HR Challenge-How to identify right fit for your company?

Traditional hiring is outdated now where HR use to line up candidates and ask them to meet hiring manager after asking some routine questions like “Tell me about yourself” or “Why you want to change your job?” etc. HR is now playing a vital role in ensuring that person getting hired should be fit for organization along with technical fitment. HR need to ensure that person hired should also be evaluated on fitment with organization culture to avoid early attrition. Organizations have understand cost of hiring wrong candidate now, who do not fit to company, hence there is always a huge pressure on HR to ensure hiring of a right fit candidate.

Fitment to company culture

Every organization has a culture which is different from other. As HR professional, we should know about our culture well and kind of people who will fit into it. It can be small thing as working hours and kind of flexible work hours which company provides or most important one like career growth path an employee can get in organization.  HR should be sensitive about fitment of a candidate with its organization culture. 

Let’s say, a candidate who has been working in 5 days a week pattern will feel hesitant to join a company which is 6 days a week pattern. Candidate has a life style based on 5 days a week working and suddenly when it changes, he feels un comfort and try to look for change.

If your company culture is driven by outcome and not by number of hours a person spends in office or you may ask a person to work after office hours due to global presence for video calls etc, then you need to see how much a candidate is comfortable with all this. 

If your organization believes in capabilities and not in number of years a person spends in your organization for promotion then you need to ensure that candidate should be motivated to give results and his past experience should reflect the same. Candidate who have grown in same company, meaning being promoted are the one who have proved their capability to deliver. So you can see that angle.

HR should keep their conversation in line to understand fitment of candidate to organization culture. HR needs to take a cautious decision after conversation with candidate. Not necessary that all the aspects should match but no negotiation on critical one.

Profile match is critical

Now a day, a HR professional is successful only when he knows about business and its processes. HR should know what a business unit does and various job profiles present in that business unit. Also what are deliverable of a job profile. This way HR will know what kind of person will fit into.

HR should ensure that candidate is fit for the profile and kind of work person need to do. HR should double check with candidate and ensure profile match. A candidate may agree to do work which he has never done just to grab the offer but HR should identify interest level of candidate before taking final decision.

Recently, we were looking for a person in IT who can take up both desktop and networking level assignment. I come across many candidates who agreed to do the job but during conversation with them I have felt that they actually wanted to go to networking and less interested in desktop level work. Reason was quite simple, they feel that they have already crossed the stage of desktop level engineering. Fair enough. 

Then we decided to find a candidate who is in desktop engineering and have networking certification and looking to make career in networking field. Such candidates will fit to the profile as they have no hesitation in handling desktop level work and learn networking together.

Candidate’s expectation from company is utmost important

It’s not about what a company want, it is also about what a candidate wants. You must have come across many cases where candidate say no to company due to various reason. It can due to profile mismatch, salary expectation, working hours etc. Hence HR should always ask what does a candidate wants from his new job assignment and company. Accordingly HR should take his call. Respect candidate expectation.

Trust me, a good hiring takes time but it is worthy spending time. There are occasions when a candidate is selected from technical rounds but got rejected on HR front. Do not be in hurry to fill your positions to meet your deadline to hire but ensure that hiring should be right fit. 

I would suggest you to do a simple analysis to find out hiring quality. You can make data showing employee left in a particular duration after joining. If number of employees leaving within 6 months are higher- this means that there is something wrong in your hiring process which need your immediate attention.

Please do share your inputs on this.

If you are really serious about learning HR and want to grow then visit our web page LEARN HR THROUGH PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Mobile Recruitment- Next Generation Recruitment Tool

You must have heard about “Mobile Recruitment” and if you are confused what does it mean then this blog post will help you to understand it better.

Now a day, every person has mobile phone and gradually potential candidates are shifting towards smart phones. Smart phones are capable of doing many things. You can surf internet, you can chat, send audio / video and can download various apps (applications) for any purpose. People are using smart mobile phone for almost everything. Smart phones are now taking place of laptops and becoming smarter day by day.

Many industries and companies are using smart phones for their product sale. Reaching to a person through smart phone is easier now a day. Similarly, companies have understood the power of mobile and started using it for purpose of hiring employees. Especially, Companies involved in recruitment business have started using mobile phones for attracting potential candidates. 

Well here is Wikipedia definition of mobile recruitment:

“Mobile Recruiting is the act of finding job candidates actively and passively through the use of mobile career pages and internet recruiting strategies through social platforms. Mobile recruiting is a dynamic and growing industry with over 19% of job seekers using mobile devices to search for jobs. 

Traditionally, recruiters have used tools such as online job boards like Craigslist, but the increase in mobile subscriptions has led to new strategies such as mobile search engine optimization, mobile career pages, and highly targeted mobile recruitment campaigns. 

This has lead to the rise in popularity for mobile recruiting software and social recruiting tools. Most notably, specialized solutions such as Work4 have shown that mobile and social recruiting is an effective method for fulfilling hiring initiatives.”

Let’s see how this works. As mentioned, it is simply about using mobile phone technology in recruitment. 

There are following ways by which mobile technology can be used for recruitment.

Sending SMS to candidate

Use of mobile phone technology can be as simple as sending sms to candidates informing them about suitable job openings. This is the simplest way to use mobile technology. Candidate need not to have smart phone for this. SMS can be received through ordinary phone. Candidates can go online and apply for the job which is mentioned in the sms.

Mobile supported websites

Every company use website for recruitment. Generally companies have a webpage dedicated to recruitment where candidates can view various open positions, upload resume, can know status of their application etc. Job portals have many other options available. 

But normal websites which are opened in web browsers are not compatible at mobile phone. Although, such websites can be opened in smart mobile phones but experience to surf such website on smart mobile is not pleasant. You can try opening normal website on smart phone and you will realize the difference.

Websites are designed especially for usage on mobile phone so that it can be viewed on mobile phone properly so that candidates have a better experience which means more application against an opening.

Recruitment apps for smart phones

You must be using various apps which are available for your smart phone. Recruitment companies have realized power of such apps hence start making apps which can be downloaded to smart phone and through which candidate can login to access job portal where candidate gets are features like view job openings, apply for job etc.

These apps are easy to use and faster than website. Candidate can get notification from recruiter in case of any new suitable position comes.

Beyond Recruitment

Companies are using mobile technology not only for straight recruitment but social recruitment and employee referral. 

Companies through their mobile enabled web sites can connect to their employees all the time where employee can be updates about company’s updated news, watch videos, can refer a friend and even attach linkedin profile of friend. HR gets intimation of such referral on company website and can respond. Employee is aware about status of his referral all the time.

There are various companies which are engaged in mobile recruitment technology and helping others in building mobile enabled tools. This is just a starting of this era and a long to go.

If you are really serious about learning HR and want to grow then visit our web page LEARN HR THROUGH PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

How to use social media to hire talent for your company?

courtesy :: www.aegisglobal.com

Social media like facebook, twitter, linkedin and few more, are playing important role in our life now a day. You can see your employees busy with their smart phone and surfing social media web sites. These websites are now part of our life. Many companies are using social media websites for various purposes. 

Using social media websites for hiring is one of them. Recruiters have started using these websites to fill their open positions. 

I have personally experienced that using linkedin is great idea, especially when you are looking for a candidate for a senior position in your company. Many senior professionals do not post their resume on job portals like naukri.com, monster.com, timesjob.com etc. You can find them on linkedin or any other social media websites. Recruiter should have ability to search and connect with these professionals through their existing connections and approach them with a job offer.

Sharing couple of points, which can make hiring through social media more effective.

Simply publish open positions of your company on Social media and relevant groups

This is the simplest way to advertise open positions in your company to masses. 

You can post various open positions on these social media websites. Some tips are:

• Do not post all the open positions in one go: Some social media websites have restriction on number of words in your post. It also look messy when you post details of all open positions in one post and some time people do not look at it due to lengthiness of post. Post one job opening at one time so that people can go through those openings which suits to their profile.
• Give link of detailed information in the post: You may not be able to write complete detail of position during posting, hence it will be good, if you provide link of webpage (especially from your own company’s website) which describe the position in more detail. This way potential candidate will also have a look at your company website and will learn about your company as well. If you don’t have such link then put required information in the post only but descriptive.
• Articulation of job opening should be very clear : While articulating a job opening, ensure that it clearly mention what is required from the applicant to avoid not useful applications.
• Ask your friend/connections to like the post : This will help you to spread it across the connections of your connections or friends of your friends. When a connection of yours likes your post it becomes visible to his connections also. This way it gets spread across more people.
• Ensure to provide contact details : Do not miss to provide email id or contact number where candidate can approach you for application or clarifications.

You must be aware that post published by you can only be views by your friends or connections. Hence one of the ways which is also mentioned above is to ask your connections to like or share the post to relevant person. 

Another way is to post your job opening on various relevant groups. There are general groups to post job openings and specific group on the kind of skill set you are looking for. Eg. If you are looking for Head HR then you should post your job opening in a group which is meant for Head HR or Senior HR professionals. 

This way you will get better response. You can also ask your colleagues to post job openings in a relevant group where he/she is a member, if required. 

Making connections with people who can be your future candidates

It is a consistent but very effective way. You need to keep connecting with people who can be your potential candidates on regular basis. This may not give you immediate result but when you have people from your domain in your connection list, you can approach them whenever you need to. Also keep interacting with those connections by one or other way so that you are familiar to them. Senior professionals do not express their willingness to change due to many reasons, especially with someone who is not familiar, hence interaction with them will increase chance of openness. 

Also more connections means spread of your general job post will be huge. Hence give some time to networking on web.

Branding your organization image on social media to attract talent 

Candidates (especially experience) are very cautioned about the kind of company they are joining. They inquire about the company and its culture from existing employees or someone who have already worked in the company earlier. In fact, now some of the job portals have started providing option to candidates to link with employees of company where they are applying through social media like shine.com.


This means that employer needs to work on their brand image to attract talent and social media can play very important role in this. If you have a corporate communication team, I believe they must be working on it else you can contribute in branding your company image.

shine.com has come up with their social media integrated version. This tool is inegrated with a tool/ app called myparichay. If you are on facebook ,you can go to app centre and register on this app.

Here is the link to the app directly : https://apps.facebook.com/myparichay/

Once you register to this app, you  can provide your information so that when a recruiter using myparichay can view your profile. Infact, you can search various jobs through this app like you do in other job portals. Good part is that you can see your links who are working in the company where you wish to apply and you can apply through them which in turn increase chances of reviewing your CV by recruiter.

Using paid version of social media for hiring

Now, some of the social media websites have come up with hiring solutions which are paid but worth paying. I have realized that most of job portal database is exhausted now and as recruiter we need to look into alternate solutions and social media is one of them. Recently, I have used linkedin hiring solution for one month to fill a senior position which we were not able to do through job portals. We closed the positions faster. I would also suggest that before you go for a long term contract for any such services you should better try the demo or short period arrangement to test the usefulness for you.

Job portals are still major source of hiring but social media is also registering its presence in hiring field and been rewarding in senior level hiring.

Please share your experience or any other way by which social media can be leveraged for hiring in an organization. I would really appreciate your contribution.

If you are really serious about learning HR and want to grow then visit our web page LEARN HR THROUGH PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

How to make an Ideal Joining Kit?

As promised in my earlier post, Effective On-Boarding process-Step by Step approach, here is my post on How to make an Ideal Joining Kit?

Joining kit is a document which should be given to new joiner at the time of joining, to collect various information , both personal and related to statutory compliance.

Some tips to for your Joining Kit to make difference in your induction process:

• Use Joining Kit as document to sell your company to new joiner. Hence design it like that.
• Company do get Joining Kit printed with an attractive cover page where cover page talks about Company culture and what company feels about its employee with company logo on it.
• Ensure quality of paper should be same. Font and other formatting should be identical. 

DOCUMENTS / FORMS FOR IDEAL JOINING KIT

Welcome Note

This is the first page of Joining Kit and used to welcome new employee. Welcome note should be composed of following information.  

• Welcoming new employee
• Write brief about your company and its policies which are employee friendly.
• Write about your website so that new employee can go through it to take more information.
• Write about content of Joining Kit. You can also describe importance and relevance of each document.
• Write about where to send filled Joining Kit along with other documents like educational proof, address proof, experience letter etc. This is for new employees who are joining at locations where HR is not situated.
• Provide official HR email id for future communication.
• Write closing message.

As every company is different hence I am leaving text to written on Welcome note on you although I have provided sample Welcome note along with other sample documents / forms for Joining Kit.  Link provide at the end of the post to download.

Joining Report

This is a document which should be signed by new employee as confirmation that he has joined the company on a particular date and designation. 

Employee Information Form

This is a form which is required to take information which is not available in any other documents submitted by new employee or you want to take all information in one page once again by employee. This information further can be uploaded in your HR software. This form is signed by employee hence becomes authentic document for future references.

You can collect information depending upon your requirement through this form like marital status, family details, blood group, PAN, Driving license number, Passport etc. 

I have clubbed both formats (Joining Report and Employee Information Form) in one in the sample Joining kit provided for download. If you want, you can make two different forms.

I Card Format

This is the format which should be filled by employee attaching one of his photograph and same form can be send to I Card vendor to print I Card of employee. You can mention information you need to print Identity Card. Please do mention that employee should fill it in capital letter and neatly otherwise vendor can also make mistakes in spelling.

PF Form 11- PF Declaration Form

This form is used to get declaration from employee about his previous PF Account so that you can take decision on new employee PF deduction and his eligibility. Many times employer forgets to sign and stamp the form. So you should ensure that you sign and stamp each Form 11 once it is submitted by employee.

PF Form 2- Nomination Form

This form is used to get nomination from employee. Employee can nominate its family member to claim PF in case of employee death.

ESI Form 1-  (ESI Declaration and Nomination Form)

This form is only for employee who falls under ESI eligibility i.e. whose gross is less than or equal to Rs 15,000/-. Employee should fill the information and attach a full postcard size photograph and submit the same to employer.

Gratuity Nomination Form

This form is used to get nomination from employee for Gratuity Fund. Employee is eligible for gratuity only after completion of 5 years of continuous service or death  / disablement. You can refer to my post 13 Facts one should know about Gratuity Act in India to know more about Gratuity act and other useful information.

Confidentiality Agreement/ IPR Agreement

Confidentiality agreement is an agreement between employee and employer where employee agree to not share business, process, client and other important information outside company. IPR (Intellectual Property Right) agreement is required, where company is engaged in Research & Development work and want to ensure that its employees who are engaged in these activity should not disclose about research work outside.

I have provided two formats in Joining Kit. One format has both the agreements (Confidentiality and IPR) in one document where in second agreement which is NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) is only about confidentiality agreement.

Any other Agreement

There are occasions when company want new employee to sign some other agreement other than confidentiality and IPR, in that case, you can also keep such agreement as part of Joining Kit so that new employee can read and sign at the time of joining the company itself. For example, company wants that no employee should join competition for next 3 years after leaving the company etc.

Self Declaration Form

This form is used to get acknowledgement from employee that he has understood company policies etc. and will abide by the same during his employment with company. You can add as many as acknowledgement in the form. For example, you can include acknowledgement of understanding Confidentiality agreement, IPR Agreement and any other important policy. This declaration will help in future, in case employee at any point of time, refuse to understand HR policies etc.

Form 12 B

This form is used to get declaration from new employee about his income from previous employer and various tax rebate he got in current financial year. This is used by department which is taking care of income tax. That department needs to know previous income etc so that they can evaluate new employee tax liability for rest of month in that financial year.

Investment Declaration Form

This form is used to get tentative tax declaration from new employee. New Employee need to mention about his tax planning so that based on this, department responsible for income tax, can calculate new employee tax liability and start deducting the same. 

Bank Account Opening Form

You should also place bank account opening form. Ask your Bank Relationship Manager to provide you Bank Opening Forms in advance so that you can place them in joining kit.

Check List about documents to be submitted by employee for Personnel file

You can also place a checklist for new employee so that he does not miss to submit relevant documents for personnel file. These documents are Address proof, ID Proof, Age proof, education proof, relieving and experience certificate from last company, photograph and acceptance of appointment letter.

Joining or Induction Feedback Form

This form ensures that new employee has gone through each and every stage of induction successfully. Let employee submit this form within 07 days of his joining so that he go through each and every stage of induction as there could be some activities which will be done after first day.

Following can be component of Induction Feedback Form:

• Feedback on Basis Induction Steps
• Feedback on induction about Organization
• Feedback on induction about HR Policies and procedures
• Feedback on required infra / asset received
• Feedback on understanding of project by reporting manager and meeting other team members
• Suggestions from new employee to bring improvement in induction process 

Click here to download sample forms for Joining Kit

I will be happy if you can add few more documents which are required to make Joining Kit ideal.

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Effective On Boarding Process : Step By Step approach

On boarding a candidate is one the important process which HR should do properly. When a person joins a company, he feels everything is new and different. First day in new office is always filled with joy, confusion, questions, hesitation, all together mixed feelings. Hence it is necessary that new joiner should be made comfortable with new environment. Person responsible for on boarding a new joiner play important role here.

Let’s see, how can we make a perfect on boarding process and ensure joining formalities are taken care?

Candidate joining confirmation

You must have informed office timing to candidate along with offer letter hence you can expect candidate to join at office in timing. First thing in morning, you need to check out, number of candidates expected to join today. You can simply confirm from your reception about candidates who are joining in office where you located and for out location candidates either confirm from admin executive (if you have any) else call candidate on his mobile to confirm his joining.  Accordingly, send intimation to all support functions including recruiter and reporting manager about candidate joining status. This is important as they also need to take action at their end and it will be good if they come to know about it in morning itself.

Making new joiner comfortable

Once candidate joins and waiting at reception, do not let him wait for long. You should welcome him warmly and let him sit in a conference room or place you have for new joiner induction process. You should ask for tea and coffee and arrange.

Joining Kit: At the same time, you can handover joining kit to candidate to fill. I would suggest that Joining Kit should be bind in form of a booklet.

There are various documents which should be part of such Joining Kit. These documents are mentioned below:

• Welcome note
• Joining Report
• Employee Information Form
• I Card Form
• PF Form 11 (PF Declaration Form)
• PF Form 2 (PF Nomination Form)
• ESI Form 1 ( ESI Declaration and Nomination Form)
• Gratuity Form F (Nomination Form )
• Confidentiality Agreement/ IPR Agreement
• Any other Agreement standard for employees
• Induction Feedback Form

In my upcoming post, I will talk about above mentioned documents in detail and other useful facts about joining kit.

Personnel file documents: Also inform candidate about documents which need to be submitted for personnel file. You can also send list of documents required for personnel file from candidate while sending offer letter so that candidate is aware and get time to collect these documents and bring it along when joins.

Vital documents which you need to collect from new joiners are:

• Acceptance of Appointment letter
• Educational Qualification documents
• Relieving letter/ Experience letter of last company (or all companies with whom he has worked)
• Photographs (3-5 depending upon your requirement)
• Permanent Address proof 
• Present / communication address proof
• ID Proof

Apart from other you should also keep following documents in personnel file which are already available with you:

• Copy of resume
• Employment application form
• Salary proof of last company
• All documents in Joining kit

In my upcoming blog, I will write about vital documents and other useful documents which can be kept in personnel file in detail along with usefulness of these documents.

Induction about Company and policies

Once new joiner is through with filling the joining kit and submission of personnel file documents. You can start his induction on company and its policies. It is advisable to have a presentation ready for giving induction to new joiner.

Your induction presentation should cover followings:

• About Company
• Top Management of Company
• Vision, Mission and Ideology of Company
• Various Service offering/ Product of company
• Key Clients
• Main HR Policies and Procedures
• Payout Dates (Salary, Reimbursement, Incentive etc)
• Details of Support functions contact person along with their email id and phone numbers

Normally, first day new joiner get download of so much information that it is difficult for him to remember all hence he loose his focus. You can have a Induction assessment test after induction is over. This will help new joiner to go back to main important points again and understand them.

I will soon write about induction in more detail so please wait till that time. Above, will give you a basic framework.

Bank Account opening

You need to get bank account open for new joiner so that salary, reimbursement, incentive etc can be transferred there. You can tie up with any of the bank which suits to your requirement. If you have localize operations then choose bank which has better connectivity in your area or in case of pan India operations, find bank with national presence. Now with facility of accessing any bank ATM has reduced our pain in selecting a bank as employee can withdraw money from any bank ATM. Sometimes, due to pressure of opening bank account for large number of employees located across India, especially in case of mass hiring, we go with KYC (Know Your Customer) arrangement with bank. In this case employee needs not to submit any ID proof, to get the bank account open. Only some banks provide this facility. But I would strongly oppose this practice. Please ensure that your employee do submit ID and Address proof to get the bank account open. Tomorrow, in case, bank account opened by KYC method, where you have attested and signed the bank form on behalf of employee, found involved in illegal activities, you can also be in trouble.
Coordination with Admin and IT

A new joiner require laptop / desktop, mobile, SIM, Official Email id, Sitting place, Visiting Card, Access Card, any other tool, hence it is important for HR to coordinate with these support functions to make sure arrangement of same. During pre joining formalities, we discussed that HR should inform support functions about candidate expected joining in advance so that they can make necessary arrangements. Please go through the link which talks about 3 Basic steps to do before candidate joining!!.

You can also give a demonstration to new joiner, on how to access official email id through web browser. In case you have a software, to manage HR processes i.e. HRIS, then you should also create a login for new joiner and give him training on how to access ESS (Employee Self Service) module of HRIS (Human Resource Information System) software and various benefits of same. Some companies do give notepad and pen (with company logo printed on it) so you can also see that if your budget allows.

Handover appointment letter and explain

You should handover hard copy of appointment letter to new joiner and explain the same to him, especially the salary structure part. Once he understood everything, then get acceptance on one copy to file in his personnel file and give second copy to him for his record. Don’t give it loose, please give it in company printed envelopes.

Induction about Project through reporting manager

Once you are through with HR related activities, then you can communicate reporting manager to meet new joiner. It is very important that the person to whom new joiner need to report, should meet him to set up base with each other. Reporting manager need to take out time to meet new joiner and induct him about project / department/ function on which he need to work and answer queries. Further, reporting manager should introduce new joiner to rest of team members of project/ department. HR person should, also as process, introduce new joiner to every member of branch so that rest of team members should also know about new person joining.

HR person can send mail to all employees, which should describe about person who has joined today along with his designation, past experience, educational qualification, hobbies and contact details. Normally, companies have a group email id which includes each and every employee, HR can send mail at this group id.  An advise to HR that never ever let this group email id open for every team member to be able to send mail. If it is open for everyone then anyone can send anything. So beware.

Induction Feedback and tracking

Once induction is over, you can ask new joiner to fill Induction Feedback Form. Induction Feedback form should contain all those important steps which are mandatory for new joiner ON BOARDING process. Also provide space for new joiner to give his remarks to improve the process. Do take a serious note of such remarks and implement if you found any good suggestion. Induction feedback form ensures that new joiner has gone through each and every step and his on boarding is complete now.
You should also maintain a tracker (in the form of spread sheet) which capture each and every stage of new joiner induction. It will be a consolidated sheet which can be referred in future for any sort of reporting and information required about on boarding process. It should describe TAT during each stage.

Be in touch with new joiner for initial few days

Initial few days are little difficult for new joiner as he takes some time to adjust in company. He has many queries to get answered. HR person should be in touch with new joiner for initial few days and help him in getting settled in system. Some companies do practice Buddy Program for making candidate settled in system. Please refer my blog on What is Buddy Program and how to design it?

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3 Basic steps to do before candidate joining!!

3 Basic steps to do before candidate joining!!

In continuation to my endeavor to help people who wanted to make their career or just started their career in HR where I am sharing knowledge on how to build HR department and its processes from scratch as mentioned in my previous blog Step by Step guide to set up HR Department in an organization.

Today we will talk about pre joining formality process.

This is the stage which is after offering and before joining of candidate.

You can also see my views on How can we increase possibility of candidate joining after offer letter?

Following are those 3 steps which you need to follow to ensure that when candidate joins, he don’t feel like left in isolation. Basic arrangements are made well before he joins. At-least those which can be made before candidate’s joining.

Intimation to admin department 

You should ensure that you send intimation mail to admin department about possible date of joining of candidate so that admin department can make necessary arrangement related to infra / equipment required by candidate. Here timely intimation is very important. There could be chances that admin need approval for purchase of new laptop, data card, mobile or any thing else. If you will intimate them just few days before candidate joining then they might not get time to arrange for such approval and procurement of required infra provided you should have enough time between offering candidate and his joining. Hence it is suggested to share intimation to admin department just after you send offer letter to candidate. Another good idea is to share intimation with them when request is raised for additional manpower.
To ease the process, admin department should maintain a master list of infra requirement for each profile so that they can refer the list whenever they get intimation from HR department about candidate joining.

Intimation to IT department 

Intimation should also be sent to IT department so that they can set up laptop or configure laptop and create official email id for new joinee. If you have email id ready then you need not to rush in morning when candidate joins you.

Another good idea, to ensure that everything is ready, you can seek confirmation from admin and IT department about readiness from their side.

Be in touch with candidate

Be in touch with candidate atleast twice before his date of joining. I would suggest 15 days before and one day before his date of joining. During that conversation you can also remind him about various documents which he need to take along with him on DOJ.

These 3 steps will ease your efforts to complete candidate joining formalities. I know these are basic things but very important so don’t miss them.

In next blog we will talk about joining formalities in detail.

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7 Tips to increase possibility of candidate joining after offer made to him

7 Tips to increase “Candidate’s joining conversion rate”

If you are in recruitment, you can understand the pain when candidate do not join on his date of joining even after accepting the offer letter. Recruiter need to face many problems in such cases. Some of the reasons are as below.

• You need start the complete hiring process from Step 1.
• Extra time in hiring means loss of productivity and money for company.
• Huge pressure from hiring manager as his plan will fail, which was based on new candidate’s joining.
• Other problems associated with low manpower in a project.

Above are enough reasons for you to find out ways to reduce such incidence and increase candidate’s joining conversion rate. Here are some tips which will help you to increase candidate’s joining conversion rate. 

Tips 1 # Do not hire candidate who change his job frequently.

Candidate, who has changed his job every year, is not stable regarding his job choice and career. His intention is to get an offer and then start looking for job in market once again for little more hike in his salary. Even if you offer such candidate, there is high possibility of candidate not joining as he might have many other offers like from your side. So better be away from such candidate. 

Tips 2 # Profile offered should be attractive to candidate

As recruiter, you need to ensure that profile, you are offering to candidate, should be attractive to candidate. I am not suggesting you to make a profile attractive (which you can’t), but finding candidate for whom, profile offer by you is attractive. Candidate should be interested and excited to take this up. Sometimes, candidates do take offer, even if, they are not very excited about profile you are offering as they may not have any job in hand. They will keep looking for profile they are interested in and take up such profile as soon they get one. Hence it is important that you should sense, whether profile you are offering is exciting to candidate or not? Candidate, do give weight-age to profile same as they give to pay package.

Tips 3 # Salary offered to candidate should be competitive

This is similar to earlier tip. If you do not offer salary to candidate which is higher than current pay package then why candidate will join you?. There are very few people who would like to join you on same salary especially when you don’t have brand value. Every candidate expect salary raise in new company. Candidate is not bothered about your budget. If you can’t offer candidate a hike, chance are, candidate might not join you. Candidate may choose offer which has higher salary pay package. Pay package is always a primary reason of leaving existing company and joining new company. I am not advising you to give whatever candidate expect, I am suggesting to give offer to candidate who is in your budget and you are giving logical hike to him.

Also don’t try to fool the candidate with higher CTC and lower in hand. Today candidates are smart, they know what they are looking forward for? They understand that company benefits are same for everyone hence they will surely insist on higher in hand salary.

Tips 4 # Sale positives of your company, project, profile for which you are hiring

Every company has good and bad things. As an employee, you know, what are these good things? Hence you need to sale all these to candidate. Tell candidate about various benefits your company gives. Talk about work culture, fun at work etc etc. Do not simply close the offer by offering a letter and salary to candidate. You take download from hiring manager about project and position to hire. You need to sale all positives of project and position to candidate. I would suggest, you guide hiring manager to speak with candidate and tell him about project he will be working on, what are the learning he will get, what are the growth chances etc. 

By doing so you are actually engaging the candidate with company before joining and it increases the chance of his joining.

Normally, HR does all this at the time of induction. I am suggesting do a small part of it while offering to potential candidate.

Tips 5 # Call Candidate for interview 2-3 times

Earlier, I use to believe in hiring on faster speed. Call the candidate one day and if you like offer and close. But gradually, I learnt, that candidates who were called more than 2 times for interview or discussions are more likely to join after offer made, especially when you are hiring executives and above. As per your company recruitment process, you can call them for some IQ test, EQ test, technical test, asking them to submit salary proof related documents other than interview related rounds. This doesn't mean you need to call them un-necessary for more than twice. Set a process. I would not suggest calling candidate more than 3 times also as candidate get frustrated.

Concept is simple here. Candidate who is really interested in joining your company will take pain to come 2-3 times and candidate who don’t want to join you, will make excuses. In any case you don’t want to offer a candidate (even if he is most suitable) if you know chance of his joining is very low.

This is useful tip. Do apply it and let me know any impact on your joining conversion

Tips 6 # Take resignation acceptance copy after offer made

After you make an offer to a candidate, you should ask him to submit copy of his resignation mail or letter and later acceptance of resignation to you. He should do that within 3-5 days of offer acceptance. With this, you can at least be sure that he has not been retained by his existing company. If you sense delay in submission of resignation acceptance then you should better start working on finding another candidate.

Tips 7 # Pre employment Verification

This tip is not directly related with candidate joining but more with his sustainability in company. Some company do post employment verification to check credentials of the employee and in case any credential is found negative then worst case, employee need to leave the company which means opening of close position. 

I advocate that pre employment verification should be done in place of post employment verification. You should inform candidate both verbal and written (Application form) that once you accept the offer and resign from current company, we will conduct verification and in case any negative fact is found that offer can be cancelled. 

This will ensure that you will not suffer from working on a close position again after some time

Conclusion

There could be more good practices which my fellow HR friends must be following. I would request them to share some good tips they have implemented which helped them to increase the joining conversion in their company. Even after all above, I would suggest that Recruiter should always keep a Back up Candidate ready as Plan B. Normally, we do not spend much time on finding a back up candidate as we assume that candidate offered by us will surely join. It is too optimistic. Plan B will surely help you.

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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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