Your guide to an effective recruitment process

Finding and securing talent can be a long journey without a successful recruitment process in place. Here is your guide to an effective recruitment process.

Recruiting for success

According to Jim Collins in his book, ‘Good to Great’, a business’s success is linked to “getting the right people on the bus.”

If we are to continue with this analogy, the first step is getting candidates to the bus ticket booth to just consider getting on the bus. What might attract them? A fair fare, bonuses on the ride, and, of course, the destination. Salary, work perks and career goals or alignment.

Steps for an effective recruitment process

Market the opportunity

For your best bet at attracting candidates, approach your recruitment strategy with marketing principles in mind. Crafting compelling job descriptions is one way to communicate perks and anything enticing about working for your company. Consider the top drivers for candidates by industry to really appeal to what matters to them most.

Consider also building career pages on your website that tells a story about progression opportunities. General brand awareness activities (like on your social channels) will also bolster the reputation of your company and increase your odds of attracting the right candidates.

Approach passive candidates

Not all the right people will be actively looking for an opportunity. It will also help to diversify your talent pool by reaching out to potential talent directly. Reach out to people on LinkedIn whose experience impresses you. Encourage employee referrals. Or use Seek Talent Search to reach out to candidates who may have recently looked for a job but have not applied directly to your advert.

If you don’t have the time or are unsure about identifying passive candidates, a recruiter is a good resource as they have established networks.

Engage your applicants

During the recruitment and selection process, ensure that you are prioritising the candidate experience. Be clear about timelines so applicants can manage their expectations. Touch base at each step of the selection process, from interview to shortlist, to ensure you’re both on the same page.

Be fair

Conduct your candidate assessments with objectivity. Set interview questions that will help you best predict job success. Ask this same set of questions to all candidates. Their responses will give you a baseline to compare your candidates, free of bias.

We deep dive into eliminating bias here: ‘How to avoid bias in the recruitment process‘.

Be compliant

Ensure you are compliant when dealing with candidate data throughout the recruitment process. Compliance deals with things like reference checking, psychometric testing, and data security. A specific software usually supports recruitment compliance, like the ATS JobAdder.