clear process and responsibility guidelines to hiring managers and recruitment teams
2. Applicants like an insight into your Hiring Process, so they know what to expect when they first apply.
3. Helps manage recruitment activity
4. Reduces the risk of making the wrong hire
5. Promotes positive applicant experience and a positive employment brand

Key recruitment process steps

A typical recruitment process is broken up into five stages: Identify Staffing Need, Candidate Sourcing, Candidate Selection, Offer and Induction.

Listed below are the basic process steps, which are tried and true, and suitable for small to medium sized businesses bringing recruitment in-house. We’ve included a few tips underneath each step to help you along the way.

Identify Staffing Need

1. Scope Job Requirement

• Don’t refer only to a position description – too often these are full of jargon; and light on what the job does on a day-to-day basis.
• Create a detailed job brief for your job vacancy by defining why the job exists (is it a replacement or new role); the purpose of the job; what it does on a day to day basis; and what you want it to achieve in the next 12 – 18 months.
• A job brief helps to: communicate the requirement; and create job advert content and screening/selection questions.

2. Obtain Permission to Recruit

• Share job brief/request with your senior manager/HR, and confirm headcount is approved.
• Ensure you have obtained approval to recruit before promoting job.

Sourcing

3. Source Quality Applications

• Write a compelling Job Advert.
• Sell your job opportunity clearly stating what’s in it for the prospective applicant.
• Aim for quality NOT quantity applications. Make it easy for your target audience to self-assess their suitability for your job; and take action to apply.
• Define and reach out to your target audience via multiple marketing channels.
• Proactively search your candidate database and talent pools for suitable candidates and target/research prospects online.

Selection

4. Retrieve and Manage Job Applications

• Provide all applicants with a positive application experience, whatever their result, so they have a good experience with your employment brand.
• Follow a consistent recruitment process and provide timely applicant updates.

5. Review Applications

• Review and match applicants against your job brief requirements.
• Taking the time to include a job specific application form, will save you and the candidate a lot of time in the long run. The application form will help raise the applicant’s understanding of the job opportunity requirements; and self-assess their own suitability for the role. Including knockout questions will reduce your time reviewing applications that don’t match your essential criteria.
• Select the initial shortlist to screen. Typically up to 5 applicants per position.

6. Phone Screen Candidates

• We recommend phone screening up to five applicants per job, with the goal to shortlist three candidates for an interview.
• The quality of the phone screening is very dependent on the quality of questions. Use the Job Brief to help create questions to cover the key criteria.
• It typically checks work experience, work history, availability and communication skills.
• You can tell a lot from a phone screen, such as are they genuinely interested in the role. Plus it’s a quick process to consider candidates with potential. It’s well worth the effort.

7. Interview Candidates

• Job interviews can be completed face-to-face, or online via web conferences / skype.
• It’s important to carry out a structured consistent interview, so you can easily compare and benchmark candidates against your job’s requirement.

8. Assess Candidates

• Assessments can be very useful to provide predictions of job performance.
• These cover personality, cognitive and skill ability assessments.

9. Background Check Candidates

• Complete reference check with two past employers to confirm employment and duration, duties, strengths, areas of improvement and general work ethic.
• Other background checks include: police check, visa check, security check and drug and medical checks.

10. Select Suitable Candidate

• Compare candidate results against your job brief requirements, and select the most suitable candidate.

Offer

11. Obtain Permission to Make Offer

• Check you have approval to make offer (including offer details) with Senior Manager/HR BEFORE making verbal offer.

12. Make Offer of Employment

• Ensure your offer of employment matches the values important to the candidate, creating a compelling offer hard to resist!
• Turnaround the employment contract quickly to secure new employee.

Induction

13. Induct New Employee

• Create a good first impression, and ensure your new employee is set up to succeed from day one, by engaging them in a 90-day induction programme.

Stick to Your Recruitment Process

A recruitment process fails when hiring managers and recruiters skip steps to do things quicker or their own way. The urge is natural but the recruitment process exists for a reason. There are many variables when dealing with people, which in recruitment means a high chance of something going wrong if you step outside the process. Stick to your recruitment process. It will save you from making costly mistakes; and help you hire the right people.

How to set up a Recruitment Process

When setting up your in-house recruitment process, consider who will be responsible for each recruitment step; and what system, tool or template will be used to complete it. Including time frames to complete steps within is helpful to keep the momentum. Speed of response is important in a competitive labour market.

We’ve created a recruitment process checklist template to help you get started (includes an example recruitment process.)