4 Steps of robust Recruitment process

Recruitment is one the essential part of HR Operations. It is all about hiring people which are required to execute various tasks and responsibility in the organization at various levels. Every organization has different requirement of the kind of people they need. HR should know about business they are into, so that they can understand that hiring requirement well and able to find out candidates who are best fit for handling such responsibility.

Hiring process is not only the responsibility of HR department but a combined responsibility of both HR and Hiring manager. Hiring managers play an important role in successful recruitment process. Many hiring managers do not spend adequate time with HR to make them understand qualities and capabilities they need in the candidate they are looking for. HR need to ensure that correct and timely hiring should take place hence a well defined process in recruitment will definitely going to help to achieve this objective.

Here, I am drafting a process which is quite simple and easily implementable in any organization. I have used it in many organizations and got desired results. Of course I made some changes to suit a particular organization. You can make changes wherever required as per your organization need.

Here are the steps to successful Recruitment Process:

Step 1. Getting details of position to hire from hiring manager

This is first and very important step in recruitment. You must have heard of saying “Garbage-in- Garbage-out”. Hence if hiring manager, do not give complete and correct information about the kind of person he is looking to hire, HR will surely hire wrong kind of person or the process of recruitment will take longer time as hiring manager will keep rejecting candidates sourced by HR basis wrong inputs. Some of hiring managers do not take hiring process very seriously and hence they are not very keen in spending kind with HR to make them understand about kind of person they are looking for or some time they are so busy with other operational work that they are not able to take time for this. Hence to simplify this, if HR can create a format, let’s say, “Manpower Requisition Form” (Short form MR Form) to collect information required for a position. You can name it whatever you feel like.

MR Form should be designed thoughtfully so that, it covers each and every important information, which will help recruiter to find correct match. Some these are as follows:

·         Job Tile
·         Grade
·         Number of Positions
·         Location
·         Replacement/ New Hire
·         Replacement of (In case of Replacement)
·         Reporting Manager
·         Hiring Manager
·         Contact details of Hiring Manager
·         Salary Range
·         Employment Type (Permanent, Contractual, Trainee, Consultant)
·         Contractual Duration (If applicable)
·         Mandatory Educational Qualification
·         Desirable Educational Qualification
·         Certification (If Any)
·         Minimum years of experience
·         Maximum years of experience
·         Any Specific Industry to look for
·         Any specific companies to look for
·         Job Description (Attach separate document if required)
·         Gender Specific (if any)
·         Age Criteria (if any)
·         Expected on board date
·         English Communication Scale Required (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Average, Below Average)
·         Knowledge of any other language
·         Interviewer Level 1
·         Interviewer Level 2
·         Interviewer Level 3
·         Any other specific criteria to keep in mind

You can add few more fields as your requirement. As you can see that we have tried to capture almost every information which is required before we start our hiring process. In fact if HR has all these details before hiring starts, then it is easy for recruiter to do a “Job post” on job portals also quickly. All above fields are self explanatory, hence I am not going to describe about them in detail but yes, I would surely like to describe about last field in the list i.e. “Any other specific criteria to keep in mind”. This is important. Many times there are very specific conditions which are not captured in any of the field hence hiring manager can mention such requirements here. For example, If hiring manager wants that the perspective candidate must have not changes more than 2 companies in last 5 years or candidate should have own conveyance etc. then such requirement can be mentioned in this field.

Maintaining Master file of Manpower requirement and capturing progress

You should maintain a master file (Let’s call it “MR Tracker”) where you keep record of all the manpower requisition and progress on these position so that report can be generated whenever required. You can simply create a spread sheet to do so.

Here are the information you should maintain in that spread sheet.

• MR Code : This is unique code which you should assign to each requisition raised. In case hiring manager mention more than one position in MR format then separate MR Code should be issued.
• Date of MR Raised
• Information mentioned in MR Format should also be capture i.e. Designation, Gradde, Replacement/ New Hire, Replacement of (In case of Replacement),Reporting To
• Hiring Manager Name, Educational Qualification (Essential), Educational Qualification (Desirable) so on
• TAT (Turn Around Time): This is time frame which you have pre defined to close any position. You can have one TAT for all positions to close or you can have different TAT depending upon level / grade of position you need to hire. For Example, you can keep following TAT depending upon position to hire:

o   Below Assistant Manager                                             :               30 Days

o   Assistant Manager to Manager                                  :               45 Days

o   Above Manager to below General Manager        :               60 Days

o   General Manager                                                            :               75 Days

o   Above General Manager                                              :               90 Days

• Status : This field captures status of each MR Requisition i.e. Open (No action taken yet), WIP (Work in Progress), Offer Made, Closed (Means candidate has joined), Withdraw (Position withdrawn by Hiring Manager), Hold (Position put on Hold by Hiring Manager) , Un Hold (Position reopen by Hiring Manager)
• Date of position on Hold and Un Hold
• Closure Date
• Name of Candidate Selected
• Mobile number of selected candidate
• Expected DOJ
• CTC Offered
• Source of Hiring : Job Portal, Newspaper, Employee Reference, Campus Selection, Consultant, Other Source
• Source Description
• Candidate Joined (Yes / No)
• Actual DOJ
• Remarks (If any)

If you maintain all above information for each position then you will be able to generate all possible reports like followings:

·         How many positions are open , WIP, Close, hold etc?

·         How many hiring are under TAT or exceeded TAT?

·         Grade wise positions along with closure status etc

You need to learn excel to generate various reports from information available in MR Tracker.

Step 2: Finding suitable candidate and sending details to hiring manager

Once hiring related information is available with recruiter, recruiter can start the sourcing process. I will not talk about various sources by which recruiter can source candidate as I am assuming that you must be aware about it.

Once a suitable candidate is found and interested, recruiter need to forward the details of candidate to hiring manager. I would suggest that before lining up the candidate for face to face interview it will be wise that resume of candidate along with his suitability against each parameter (given by Hiring Manager in MR Format) should be sent to hiring manager. This will ensure that hiring manager has gone through the resume and agreed that candidate is worth for telephonic / face to face round. This saves time of HR, hiring manager and candidate. Also if possible, telephonic round should be arranged to ensure hiring manager can judge further suitability on technical aspects before Face to Face round. I have experience that chance of selection during Face to Face interview of candidate who has been screened and shortlisted through resume and telephonic round is very higher as compared to candidate who is aligned directly for face to face interview.

While sending resume to manager to check suitability, you should ensure followings:

·         Attach resume of candidate, very obvious.

·         Provide information about candidate against each parameter mentioned in “MR Format”. Example, if the minimum experience required is 5 years then what is the experience of the candidate you have sourced. Similarly information against each parameter should be mentioned. This will help a lot in ensuring that you are not hiring a wrong person and you have checked all required parameters before sending it to hiring manager. A Recruiter work on various positions at one time and with this kind of format in place, it will help recruiter to ensure that recruiter has checked all the parameter required for the position hence less chances of rejection of candidate.

Step 3: Mid Recruitment Process

There are many things which will make your recruitment / hiring process faster and robust.

· Once you send candidate details to hiring manager, ensure that you follow up with hiring manager to get the feedback. Do not forget assuming that hiring manager will revert some day and then you will process further. If you don’t get the feedback on time then your TAT to close the position will increase and sourced candidate may no longer be interested in your company or may have joined somewhere else.  If required take your seniors in loop to get the feedback on time.
· Communication is very important during recruitment. You need to ensure that you communicate about each and every update to all the party involved including candidate. For Example, When telephonic round is confirmed then communicating date and time of telephonic round to both hiring manager and candidate.
· Not only communication but quick communication is important. For example, first thing in the morning, you should call candidates who are lined up for interview so that you can share current status with hiring manager i.e. update that candidate is on way, refused, want to postpone, not reachable etc so that hiring manager is updated.

Step 4: Finalizing candidate

Once candidate is finalized by all concern managers then following process should be followed:

· Salary Proof : Always ask salary proof from candidates. There are many cases where candidate do forge their current salary and one of the major lie people tell about their current pay package is the cash salary for which proof cannot be produced. I follow a set process to ensure that probability of person forging salary is very low. As salary proof, I always ask for Salary slip and Bank Statement where entry of that salary transfer can be seen. I do not consider cash salary payout at all.
· Tell candidate that once offer is made to him and accepted then candidate need to put down his paper in current organization and send copy of same to you. Also candidate needs to send acceptance copy of resignation, where date of relieving is mentioned. By doing so, you are minimizing the risk of candidate not joining you. You can work on back up arrangement, if required.
· Always get approval from hiring manager on salary to be offered. Many times, this becomes an issue hence it’s better to get your verbal things documented for future reference.
·  Explain the complete offer to candidate which includes salary structure, other benefits, documents to submit while joining and any other important information. All such things should be in written and take written acceptance from candidate.

With above practice in place, you will be able to make your recruitment a HAPPY RECRUITMENT. Check out my post 7 Tips to increase possibility of candidate joining after offer made to him and 3 Basic steps to do before candidate joining!!

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