Great news! Your organisation is expanding and you’re tasked with leading a recruitment drive. You’re wondering now how to hire and interview for the best outcome. Naturally, you want to do this as effectively as possible—you want to get it right.
Because if you don’t, it can be costly, time-consuming and disastrous for your business on so many levels.
Recruitment Process: How to Conduct an Interview and Hiring Steps
1. Define the recruitment budget and who owns it
It’s a simple question, but who owns the cost of hiring in your organisation? Have you looked at this and calculated the cost of your operations? Finding and hiring the right people is crucial to the success of every business and can be an expensive exercise, especially when you get it wrong and have to repeat the exercise. Someone needs to take responsibility for this budget and ensure it’s not an open line item slipping through control.
Also, consider the hidden costs and strain on efficiency and output placed on the rest of an organisation when others have to carry extra responsibilities in between hires and during probation and onboarding periods. In many organisations, this is a company-wide budget. But in our experience, many places overlook this, so the cost of hiring becomes expensive. It’s one area where there’s a lot of money to be saved, especially if the cost can be restricted to each manager.
You can also choose to incentivise this. For example, establishing the cost of the hire at 15% of the salary cost and putting all savings made against this into the departmental social budget. Failing to focus on hiring budgets means more money is wasted in organisations than you can imagine. The cost of using a recruiter alone is around 20% of the person’s starting salary. The cost of advertising can also be extortionate.
ATSs can cut your hiring and advertising costs by thousands. We explore this in more detail in our blog: What is an Applicant Tracking System – How Does it Work?
2. Define the process, then follow it
Candidates and your team will want the process stages mapped out: “Plan the plan, then work the plan” is the ideal mantra. Stick to the plan, and everybody will know where they stand, the workflow will be fair, consistent and clear to all involved.
Your communications will need to state what the following stages of the process will be. For example, you may decide to conduct two screening calls per candidate to clear any primary issues to qualify them, followed by first and final interview rounds, then any relevant referencing, certification and medical checks.
Ensure that you have a distinct flow and that the process is clear and easy to understand.
3. Interview training to ensure your staff know how to conduct interviews effectively
Hiring is not an intrinsic trait. It’s a learned skill. Use real data derived from your interview guide to judge candidates so that decisions are not made on instinct alone. If you or your managers aren’t trained in interviewing techniques, then invest in and facilitate training for them to develop this skill - this will pay dividends immediately.
The best hiring is done through behavioural interviewing related to company culture. Past behaviour is the way to predict future performance. Hiring on skills alone is inadequate.
You need agile people who are capable of learning, up-skilling and lateral movement. You need the people who say ‘No I don’t how to do that, but I’ll learn how to or find someone that can’.
If you’re worried about someone who ticks all the boxes but lacks the skills, then consider offering them the chance to train or study to get up to speed; the short delay is usually worth it in the long run.
4. Advertising the position
How do you get job specs in front of the right people? How do you best source valuable applicants’ CVs and attract the right kind of candidates?
Strong applicant tracking systems (ATS) integrate with major job boards as well as the company marketing mechanisms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to get your advertised position in front of the right people.
You also need an automated referral program that not only yields good candidates but also gets the employees involved in building the company and cultural buy-in.
As an alternative, good recruiters can be worth their weight in gold in finding specialised candidates. But you’ll need time to identify these good recruiters. And it’ll take them some time to understand what best fits your organisation.
Not responding to CVs is a poor reflection on a company and can damage the company’s brand. When people send in their CVs, they’re exposing themselves in a vulnerable way, explaining their qualifications, their experiences and their ambitions. The least you can do is acknowledge this with a kind regret letter if you have no role for them. Again, the ATS automation will take care of this for you.
5. Produce a job specification
This should be linked to organisational values and produced with the incumbents' and the hiring manager’s involvement, to ensure it’s realistic.
The spec should relate to the corporate behaviours and values you’ve established and communicated to your organisation. You need a successful candidate to buy into and perform to those values so that you can achieve your goals. Some organisations also involve their customers in the process if the person is, or will be, customer interfacing.
6. Create a person specification
Ensure this is linked to key behaviours. And again, if it's for an existing role, involve whoever’s currently in this function and their direct manager. You can also get input from relevant customers, and other personnel will interact with the new hire.
Most important is to hire for the right behaviours you’ve identified as core to your company culture. The right characters will enhance output, remain assets, stay longer, be happier and contribute more to the overall effort.
Focusing on skills or qualifications alone will only limit you, slow you down, and make you regret not reaching out for the livewires. You can teach skills, but it's a lot more challenging to alter someone’s behaviour.
7. Produce an interview guide
The principles of keeping to the job spec and person spec, related to company behaviours and values, will ensure you get to the right shortlist and eliminate candidates who will cost time and money.
To ensure equality and fairness, follow the same process and ensure all candidates get asked the same questions. Make sure you respond to all unsuccessful candidates. This is essential to maintain a good employer brand and actively demonstrate your corporate values and behaviours.
The direct report for the role must be the appointed hiring manager. They must be central to and kept in the loop at all stages of the process. Preferably, they will be the ones to make the final hiring decision.
8. Shortlist candidates
Tour ATS will help you shortlist your final candidates and compare notes and feedback with any colleagues involved with the process.
Screening and sorting interesting applicants by sticking to your plan by using the spec you distribute and communicate, is much easier with a good end-to-end recruitment management system.
What you want to avoid is strong candidates slipping through the cracks. An automated system will prevent this and pay for itself time and again, with costs saved from job boards and recruiters.
An ATS also automates communications about successful or unsuccessful applications and next steps.
9. Interviewing candidates
Behavioural interviewing techniques should be part of the induction programme for every manager who has been hired or promoted.
The most important aspect of the interview is collecting data. And then use it. Use it to match your desired job and person spec, behavioural profiles and values.
Ensuring you maximise the data you collect also means decisions are informed, not based just on gut feelings. Additionally, the data from interviewing informs future employee objectives, their continuous professional development (CPD), and performance management and appraisal plans.
10. Closing
Great news! You’ve followed the process and pinpointed your next superstar. Now it’s time to nail the deal. This is the negotiation and offer process encompassing compensation and benefits, working conditions, and the like.
Unless the market dynamics of supply and demand are against you, then the spec you produced and the process involved will have made it clear what you’re prepared to offer. Therefore, closing should be straightforward and within your budget, and the working conditions should align with those stated and advertised.
Whether you choose to deviate from this is up to you. Only you can decide if prima donna requests are within your defined acceptable behaviours and desired values.
11. Onboarding and induction
A smooth onboarding process allows your new hire to feel welcome and included so they settle in quickly. Be sure to use the interview notes as part of the induction, as the interview was effectively their first appraisal.
These notes start a conversation to understand the strengths and development needs of your newest recruit, enabling you to set meaningful objectives going forward, taking their strengths and developmental needs into consideration.
Again, an ATS can help onboarding, seamlessly transferring successful candidates over to the main HR system so that they enter a new set of workflow automation for induction throughout their time in your organisation.
12. Exit or promotion and succession planning
Once an employment contract is ended, you’re obliged to keep records for a certain number of years to meet compliance. A good HR system will allow this. But you should always have good processes in place for succession planning, especially for strong leaders.
Similarly, for sideways or upward promotions, you need to end the flow related to this role and start it again for the next target, using the incumbent to optimise the job and person specs, and so on.
Whether you choose to formulate an exit process involving structured interviews is up to you. Whatever you choose, you should pin the process to the behaviours and cultural values from start to finish.
