Thankfully, there are ways to minimize this risk. An effective recruitment process allows you to control everything from beginning to end, from advertising the position to interviewing and integrating your new hire.

Our Fed Supply experts have come up with a 10-step process to help make your recruitment process as effective as possible.

1. Identify your company’s needs

Before starting to look for candidates, you must determine what your company is missing. Regardless of the reason why you are able to bring a new person into your team, the fact is that there is a role to fill. It's up to your company's leadership and HR team to define that role.

Your search for the right candidate can only begin once your recruiting team has fully defined what your company needs.

2. Prepare a clear and focused job description

After you’ve understood what your organization needs, you should produce a list of duties and responsibilities for the new role. You can use these ideas to write a specific in-depth job description that will attract candidates who will be sufficiently suited to this position. When writing the job description, you’ll need to consider not only what the role entails, but also who you envision filling it.

In addition to summarizing the role’s duties, you will need to write a candidate profile. For this, you should produce a list of the desired experience and skills that would make the expectations of the role more accessible.

3. Emphasize the company’s culture

The recruitment process is as much about making future candidates feel comfortable choosing your company as it is about making your company feel comfortable working with them.

To ensure this, you need to take a look at your company's culture and its mission and values statements. In addition, you should review all of your internal policies and HR practices and check for anything you think needs to be improved.

4. Create a recruitment plan

Now you are finally at the stage where you can create your recruitment plan. You can find potential new employees through screening the applicant pool and wherever you advertise jobs. The extent of your recruitment process should also be considered. Are you looking to bring in a new employee from the outside or are you willing to recruit internally?

Lastly, a candidate ranking system is favourable in order to save time and money. This step reduces the likelihood of turnover, which, depending on the industry, can be costly.

5. Write the job advert

To reach as many candidates as possible, you need to make the job advert appealing to potential candidates. Use clear, concise and professional language and, where appropriate, graphics that represent your organization's brand and expectations for the position. Don't forget to proofread it afterwards in case of typos, spelling and grammatical errors.

6. Sort through the candidates

Once you've advertised the position, you'll be tasked with managing and sorting through all the incoming applications, taking time to process spontaneous applications as well as those directly responding to your adverts. If the number of incoming applications is more than you think your HR team can handle, consider investing in a tracking system that can help. You don't want to waste time sorting through hundreds of resumes from unqualified candidates.

7. Screening process

This step can take place before or after the interviews, depending on your process. Screening is the practice of whittling down the pool of candidates to those who are most qualified for the role.

There are several ways to screen, and you can choose to include as many as you like. Examples of these screening methods are checking applicants have sent a formal resume and cover letter, conducting brief telephone interviews, contacting references, and conducting background and employment checks.

8. Interview the candidates

Just before getting to know the candidates beyond what they wrote in their CVs, you must prepare yourself for interviewing them. If the interview is important to the candidate, it should also be important to you, the recruiter.

A list of questions to ask the candidate at the interview should be drafted by the HR team in advance. They should commit to asking all candidates the full set of questions to keep the meeting on track, professional and productive. It's also a good idea to take detailed notes throughout the interview, so the team has something concrete to refer to when making decisions.

9. Negotiate with the candidate

At this point in the recruiting process, you have identified your preferred candidate and are ready to make an offer. Now your task is to make sure they accept. Once again, it is important to remember that recruiting is primarily about establishing a good match between the employer and the future employee. An important factor in finding the perfect match is the offer on the table.

To make your company attractive to your chosen candidate, you should offer a competitive salary and a benefits package for the position.

10. Onboarding and training

The recruitment process doesn't end when you've hired the right candidate. You now have to make an ongoing effort to hold onto them.

Making sure your company culture is welcoming and non-discriminatory should be one of HR's continuous responsibilities, not just when hiring new employees.

You should develop clear onboarding procedures and expectations - let your managers know ahead of time how they should handle all aspects of training. You may also want to ensure that the new recruit clearly understands the onboarding process, including the adaptation period and the different expectations, to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Keep in mind that your new hire will only be eager to stay with the company if they are given all the tools they need to feel comfortable succeeding.

Fed Group helps find the right candidates for your needs

The recruitment process is time consuming, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Having a solid plan in place and defining the company's needs and values will help your HR team stay on track as they sift through all the candidates.

Fed Group, a recruiting firm in Montreal, is available to help find the ideal candidate profile adapted to your organization's needs. Don't wait any longer!