The focus of a new company is usually to launch products, create brand awareness, and hit the road as fast as possible. However, too many companies ignore one critical thing – the hiring process.
Sourcing in HR should never be an afterthought. Proactively refining the way you find, screen, and hire employees is crucial because, after all, employees are the lifeblood of any business.
At Jobvite, we know that recruiting the right employees is often the deciding factor between success and failure. You want to acquire the best talents and skills. To do that, though, you need an effective hiring process.
How to design a better hiring process
Your end goal is to create a process that highlights the company’s culture – mission, vision, purpose, and values – while aligning with the needs of the candidate and remaining free of bias.
To improve your hiring process, consider these tips:
1. Start with inspiring job descriptions
The hiring process often starts with a job advertisement. At this point, the most you can do to better your hiring process is to improve your job descriptions. Make them as appealing as possible, so that once a candidate comes across them, they’re compelled to reach out. And with Jobvite’s free Job Description Grader tool, you can ensure they are free of any unconscious bias.
Remember, you don’t exclusively own the hiring process. It’s a two-way process between your company and the candidates. In fact, the first decision lies with the candidate, who may decide to either apply or pass over your job.
To attract the best candidates, consider including the following details in your job descriptions:
- What you’re looking for and expect from the candidate to succeed in the position
- How you’ll reward successful applicants who’ll accept your offer
- Your business culture, including your targets, interests, and people you serve
- A clearly defined list of skill requirements including the must-have and the nice-to-have skills you’re looking for in the role.
All your job description templates should be consistent to ensure candidates across all platforms get uniform experience. Moreover, have guidelines in place that hiring managers can use to create and update job descriptions. And don’t forget about meeting candidates where they are – social media. Social media recruiting is essential not only to sourcing new employees, but also to expand your brand.
2. Adopt one-time pre-screening
Why should it take your company weeks or even months to hire? This is not only costly but comes at an opportunity cost too. Yet, that’s exactly what most organizations do.
While 36% of firms take roughly four to eight weeks to hire, another 27% take as long as eight to twelve weeks, according to data from Recruitment Buzz. Such a lengthy screening process should not be acceptable in your company.
To avoid taking this long, one pre-screening call per candidate will do the trick. The screening should mainly cover:
- Confirmation of application
- A concise overview of the organization and the position
- Validation of the candidate’s CV and that they accept the salary range
- Ascertaining that the candidate is legally allowed to work at your company’s location
- Finding out what expectations the candidate has of their next employer
- Other clarifications from the candidate
- Tackling any questions from the candidate
- Guidance on what follows in the hiring process
Pro Tip: As candidates are increasingly embracing mobile, think about incorporating text recruiting into your process. Jobvite’s Text Recruiting solutions can seamlessly pre-screen candidates using artificial intelligence and chatbots, saving time and frustration for both recruiter and candidate.
3. Build an optimal interview process
The hiring process should include two types of standard interviews: technical and value based.
Technical interviews
Technical interviews involve having the candidate perform a task to assess their ability to work in the position, largely consisting of behavioral questions. Your aim here should be to leave that interview knowing whether or not the candidate should get the job offer should they do well in the non-technical interview.
In some cases, questions will do. You can identify a person’s suitability for the role just from the way they answer technical questions. Straightforward questions give you a good idea of the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses from the get-go.
That said, the best bet is a brief task. It allows the shy prospects to showcase their abilities in a practical setting, which would be hard in a question-and-answer-only kind of interview.
It’s worth mentioning that long interviews are not recommended. And if it’s unavoidable that you take more than two hours, it’s advisable that you pay the interviewees. It shows you respect their time.
Non-technical/value-based interviews
This kind of interview aims at identifying candidates who align with your organization’s values. Prospective employees can also establish whether their values rhyme with those of the employer brand.
Practical or real-life situation questions will work best in this case. At the end of the interview, you should have evidence supporting that alignment of values and establish the following:
- The candidate’s interpretation of the value
- Whether they have demonstrated the same in the past, and how
- How they’ll exercise the value in your firm if you hire them
4. Have an evidence-based way of rating success
To ensure the process is 100% fair, develop a scoring spectrum, fitting both the company and the position. With such a system in place, you guarantee fairness, regardless of who the interviewer is.
Every task or interview should have specific dimensions that you evaluate candidates on. Have a scale of, for instance, one to five, that you use to rate the candidate. Additionally, include a space for description, where the interviewer can provide evidence for the rating.
The best idea is to have another person present during the interview and to be precise, different people for different dimensions, to help with the rating. This will make the success rating process even fairer and ensure consistent standards in the hiring process.
5. Ensure your hiring process is fast, transparent, and well-planned
The hiring process is critical for any company. Therefore, you need to set clear timelines before you can start the process. This includes the advertisement window, deadline for applications, and interview dates.
Most importantly, be transparent with the candidates, making them aware of all events as they unfold. Be available to the candidates, providing them with updates at every step of the hiring process and what to expect next. That way the candidates feel confident of the process and how you run the firm altogether. Additionally, it prevents scenarios where candidates take another job as a result of unclear timelines.
Jobvite ATS helps recruiters keep track of everything
Times keep changing, and so do the ways of doing things. If you’re still holding on to the old hiring process, it’s time you designed a better one.
More than ever before, recruiters today have a lot to balance when sourcing new employees. There’s so much to keep track of, in fact, that it’s often hard to manage without help.
That’s where Jobvite comes in. Our applicant tracking system is designed to help streamline your hiring process by bringing every piece of the puzzle together under one room. From CRM hiring to interview scheduling to social media management and much, much more, Jobvite makes it easier than ever to find the right candidates to propel your business to success. Visit jobvite.com and request a demo today!
