9 Basic Steps in the Recruiting Process

9 Basic Steps in the Recruiting Process
You are responsible for the day-to-day operations of the
department and are knowledgeable around the business
functions. What about the people tasks? Managing
employees starts with recruiting...finding the right talent.

I've created a simple systematic guide to help you through
the maze of hiring the right talent.

1.Job Opening - decide who owns the recruiting
process...you or Human Resources. In some companies, HR
drives the process. In smaller companies, the manager is
usually in charge of whole process. If it is HR, you still
need to be involved during many of the steps.

2.Job Description - whether you are filling a replacement
or a brand new position, you need a job description.
Before any outside recruiting efforts start, review or
create a job description. If you are replacing a
position, this is a great time to evaluate how this
position can best add to your department.

3.Pay - be clear around how much your budget can handle, or
if you have pay scales, know what the company's range is
for this role. Keep in mind a few thoughts around this
subject: the experience of the potential employee you are
seeking, what others are making performing the same
responsibilities and what can you afford to meet your
budget. If you have an HR Department, they can be a support
in this matter.

4.Advertising the position - you can advertise in any of
the online job boards, specialty job boards or magazines,
newspapers, or local papers. An outside recruiter can be
hired to recruit, depending on the difficulty of finding
talent for the position or your time availability is
limited in the search process. Don't forget internal
candidates for the position.

Another resource for finding talent is your current
employees. When I was actively recruiting full time I was
successful in hiring 34% of my new hires via employee
referrals. They can be your talent scouts. Start an
Employee Referral plan where you compensate the employee
who locates strong talent for you.

Many companies have Applicant Tracking systems to help with
the gathering and sorting of resumes. If your company has
many open positions, I would highly recommend that you
purchase a system.

Even if you don't have an applicant tracking system, you
could use Microsoft Outlook to take incoming resumes and
put them in the appropriate folder. For example, you are
looking for two different sales functions...sales manager
and junior sales rep. Make sure in your ad you require the
subject line to state either Sales Manager or June Sales
Rep. As the email hits your inbox, with the right set up
on your PC, each email with the resume will go into the
appropriate folder.

5.Screening Process - who is responsible for the first
level screening of resumes? You, HR, or someone in your
department who is experienced and knows the type of
candidate you want to interview. They will go through the
many resumes, using the job description as their guide, and
locate the candidates that best match.

If HR does the screening, they usually send their top
resumes to you for your initial review. They can also do
the first level interviewing before you even see the
resumes. Then they present their best candidates to you.

Note: Before recruiting, create a list of "who does what"
so everyone is clear and the process runs smoothly.

6.Interviewing Questions - put some thought into what you
want to know about each of the candidates. Create a list
of 10 open-ended questions that you will ask all of the
candidates.

Open-ended questions insure that the candidate answers with
more than a "yes" or "no." For example, if it is a
customer support position you are seeking to fill, ask the
candidate "tell me a time when you were faced with a
difficult customer, what was the situation, and how did you
handle it, and was the customer satisfied or not.

Create a separate sheet for your interview questions and
capture the candidate's answers on that sheet. Don't write
on the resume...keep that clean. If another person
interviews the candidate, he/she is not swayed by your
perceptions. Give them your list of questions as a
guide...without the answers.

7.Lists of Interviewees - create a list of potential
interviewers and notify them of their responsibility in the
recruiting process. You can have individual 1:1
interviews or a group interviewing process. Try to be
organized as you don't want to drag out the interviewing
process because of schedules. When I was actively
recruiting, losing a candidate happened because of a long
interviewing process.

8.Reference Checking - always check references. There are
companies that will not provide any references, though I
tell the candidate that I want references that will have a
conversation with me about their performance. I request
from them a manager or two that has supervised them, as
well as a peer who has worked side by side with them.
Then create a list of questions that you will ask the
references. Be prepared and you will hear what the
references are saying and what they are not saying.

9.Decision Time - time to gather everyone who has
interviewed the candidates and make a decision who you will
offer the position to and the reasons for this decision.

==>Final Thought

Your decision should be based on their skills, experience
and ability to work in your environment...be careful around
discrimination issues, such as race, sex, age or physical
disabilities. Can the candidate do the job? Why have you
chosen this candidate over the other candidates?

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Pat Brill is the author of the blog "Managing Employees"
http://www.ManagingEmployees.net . You can reach her at
pat@managingemployees.net.