What is your company's hiring process like?

The hiring process, or the recruitment process, includes making the decision to hire a new employee, deciding what skills and experience an employee will need, recruiting for the position, selecting an employee, onboarding, and new employee training.

What are the Steps in the Recruiting Process?

1. Deciding to hire a new employee.

The goal of this stage in the hiring process is to determine if it makes economic sense to fill the position. Sometimes it's pretty clear that an employee needs to be hired. For instance, when a key employee leaves a position. Before hiring, you may want to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the employee will produce enough revenue to cover the costs of recruiting and employing them, or you may be better off using a freelancer.

2. Testing Candidates in the Hiring Process

After the application period has closed, the applications are screened and those who qualify will be called in for the testing procedure. This may be necessary to test the candidate's education level, skills, or abilities. Due to modern technological advancements, testing can be done electronically from the comfort of one's home, although it is not uncommon to ask for the candidates to come in for a paper/pencil test. Depending on the testing thresholds, either the top scorers, or all who pass the test will advance to the interview phase. This step may not always be required in the hiring process; however, if it is, potential employees are usually tested before they come in for the interview.

3. Initial screening of applicants.

Try responding to each application with an email that asks a series of around 5 questions pertinent to the position. The questions should take about 20 minutes to answer and should require the level of experience you'd expect for the job. Average candidates will not respond and great ones will, so it is an easy and efficient screening step.

4. Interviewing candidates.

Start off with a 15-minute phone interview. This will allow you to quickly determine if they really meet your qualifications and if your expectations and goals line up.

5. Making your job offer.

As you go through the hiring process, be sure to check in several times with candidates on what their expected salary is. This can change, depending on other offers they're looking at.

6. Onboarding and new employee orientation.

Once your offer has been accepted, it's time to bring the new employee on board. There will be new employee paperwork you'll need to take care of, and you'll need to introduce them to your team, their workspace, and the company culture. You'll also want to go over projects and expectations for the coming months as part of a complete new employee orientation.