6 tips for a more efficient recruitment process

By: Omar Abdul-Hafiz

We all know how recruiting new talent can be tedious and complicated as finding a needle in a haystack. Especially now with the power of the Web, the job applications a single job announcement receives can be numbered in the thousands. Do you really need to sift through all these documents one-by-one just to single out a few candidates that proceed to the next level of the hiring stage?

Do you even have the time, let alone the effort, to do that? Of course not!

So, in this article, we will give you 6 simple tips that will certainly make this mission all the easier for you. So, here goes!

1. Start from within

If you have a vacant position that you need to fill as soon as possible, it is best to start by looking for a candidate within your organization. For example, if the position was a project manager, the candidate might as well be someone within the team working on that project. Otherwise, you might want to scan through your staff database to see if you already have someone qualified and willing to move to the new role.

In fact, giving the role to a candidate from within the organization may be a healthy sign of a dynamic work environment. It can make your employees feel that, with the right effort, there may very well be a chance for them to grow with you! This will certainly help to keep them from looking for a new opportunity outside.

 

2. Better job requirements, better applicants

Okay, so you’ve looked all around your staff database and just couldn’t find that one employee who is capable of handling this particular role? No problem. This only means that now is the time to look outside. This is where you will have to go through the same old sophisticated process that will hopefully lead to a new employee who is properly qualified to fill that vacant position.

At this point, you will have to craft a good job description to use in your job announcement, and here’s the catch. One major problem with employers is that they do not pay close attention to how they write the job description. After all, it is a known fact a poor job posting can be the main cause for low quality and quantity of applicants.

For that reason, you need to craft your job description in such a way that it is inspirational and exciting. The person reading the job details should be able to visualize him/herself as if they are already part of the job environment.

For example, instead of dull phrases like “the candidate will be responsible for…”, use emotional and intriguing phrases such as “you will have the opportunity to…”.

Also, in the job description, you will have to list your job requirements. The job requirements section must not look like a shopping list of qualifications that you are looking for. Instead, the best way to write the job requirements is in such a way that it answers the question, from the candidate’s perspective, “why is this the right job for me?”. 

3. Screen, and screen again

After you have created your job posting, job applications will start to trickle in, and this is where the situation tends to become hectic. If you follow the right, approach, however, you can make it a lot easier.

When – not if, but when—you are faced with the situation where you have a gigundous number of job applicants all trying their chances at getting the job, the best way to go from here is to follow a two-step screening process. It goes like this.

• Pre-pre-screening: In this step, the candidate will do an initial screening test just to see if they are eligible to work for you in the first place or not. At this step, you’ll be asking candidates simple yes/no questions such as “Are you available to work immediately?”, “Are you a resident of this or that country?”, “Do you have a driving license?”, or “Will you now, or in the future, require sponsorship to work in this country?”.

• Pre-screening: This is where you can ask further questions in more detail. Asking these questions at the beginning will save you, and your candidates, a lot of time and effort.

By applying a two-step screening process, chances are you will reduce the number of candidates considerable so that you can focus only on the ones that you can actually hire, and who are eligible to proceed to the next step.

4. Improve your interviews

Now that you have a shortlist of candidates who made it this far, it is time to have a face-to-face interview with each one to determine the finalist who will take the job. And the way you carry out the interviewing process is very important. To do that, there are several things that you can consider.

For instance, try to make it easier for your candidates to choose a time and date that best suits their schedule. You can give them two or three timeslots and have them choose the one that they prefer. Before the interview, you should already have a plan of questions and things you want to find out about the candidate. This will help you have a more structured interview. During the interview, focus on questions that directly contribute to the evaluation process. You should also take notes of the responses you get for future use. You may remember the answers and the impression you get about the candidates right after the interview. However, after interviewing more candidates, it becomes harder to remember such details.

5. Where do rejected candidates go?

So, where do all the candidates that you rejected go? Do you discard their information entirely? Of course not! A candidate who did not make it right now may have a better chance later on. Therefore, having a database of rejected candidates can help make it much easier for you to find new talents in the future as you won’t need to start your hiring process from scratch every single time. 

6. Utilize the power of the digital!

This is the cherry on the top. Do you want your talent hunting and recruitment process to be as simpler and systematic as it can get? Well, the answer is in digitalization.

By utilizing a powerful human resources and talent management system, you will certainly save your human resources department a lot of time and effort. These systems are designed to automate every step of the recruitment process from screening candidates, all the way toward hiring and onboarding. Moreover, automating your hiring process enables you to focus on maintaining a high-quality standard in your human resources department.

Check out ESKADENIA Software’s high-end human resources management system, ESKA® HR.