When you are planning your hiring strategy, you may ask, “What is recruitment and what is the recruitment process like?” The definition of recruitment is identifying employees with skills and experience for your business. Interviewing candidates, hiring, and onboarding are parts of recruiting. However, this simple definition doesn’t explain the complex process. Recruitment can take many forms depending on business resources and needs. Some recruitment forms are HR recruiting, talent acquisition, and staffing recruitment. Below we will be touching on the different types of recruiting and the process that goes along with it.
What Are Different Types of Recruiting?
There are various types of recruitment, depending on whether you use HR, talent acquisition, or staffing agencies. Common recruitment formats for HR, talent acquisition, and staffing are referrals, external recruitment, social media, and job fairs/career fairs. Referral recruitment is an employee recruitment process (ERP), a program where a business asks employees for recommendations. Often, employers use incentives such as bonuses to attract referrals. In contrast to internal recruitment, such as ERPs, external recruitment occurs through job sites, social media, and job fairs. While the benefit of internal recruitment is hiring candidates familiar with the company, the downside is less innovation. With external services such as a staffing agency, recruitment brings fresh ideas and creativity.
Human Resources Recruitment
HR hiring recruitment is a recruiting department internal to your business. This department creates job descriptions, interviews candidates, does background checks, onboards, and manages new employees. HR recruitment strategies are effective but require hiring people to recruit candidates.
Talent Acquisition Recruitment
Recruitment, meaning talent acquisition, is a long-term HR strategy to attract executive talent. Your HR department creates the talent acquisition recruitment process. Job descriptions, interviews, background checks, onboarding, and managing new employees are part of the process. Like HR recruitment, talent acquisition requires hiring recruiters who have the skills to succeed.
Staffing Recruitment
Hiring a staffing recruitment agency may seem difficult, but this hiring process has benefits. The main benefit of staffing recruitment over HR departments and talent acquisition is you don’t have to retain HR staff. This means less cost in searching for employees and less time needed to screen candidates. Staffing professionals provide hiring services, giving you more time to grow your business.
What Are the Steps in the Recruitment Process?
What is the recruitment process and how is it broken down? The recruitment process refers to the steps that are taken to hire candidates who match job descriptions with skills and experience. These steps are:
1. Identifying Hiring Needs
The first step is to determine what your company needs for skilled and experienced employees. A job description defines the duties, responsibilities, experience, and scope of the employee’s work. For example, is the role permanent or temporary, full- or part-time? Defining your hiring needs will determine the recruitment strategy you use. With part-time or temporary employment, for example, you may find the hiring process more effective with staffing recruitment such as Black Diamond.
2. Strategy Development
Your recruitment strategy determines how you find candidates, either locally or remotely. During this stage, you create a recruiting team or outsource to a staffing agency. With remote candidates, you may find your strategy easier with a staffing agency where the agency will have more candidates to research.
3. Phone Screening/Introduction Conversation
The first contact of a recruitment agency or HR department is the introductory conversation. A phone screening is where recruiters pre-screen candidates to understand if they match the job description and the company’s talent needs. The success of phone screening candidates depends on how well a recruiter understands a business’s industry. For professionals in staffing recruitment agencies, a phone screening relies on years of experience in hiring that an HR department may not have.
4. Interviewing with Potential Manager and Team
The process moves to interviewing with the manager and team to learn if the employee candidate is a good fit for the role. The candidate must not only have the right skills and experience but also understand the company’s workplace culture, how the team works together, and the common goals for the business. The interview with the manager and team assesses if the candidate will work comfortably with the supervisor and team members.
5. Offer
The offer covers important details of the new position with the official job title, compensation for the job (including benefits), and expected start date. Often, the start date depends on when you need to have the employee start but includes the candidate’s availability. Before you start with a job candidate, you should go over these issues so you and the new employee understand expectations.
6. Onboarding and Employee Start
The final phase of recruitment is employee onboarding and the employee starting work. Onboarding is a process where new employees complete paperwork, set up their work areas (including computer access), learn role expectations, and meet team members. This part of the recruitment process is essential to making new employees feel comfortable and engaged with their work and team members.
Tips for an Effective Recruitment Process
As a business, it’s not enough to define what the recruitment process is. Efficient recruitment requires careful planning and implementation. As a business owner, you want to hire candidates who fit the skills, experience, workplace demands, and company culture. Effective tips for your recruitment process are writing clear job descriptions, showcasing company values, enhancing candidate experiences, and having effective interview processes.
1. Effective Job Descriptions
Write a clear and detailed job description to attract candidates. A clear job description helps candidates prepare for interviews with an understanding of job duties. List necessary and desired skills. Necessary skills are job requirements. Desired skills are nice to have for the role. For example, if you need a writer, the necessary skills are writing, proofreading, and editing. Sought-after skills would be interviewing and photo editing skills. The job description copy should be short, listing essential information about the skills, experience needed, and salary.
2. Showcasing Company Values
A successful business knows how to talk about company values during recruitment. Your business should be forward-thinking, aware of its community, and ethical. One way to show company values is inclusive language and practices. As a business, you need to reach the widest possible candidate market. Using company values, such as inclusive language in job descriptions, interviewing, and onboarding, engages prospective candidates where they are as people and professionals with the skills they need. Other values are being active and having a positive role in your community, having ethical business practices, and being transparent with how you communicate with your customers, employees, and community.
3. Enhancing the Candidate Experience
The candidate’s experience during recruitment gives potential employees overall impressions of your business. To enhance the candidate experience, you need to act professionally. One way to act professionally is to communicate with candidates during the hiring process. Invite candidates for an interview promptly after deciding about their qualifications. After interviews, follow up with a note about an expected timeline for your decision. When you decide, immediately contact the candidate, even if you are not planning to hire them. Any candidate is a potential future employee and deserves your respect.
4. Interview
The interview process should follow professional guidelines. Each interview requires preparation and research. To have a successful interview process, you must be prompt and make the candidate aware of who they are interviewing with and when. The interviewer should know ahead of time who they are speaking to and for how long. Ideally, set aside at least 30 minutes for an interview. Preparation time for the interview should be done ahead of the interview. You should be thorough with information about candidate skills and experience, including experience with teamwork. Have any skills assessments, whether internal or through a staffing agency, completed before the interview. Be sure to have any background checks done before you conduct an interview to speed up the process.
Methods to Streamline the Recruitment Process
The recruitment process can be challenging for both employers and potential employees. However, you can shorten this process with easy steps. The first step is to focus on how candidates will meet your business goals with the skills and experience you need. When interviewing, shorten the interview list by picking your top candidates based on these guidelines. A second key part of streamlining the recruitment process is communication. Communication is essential with every candidate through every step in the process. Be transparent about your goals, skills, experience needs, and recruitment timeline to keep you and the candidate focused and on task.
Streamlining the recruitment process is critical. One quick way to streamline recruitment is to use a staffing agency to manage the process. A staffing agency has efficient application procedures for researching candidate skills and experience, doing initial interviews with candidates through phone screenings, creating and managing skill assessments, and onboarding candidates for your business. In contrast to internal, referral, HR, and talent acquisition recruitment, staffing recruitment means you don’t hire HR personnel, are free from initial screening with phone interviews, and don’t have to be involved with candidate assessment.
For your recruitment needs, understanding what a recruitment agency is can be essential for your business. At Black Diamond, we work with you to identify your hiring needs, develop a recruitment strategy, and conduct interviews, assessments, and a complete candidate search. Our staff is professional with experience in different industries who work with you to make your specific business successful. Contact us today!