How To Streamline The End To End Recruitment Process

With the rise of recruitment technology, artificial intelligence and automation processes, recruitment firms and HR teams now have endless ways to streamline each step of the recruitment process.

Whether you’re hiring one person or growing an entire team, it can be a long, time-consuming and expensive process. Streamlining your recruitment process has multiple benefits, including:

• Saving time on the recruitment process. This shortens the time of your open headcount, saving you money internally. It also shortens the time the hiring manager has to spend on the recruitment process so that they can continue with more important, revenue-generating tasks.

• Making your recruitment efforts more successful. Time kills all deals, and it’s the same for recruitment. If you find someone who is the perfect fit for your company, it’s important you act quickly so that your competition can’t approach them.

What are the recruitment processes, and how can you implement the right plans to streamline each process to make them as effective and successful as possible?  

Foresee your hiring needs

Prepare your recruitment plan

Source the right people

Screen candidates accurately

Select the successful candidates

Hire the right candidates

Onboard the candidate successfully

Foresee your hiring needs

Many companies start their hiring process too late – when they need someone. To streamline your recruitment process, it is essential that you foresee your hiring needs. If you plan to upscale your company, you will also need to do this in terms of manpower. For example, if you want to grow your company revenue by 25%, you’re likely going to need 25% more manpower. Plan ahead so that you don’t have an open headcount, which will ultimately slow down your growth and cost you money.  

Prepare your recruitment plan

The first step in hiring is to establish and define the ideal candidate and candidate persona. Once you have established what your ideal hire looks like, you can start to create a detailed job description that includes the skills and experience which is desired for the ideal candidate.

Constantly review the kinds of skills and experience your current successful team has so you can create an accurate description of what you would like to attract in a future employee.

Communicate with the rest of the team and HR so you are all briefed on what is needed. Once you have a clear idea of who you want for the role, you can move on to sourcing your ideal candidate.  

Source the right people

After you have determined what you want in the ideal candidate – it is time to find them.  There are endless avenues to consider when it comes to sourcing candidates.  You need to consider the number of people, budget and the seniority of people you want to hire.

Expert recruiters will have a wider network than your internal recruiters which may be better for more senior roles, and junior roles may be more suited to general or internal recruiters.

For more information on sourcing candidates, download our Sourcing Candidates recruitment guide.

Screen candidates accurately

Once you have successfully sourced the right people, you need to qualify them thoroughly.  Screening or interviewing is your chance to get to know the person you could potentially hire, as well as providing them with a chance to get to know you.

An interview is a conversation to get to know one another, so make sure you get to know the individual on a professional and personal level so you can accurately assess whether they are a professional and cultural fit for your company.

Partially structure your screening process so you can qualify everyone correctly and thoroughly.  Involve other members of the team during the screening process too, so candidates can get to know the culture of your team and your team can assess whether they would fit in well with the dynamic.

Select the successful candidates

Once you have interviewed each candidate, you should have some idea as to who stands out from the crowd and those who are simply not right for your company.  While it is always difficult to make a decision, if you have structured your interviews correctly, it will point you in the right direction.

Ask the opinions of your recruiters too, as they will be able to advise you on who they think is best for the role.  

Hire the right candidates

The actual hiring step does not simply mean getting the contract signed.  It also involves negotiation of salary and package, which can be a lengthy process.  Avoid working against the person you are hiring, and always be understanding as well as considering everything they say.

Your recruiter will also be on hand to help with negotiations involving the contract and packages to make it as seamless as possible. 

Onboard the candidate successfully

Onboarding is often one of the most overlooked elements of recruitment; however, if you get it wrong, then it could be catastrophic for your business. What scares most candidates in the recruitment process is a lack of guidance. Have a clear plan for training, development and introduction to the existing team. Making an individual feel welcome in the team is a great start. This should then be followed by support and guidance throughout their time at your company.

Whatever your recruitment plans, careful planning and reflection can make your recruitment process as quick and seamless as possible. Another key element to a streamlined recruitment process is to have a trusting, confident relationship with your recruiter. Recruiters control a large proportion of the recruitment process and have the ability to find the right person for the right role. Establishing and maintaining a relationship with your chosen recruiter is the best way to streamline your recruitment process.