The 7 Fundamental Steps to Improve Your Recruitment Process

Are you looking to improve your recruitment process? Do you want to implement a strategy to find top candidates with more precision and efficiency? What are the best recruitment techniques?

A methodology is essential to structure your recruitment process. In this article, we will review the 7 key steps to follow, from the definition of the position to the hiring process itself, in order to select the best candidates, and to give yourself the best chance of them turning into long-term collaborators!

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The objective of the recruitment process: the stages of recruitment

The objective of the recruitment process is to formalize the stages of the hiring process, boost its efficiency and establish best practices.

What are the 7 steps of the recruitment process?

Step 1: Define a recruitment need

Why a recruitment process?

Ask yourself: why does the company need to recruit? Well, this answer is quite easy: to continue to run its business with the right human resources. A new recruit may be necessary if you:

• have faced the temporary or permanent departure of an employee,
• plan new objectives for the company,
• experience strong growth in your activity, etc.

This need must be budgeted for, as it involves costs, including the mobilization of the people involved in the process, the integration and training of the new recruit, the new salary to be paid, etc.

Step 2: Define the position’s missions and the profile sought

In order to better guide your search, analyse precisely the needs of your department or company. Discuss with the operational staff concerned:

• What profile is required?
• What training is ideal for the position? Or what other professional experience?
• What level of experience in the field is required?
• What technical skills are essential?

The job description must clearly include the missions, tasks, and responsibilities of the person who will occupy the position. Be specific, but embrace some flexibility between essential and highly desired, but not essential, skills to avoid searching in vain for an unrealistic profile.

Also, ask yourself about the amount of time needed to determine if you need a full-time or part-time role.

Also, define the type of contract you are offering:

• Is it a long-term contract?
• Do you want a fixed-term contract that will lead to an open-ended contract or a simple fixed-term contract?
• Do you need temporary employment for a temporary mission, a one-time need?
• Or is it an internship or student placement?

Finally, define a salary range.

Step 3: Write and share the job announcement

Before writing the offer

Make sure that there are no specific profiles who must be given priority for employment within your company: return from maternity leave, change from full-time to part-time or the opposite, economic lay off of less than a year, etc.

💡 The right profile may already be in your company or, if not, you also have the opportunity to look into your own applicant pool.

Writing the ad

Use the profile description as a starting point to write your job posting and make sure to include all the important information:

• job title,
• company,
• nature of the contract,
• skills required and level of experience desired, etc.

Be sure to eliminate any discriminatory criteria, which are prohibited by law.

Take great care when writing your ad. You should:

• think about the tone to adopt,
• be as clear as possible and provide all the necessary information,
• insert essential keywords, etc.

It is essential to take care of your image (or employer brand) to attract talent.

Share the ad

Either you circulate your ad internally, or you turn to the outside world by choosing among multiple possibilities:

• multi-posting on the Internet, through channels such as specialized job sites, job boards (Monster, Indeed), social networks (LinkedIn), etc.,
• a possible recourse to a recruitment agency or a temporary work agency.

☝️ The factors that will influence your choice in terms of diffusion are notably related to:

• the budget you have,
• the urgency of the recruitment,
• the specificity of the profile sought.

Step 4: Sort out applications

If you are in charge of the recruiting process, you have centralized the reception of all the applications and are now sorting them.

Analyse the applications received in relation to the job description and the advertisement, based on the CV and cover letter or other motivational material, and check the references, if any. The screening may be reviewed and refined at a later stage by the relevant line manager.

ℹ️ Be aware that scoring and pre-qualification can be done automatically using an application management and tracking software.

Then choose the most qualified individuals for the rest of the process, and contact them to set up an interview with them.

Step 5: Interview and Test

Your first selection may be through a phone call or a video interview.

Then, once you have narrowed down your list of candidates, you should invite them to a physical interview. There may be a first and a second interview in the presence of other stakeholders, in addition to the recruitment manager: the future recruit's line manager, an employee with key business expertise, etc.

Before any interview, prepare yourself: know which subjects to address (presentation, experience, motivations, qualities required for the position, etc.), and don't forget to observe and gauge the interpersonal skills of the person opposite you.

You can also decide to have them take skills assessment tests or personality tests, to get an initial idea of their interpersonal skills and soft skills.

It's up to you to create the most relevant interview/testing path in light of the challenges of the position you want to fill and the market in which you are evolving.

As a recruiter, your role is to be able to answer possible questions from candidates.

💡 Find out about the practices of a sector to know how much leeway you have: whether the available candidates are numerous or rare and highly prized; and whether the professional culture of the job profile you are looking for favours the same steps in recruitment.

Step 6: Select a candidate

Once the interview phase is over, review the results with the future team to validate the selected profile and make the final decision together.

Once you have decided on the candidate, announce the news to the lucky applicant! A personalized response will also be greatly appreciated by unsuccessful candidates.

Keep the unsuccessful applications for this position in your candidate pool, as they may be of interest for future hiring.

Then complete the formalities related to the hiring process, that is to say:

• the promise of employment,
• registration of the person hired in the personnel register,
• signing the employment contract,

Step 7: Integrate the new recruit

Welcoming and integrating your new employee must not be neglected. This essential step is an integral part of the procedure and must be thought out in advance.

Put everything in place to welcome this person and to encourage their good integration within their position, their team and the company, so that they feel at ease from the start and want to stay as well as to get involved.

How to improve the recruitment process?

Here are a few tips to optimize your process, both in terms of quality and speed:

• Make your recruitment process transparent: try to guide and inform candidates of each step they have to take. This way, you establish a bond of trust with candidates and avoid losing them,
• Multiply the channels to widely distribute your offer and allow it to gain visibility, then use a tool to pre-qualify your applications according to a matching algorithm,
• Centralize the CVs you receive in an online CV library, using an application management solution,
• Work on your employer brand: highlight your company's culture, values, and mission by building a career site that reflects them.

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Be methodical!

To ensure the efficiency of your recruitment process, you must follow the method you have chosen.

Being methodical will allow you to organize your procedure to gain reactivity and competitiveness in the targeted market in order to attract the best talents and not lose some interesting profiles along the way.

Finally, why not fully digitalize your recruitment process? Dedicated tools help automate time-consuming and tedious tasks, and can be customized to fit your recruitment process. You save time, money and energy.

Try them for yourself and discover the extent of the functionalities they offer!