Agencies Recruitment Process | Kontak Recruitment

recruitment: The recruitment process

What is recruitment and Human Resource Management (HRM)?

Recruitment is the process of identifying, attracting, interviewing, selecting, hiring and on-boarding employees. Recruitment is finding staff for open job vacancies, it is a step in building a company's human capital by recruiting and hiring employees.  Recruitment involves finding and hiring the best and most qualified candidate for a job opening in a timely and cost-effective manner. Human Resource Management is managing the people within the employer and employee relationship.

Recruitment is the first step in building a company's human capital. Staff is a key factor to success for a company and making effective use of staffing resources results in a competitive advantage and adds value to it's shareholders. Employees should be encouraged to reach their full potential, therefore attracting, retaining and developing the right people should form a critical focus point.

Human Resource Management involves the productive use of people and the company's human resource policies show the orientation towards people and play a major role in attracting and satisfying employees. The personality of the company or company culture indicates how things are done and for a company to achieve success it is important that the individual employee personality and the personality of the company are in tune with one another.

An individual employee takes up employment with a company for the potential that it offers them in reaching personal and career goals. Individual employees should be the focus of a company, without people a company cannot function and therefore employing the right people would be a company's best use of it's most important asset.

Recruitment Process:

The recruitment process is the process of identifying the job vacancy, analyzing the job requirements, reviewing applications, headhunting, screening, shortlisting and selecting the right candidate to fill the vacant job, it is the process of fulfilling your recruitment requirements.

The recruitment process begins by first identifying a need for a staff member, evaluating the need for the position and followed by recruitment for the job role by following the steps of recruitment.

10 Steps in the Recruitment Process:

Step 1: Conducting a job analysis

Identifying the hiring and recruiting need by:

• Evaluating why the vacancy has been created and why there is a need for a new employee.
• What the level of the job is.
• What the skills required of the person who will be fulfilling the role should be.
• What the job responsibilities of the vacancy will be.

Step 2: Recruitment Plan

The recruitment plan includes a strategy on how to publicize the new job vacancy:

• Establishing what the criteria is for initial screening.
• What the interview process will be.
• Who will be conducting the interviews.
• What the timeline for recruitment and filling the role will be.

Step 3: Writing the job description

A good job description and person specification is essential.

You are wanting to attract the absolute best professional candidates for your available job position. When hiring staff your should start by generating a clear job description that includes a prioritized list of job responsibilities, qualifications, desired characteristics and required experience.

Include key responsibilities in the job description:

• What the role entails
• Challenges and opportunities
• Include skills, knowledge, education, experience, qualifications and personal characteristics required from the ideal candidate.

Clearly establish what is desirable and what is essential, highlight the capabilities need for the job. The job description should include information regarding salary and any benefits.

step 4: Advertising the job vacancy

Choosing where to advertise the job role:

• Job sites
• Social media
• Industry publications
• Company website

Advertising the job externally consists of utilizing a combination of the company's website, social media platforms, job posting sites, industry publications, local newspaper advertisements and word of mouth recruitment. 

Step 5: Recruit the Job position: Application Screening and headhunting

1. Applications - review applications
2. Headhunting

Recruiters and hiring managers should at this point reach out to the desirable candidates. Active recruitment will help generate applications from potential candidates who are not actively searching for a new job but fit the job role. This is the stage where recruiters look for candidates who are appropriately qualified for the job opening. The goal is to eliminate the applicants who definitely do not fit the profile sought and to identify those that you want to interview.

Step 6: Screening 

Phone interviews and initial screening

The screening process involves evaluating the candidate applications and establishing if they qualify to progress further. Phone interviews will determine if applicants possess the required qualifications and attributes to fill the position and align with a company's culture and values. Prepare appropriate questions and shortlist desired candidates.

Step 7: Interviews

One on one, face to face or video interviews

The interview will typically focus on an applicants experience, skills, work history and availability. The purpose of the interview is to clear up any discrepancies, sell the candidate on the job position and broadly explain the compensation package. The goal of an interview is to evaluate the qualifications, skills, culture fit for the specific position. The interview is the meeting in which the applicant is asked questions and can ask questions to determine their suitability for a particular job role.

Step 8: Background Screening 

Background screening and reference checking

Background checks review a candidates criminal records, verify employment history and eligibility. When referencing professional references are contacted to confirm employment details. Reference checks should verify any pertinent information shared by the candidate about previous employment and include verifying job performance, experience, responsibilities, work place performance etc.

Step 9: Job offer

Top candidate identified - job offer is extended

Once a top candidate is identified the company should extend a job offer. Offering the job to a candidate should include calling them initially to give them the good news and should be followed up with an offer letter.

The compensation plan offered should be clear and unambiguous. The offer letter should include the salary, benefits, paid time off, start date, potential severance pay, working remotely policy, included company equipment and other terms and conditions of employment.

Step 10: Hiring

Hiring and on-boarding

Once the desired candidate accepts the job offer they are hired. All the necessary paperwork needs to be completed to ensure that the candidate is successfully included on the company payroll. On-boarding the new employee is a welcoming and professional way will help them to integrate in a manner that lays the ground work for a long term productive working relationship. This is essential to ensure that your new employee feels welcome and part of the team before they have even stepped through the door.

The new employee should quickly be introduced to their new colleagues and any appropriate training should be set up and seen through swiftly.

The recruitment process is not easy to do alone and can be time consuming. Recruiting and hiring is time intensive. The major benefit of outsourcing your recruitment process to Kontak Recruitment, a professional recruitment agency, is that we understanding the recruiting and hiring process and can effectively filter and screen candidates to secure the appropriate candidate for your job role.

As a leading recruitment agency, our top recruitment agents have extensive experience in placing candidates in permanent and contract job roles. Should you be looking to recruit and hire staff, submit a vacancy or contact us to discuss your recruitment requirements.