What is the recruitment process?

There comes a time for almost any small business when you need to recruit more employees. Whether you are hiring two or three full-time staff members or simply looking for an assistant who can help you out part time, it’s important to understand the recruitment process.

Understanding the recruitment process

There are certain steps that must be undertaken when recruiting. You can find each of these below, from identifying when you need to hire someone new to making that phone call that tells them they’ve been successful.

Identify a vacancy

Identifying the need for additional staff is the first step of the recruitment process. It may be that another employee has left the business or has handed in their notice, or that the business has grown and your current employees are struggling to keep up with the increasing workload. The vacancy could be for an existing job or for a new role that you wish to set up. No matter which of these scenarios you’re faced with, consider which job you want to recruit for and how many people you will be hiring.

Create a job description

A job description is a document that can be used both internally and externally, and should outline the main requirements of the job, as well as the essential skills you’re looking for in applicants. It should also contain information that the candidate will want to know, such as pay, benefits, location, working hours and more.

Having a good job description is imperative, as potential applicants will read it and decide whether they want to apply for the job. A poor job description that fails to properly describe what the successful candidate will be doing on a day-to-day basis could result in high turnover or employees that don’t last through their probationary period.

Advertise the role

Once your job description is ready, it’s time to advertise the role. You can do this by creating social posts on your business’ social media channels, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn may be the better choice, as you can specifically list it as a job, and potential candidates will see it more easily. However, Facebook can also be a good choice if you have followers that can engage with the post so it is shown to more people.

Other places you can post your job advert include job boards (such as Monster, Reed, Indeed and CV Library), job centres, newspapers and Facebook groups for local areas.

Sort through CVs

It can take time for applications to filter through, but as they do, you should take the time to sort through the CVs. You can either do this as you go, or wait a couple of weeks and go through them all together.

While you’re doing this task, it’s important to think about what you do and don’t want ‒ do you want someone who can be trained or a candidate who has lots of previous experience, a person who’s local or who can work remotely? Understanding what you want can help you to narrow down the CVs more quickly.

Do some interviews

Once you’ve chosen the candidates you like the sound of, it’s time to invite them to interview. This can be done in person, on the phone or via video call. Generally, phone call interviews are conducted in the first instance and then secondary interviews can be done in person. Interviews are a chance for you to ask the questions you’d like the answers to. This could be anything from their past work experience and their qualifications to their life goals and skill set. It’s a chance for you to see if they will be a good fit for your company.

You may wish to conduct multiple interviews with a number of people. Some candidates might not make it through to the second interview, but this is good as it narrows down your options so you can find the perfect employee.

Hire the right candidate for you

Now that the interview process is done, it’s time to make your final decision. If you have had a lot of good applicants who impressed you during their interviews, this might be a tricky choice but ultimately you should pick the candidate that will fit in with your existing team and your company values, and will take pride in their work.

Once your decision is made, you should call the candidate to offer them the job. They may accept straight away, or they might ask to be given some time to form their own decision. This is why you should offer them the job first, instead of calling the other candidates to tell them they have been unsuccessful. Should Candidate 1 decline the job, you can offer it to the next best candidate.

What makes a good recruitment process?

When recruiting, you ultimately have one goal – to find a suitable employee that will fulfil the job requirements and hopefully stay with your company for a decent amount of time. So how can the recruitment process ensure that this is the case?

A smooth recruitment process involves excellent organisation. It’s important that you keep on top of new CVs that are coming in, as well as making a note of which people can be invited to interview, people you have interviewed and the outcome of those interviews. If you’re doing more than one round of interviews, it’s also important to note who has had a callback.

Each person’s CV and contact details should be easy to find. Therefore, you may wish to set up a spreadsheet that contains this data, with a link to download their CV. This means that anyone involved in recruitment can step in at any time and find the right information.

A good recruitment process also involves interviewing a number of different candidates from various backgrounds and industries. This can help you to identify the ones that are a definite no, but it also allows you to compare: did you prefer Candidate A over Candidate B, and why was this the case? It can help you to realise what you do and don’t want, narrowing down your search to find the ideal person.

Being organised and staying focused are important if you want to improve the quality of new hires and reduce hiring costs.

Employers’ Liability Insurance

As an employer, whether it’s permanent or temporary staff you hire, you are responsible for the health and safety of your employees while they are at work.

Under the Employers Liability Act (1969), Employers’ Liability is a compulsory insurance requirement if you employ staff, with the legal minimum of cover being £5,000,000.

Without this insurance, if you employ staff, you could be fined £2,500 for each day you are not appropriately insured.

At Caunce O’Hara, we provide £10,000,000 of Employers’ Liability cover as part of our Business Combined insurance policy. You can find out more about Employers’ Liability Insurance here.