While the average job opening takes about thirty days to fill, top talent rarely stays in the pipeline that long. If you're going to attract the best and most qualified candidates before taking on other opportunities, you'll need to create and streamline the hiring process so that it is both thorough and efficient.
This hiring process checklist will guide you through the essential tasks and techniques to follow when sourcing, screening, and ultimately hiring the top candidates for your open job role.
Steps for a Good Hiring Process
For an effective and thorough hiring process, all employers should follow these hiring process steps in this order:
- Developing a Recruitment Plan and Identifying the Need for Hiring
- Writing a Job Description and Advertising It
- Sourcing Candidates and the Evaluation Process
- Conducting Interviews
- Establishing a Pre-Onboarding Process
- Streamlining the Onboarding Process
1. Identifying the Need for Hiring and Developing a Recruitment Plan
The first step of the hiring process will always begin with answering the question“What does your business need most when it comes to acquiring new talent?” Depending on the situation and your business needs, a new hire can achieve multiple things.
Some reasons you may want to consider hiring new talent include:
- Needing to fill a vacant role
- Requiring additional help to ease the workload of your employees
- Expanding into new processes that require expertise outside of the business
Once the need for hiring has been identified, it’s time to develop a recruitment plan that ultimately aligns with your need for hiring.
A recruitment plan is an organized strategy that details how your business plans on finding, attracting, and finally hiring the candidate that best suits your needs. Creating a recruiting plan to fulfill your hiring needs is a crucial step in the hiring process, as it will act as the definitive driving force and plan to follow when hiring candidates.
A recruitment plan should include the following in detail:
- Defined Hiring Goals: Reinforce hiring needs by identifying the roles, necessary timeline, and budget.
- Job Description and Recruitment Channels: Decide what the key focus for the job description is, and determine the available job board channels at your disposal.
- Develop the Screening Process: Know the crucial tasks included in the screening process, including resume checks, interview conducting, and administering background checks and assessments tailored to the role.
- Assign the Responsibilities: Clarify and delegate the members of your HR team for the recruiting and hiring duties.
- Track the Key Metrics: Determine the key performance indicators, such as monitoring time-to-hire, the quality of hire, and cost per hire.
Now that you have developed your recruitment plan and have set your hiring goals, you can begin configuring your job listing for the role.
2. Writing a Job Description and Advertising It
The next big step in the hiring process is to create the job description. The job description is a vital entry point for prospective candidates.
Depending on the job role you’re looking to fill, your company standards, and regulatory requirements (such as Pay Transparency Laws), you will want to optimize your description with eye-catching yet clear and concise information that will leave an impression on candidates.
While there’s no right or wrong way to create a job description, generally, it should include the following:
- Job title / role
- Job summary
- Key responsibilities
- Required and preferred qualifications
- Work environments & conditions (on-site, remote, full-time, part-time, etc.)
- Compensation & Benefits
- Salary ranges are not typically required, but are recommended; however, some states have pay transparency laws that REQUIRE the salary range to be posted
- Salary ranges are not typically required, but are recommended; however, some states have pay transparency laws that REQUIRE the salary range to be posted
- Company overview (culture, values, mission statement, etc.)
- Equal Opportunity Employment statement
- How to apply instructions
Once the description is finished, it's time to advertise the job. Leveraging the many job board options to list your job will help you broadly communicate and fine-tune your candidate pool.
Popular job board websites your business should consider include:
- Indeed
- LinkedIn
- Glassdoor
- Monster
- ZipRecruiter
- Handshake
To truly leverage your use of these job boards, consider using a talent acquisition software that integrates with some of these popular job boards for a streamlined head start in your search for a new hire.
3. Sourcing Candidates and the Evaluation Process
To attract the best-fit candidates, you will need a fast and efficient way to get them into your pipeline. This will take you to the next step in the hiring process checklist: sourcing and evaluating candidates.
A strong talent pipeline doesn't come naturally: It results from your recruiting plan and strategies that focus on engaging potential candidates and vetting them early.
There are two phases to this step that require you to actively engage with your candidates: sourcing and evaluating.
Candidate Sourcing Methods
Talent sourcing refers to actively searching for qualified candidates. While this phase of the hiring process will naturally involve engaging with people who are actively searching for work, it can also include targeting talented individuals who are currently employed but, for various reasons, may be open to hearing about an open position elsewhere.
Effective sourcing methods will include some combination of the following approaches:
- Staying in synch with your hiring manager(s) to ensure you're always working with aligned hiring goals.
- Engaging or re-engaging candidates already in your Applicant Tracking Software (ATS).
- Utilize AI tools to cut down on time-consuming manual tasks that can easily be automated.
- Recruiting through your current employee network by setting up a referral program; someone within your company may have a personal connection to your future perfect hire.
- Monitoring online communities for candidates who aren't already in your pipeline (beyond LinkedIn and other job boards, check for online communities where talented workers in your target industry congregate to talk shop).
- Make the most of professional recruiting tools to stay one step ahead.
As quickly as you're sourcing potential hires, you should also be evaluating them.
Candidate Evaluation
To make the most of your time within the hiring process, communicate directly with those who demonstrate that they're the best candidates for the job. You're best able to identify those individuals via a series of automated screenings.
Early in the process, you can send screenings or assessments to potential candidates that ask them to answer a series of questions or demonstrate certain skills or abilities. These screenings could be text or video-based, and with the right software doing the heavy lifting on your behalf, you and your team can evaluate answers as time allows, sending only the most likely candidates on to the next round.
Only after these screenings have helped you identify the most likely hires will you turn your attention to structured interviews.
4. Conducting Interviews
Arguably, the pivotal step in the hiring process requires you to interview your candidates to see if they’re the right fit for the role and the company. The interview process can be conducted either synchronously or asynchronously, which is especially important if you're focusing on high-volume hiring.
Asynchronous Interviews
Early on, as you're moving from screenings to the first round of interviews, consider conducting a one-way video interview to make the best use of your time. This strategy allows candidates to record videos of themselves answering set interview questions.
In these interviews, in addition to hearing the specifics of their answers, you can evaluate:
- A candidate's confidence and presence
- Both their hard and soft skills
- Their ability to manage technology, follow instructions, and complete tasks within a deadline
After you've reviewed sufficient asynchronous video interview responses, select just a few candidates to move on to live interviews.
Synchronous Interviews
Synchronous interviews are generally the standard interview format for most employers: a live peer-to-peer interview that can be performed online, on the phone, or in person.
The overall goal of a synchronous interview largely overlaps with asynchronous interviews, as both are means of evaluating how the candidate demonstrates themselves and their commitment to the role and the company.
In general, this means you're looking for candidates who:
- Has the right skills
- Demonstrates a positive attitude
- Communicates well
- Is enthusiastic about the future of the company
- Can roll with the flow of the interview
For those who decide to use asynchronous interviews and follow them up with synchronous interviews, by the time a candidate arrives at the final, live interview stage, you already have a fairly good idea of their skills and qualifications. At this point, it's more a question of which candidate is the best fit, both for a particular team and your company as a whole.
Putting those concepts together, you and your HR team should collaborate on designing a set of questions that will help you determine each candidate's qualities and evaluate who ultimately seems like the best fit.
5. Establishing a Pre-Onboarding Process
Once you determine the best-fit candidate who’s ready to move on to the final steps in the hiring process, waste no time in conducting a pre-onboarding method.
There are a few processes your pre-onboarding system should include:
Delivering the Job Offer
A simple but very crucial and effective step in the hiring process is extending a job offer to the candidate of your choice. The job offer is essentially the contract of employment outlining the terms and conditions of the position and the company.
Generally, the job offer should include the following items:
- Job title
- Start date
- Base salary and pay schedule
- Benefits offerings available
- Employment terms, including At-Will Employment disclaimers and probationary periods if necessary
- Legal and company policy disclosures, including non-compete agreements, background check requirements, and job offer deadlines
Building a concise yet all-encompassing job offer is important for every new hire, as it helps clarify the final terms of employment and is a formal way to engage them to take action to accept the job.
It's imperative that you establish a pre-boarding process that begins the moment a new hire signs their offer letter. This step will go a long way toward increasing a new hire's engagement in company life and, over time, lead to higher levels of employee retention, creating a more stable work environment for everyone.
Between the day employees start and the day they show up for their first day, they should be busy completing paperwork, learning more about the company, being filled in on expectations about their day-to-day experience on the job, communicating with key members within the company, and growing in excitement for their first day.
Conduct Background Checks and Screenings
After the employee accepts the job offer, background checks are usually performed as part of the pre-onboarding process.
As part of a thorough background screening process, your team should conduct these key checks:
- Criminal history
- Employment verification (commonly done through E-Verify)
- Credit check
- Drug tests
- Driving record
- Checking with the new hire’s references
Properly vetting your candidate before they begin their new role is a crucial step in the pre-onboarding process. Overlooking this step in the hiring process can result in a costly hiring mistake if an unqualified individual passes through the checks and balances.
6. Streamlining the Onboarding Process
Lastly, you’re ready to begin fully onboarding your new employee, complete with the necessary training and company information they need to succeed in their career.. From the moment they walk in the door or log into their company workspace on Day One, they should know exactly where to be, what to do, and what's expected of them.
You’ll want to make sure your company follows these best practices for establishing an engaging employee onboarding process, including:
- Recognizing the special nature of the day with a warm welcome and some recognition
- Preparing a welcome package that can include ‘company swag’ or useful tools that fit the job role
- Designating an employee to act as the first point of contact for questions, concerns, or any other issues the new hire may have
- Planning for and allotting time for an adequate amount of job shadowing so new hires can become comfortable with their new roles, responsibilities, and environments
- Allowing for a gradual introduction of deadlines and responsibilities so that new hires don't feel immediately overwhelmed
Through it all, reassure new employees that you're excited about their addition to the team, interested in seeing what expertise they bring to the table, and that you can't wait to get to know them better and see their skills develop as their employment journey continues.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring Process Steps
Following each step in the hiring process checklist as closely as possible is ideal; however, there are bound to be many questions that can arise to ensure the process is quick and thorough:
1. How Do I Know When It’s Time to Hire a New Employee?
Identify common indicators, including the need to fill a vacant role, wanting to reduce the workload on existing staff, or expanding into new areas that require outside expertise. Identifying these needs early allows you to develop a more targeted recruitment strategy.
2. What’s Included in a Standard Background Check?
Background checks commonly include a review of criminal history, employment verification, credit history, drug testing, driving records, and reference checks.
3. What Should I Do if No Qualified Candidates Apply?
Revisit your job description to ensure it’s clear and compelling. Expand your sourcing strategy to new platforms or networks, and consider whether the qualifications set are too restrictive or unrealistic.
Take Control of Your Hiring Process
Given the fast-paced nature of today's job market, it's more important than ever to have systems and structures in place to source, interview, hire, and retain top talent. Optimizing your hiring process may require talent acquisition software, compliance management systems, and employee onboarding tools to help finalize your overall hiring strategy.
Want to learn more about creating a thorough hiring process or need assistance with acquiring talent? Contact us today to receive recruiting and onboarding insights.
