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The 19 Steps in an Effective Recruiting Process

In this section Ill list each of the 19 distinct steps in the recruiting process, as well as the
primary goal and the common cause of failure for each.
Step #1 Determine your ideal recruiting target the goal of this step is to
determine precisely who recruiting efforts should target, including performance level,
experience level, and whether or not they are actively looking for a job. If youre
targeting top performers or poaching from competitors, the remaining steps of the
recruiting process must be designed to fit the needs in the job search process of your
targeted candidate if you expect to even gain their attention. At this step many firms
prioritize their jobs, so that they focus resources on jobs with the highest business impact.
Common reason for failure: defining your target but failing to design the approaches used in
a way capable of recruiting and hiring that type of target.
Step #2 Understanding your targets decision criteria a significant part of any
recruiting process is attracting desired talent, which you cannot do effectively without
understanding what your targets consider important. This step focuses on identifying the
key factors, known as job acceptance criteria, that are necessary in order to convince a
qualified prospect to apply for and eventually accept a job at your firm. Common reason for
failure: omitting this step altogether and producing messages based on what the recruiting
team finds compelling versus what the target talent needs to hear about.
Step #3 Knowing where your target hangs out having defined your target and
their decision criteria, the next step aims at identifying where you are most likely to find the
target talent, including what communication channels would be effective for recruitment
messages. If you dont accurately identify where they spend their time, there will be a low
probability of you placing compelling information about the company and the opportunity
in a place they will find or pay attention to. Common reason for failure: omitting this step
altogether and deploying employment branding and recruitment marketing to channels that
are easiest to deploy to.
Step #4 Employment branding driving a pipeline of talent is the role of
employment branding, a science-driven discipline that produces a consistent flow of
qualified talent interested in some day working for your organization. The goal of this step is
proactively developing and deploying content about what makes your organization a
desirable place to work in the minds of your target talent populations. Obviously, if qualified
individuals havent ever heard of your firm or they dont really think that your firm offers
any positive or compelling features, you wont get many direct applicants. Common reason
for failure: firms present their employer brand message in a perfect corporate format that
is not judged to be authentic or believable by the target audience.
Step #5 Learning your targets job search process at this step you implement a
process designed to identify the typical process that your target audience uses once they
begin a job search. The goal is to better understand precisely how they look for jobs, so that
you can engineer your approach to advertising opportunities to make your jobs visible to
them. If for example you learned that top talent often start job searches using Boolean
search strings entered into a major search engine versus visiting a major job board, you may
focus your attention on making your jobs listing search-engine acceptable and optimized,
versus broadcasting to macro and micro job boards. Common reason for failure: again,
many recruiting processes omit this step and as result, rely on luck or coincidence in order
to be at the right place at the right time.
Step #6 Posting jobs for active candidates because active candidates are
proactively seeking out job openings, it doesnt take a lot to make your job postings visible.
During this step, the goal is to write position postings and place them where active
candidates can easily find them. Obviously if the descriptions are written so that they are
unappealing or they are placed where your active candidates wouldnt likely see them, you
would have a low percentage of active candidates applying. Common reason for failure:
many firms refuse to gather data, so they are forced to guess where active candidates look
for job openings.
Step #7 Directly sourcing non-active prospects because non-active
prospects are not in job search mode, they are unlikely to read any job postings or to visit
your corporate career site. Instead, recruiters (or your employees through
thereferral program) will have to identify them, contact them, build a relationship, and
eventually convince them to apply through direct sourcing. Common reason for failure:
many recruiting functions do little direct sourcing and as a result, they are forced (often
without realizing it) to select from a pool of primarily active candidates.
Step #8 Providing prospects with additional information at this step potential
candidates have decided to consider your firm but want additional information before they
decide to actually apply. The goal of this step is to make it easy for potential candidates to
find positive information about your firm and its jobs. Many will visit your corporate
website for additional information, opting not to apply if what they find isnt immediately
compelling. Smart prospects will also look for information about your firm and what its like
to work there in places you cant control, including blogs, ratings sites, and via social media.
The best firms identify trusted information sources and work proactively to influence
information on them. Common reason for failure: lack of interest in identifying what
information candidates are most interested in and delivering a candid set of information.
Step #9 The job application process by this step, potential candidates have been
convinced to apply for a position, so the goal is for a large percentage of the qualified
individuals who visit the site to complete the application process. Common reason for
failure: most application processes are tedious or frustrating and there is no feedback
mechanism to find out why applicants drop before they complete the process.
Step #10 Sorting applications by job once applications are received, the goal is to
ensure that the highest quality applications are sorted relevant to the most appropriate jobs
(manually or via software). Common reason for failure: no metric or feedback mechanism to
measure the percentage of applications that were routed to the wrong job.
Step #11 The initial screening of applications and resumes at this step
applications are screened to see if they meet minimum qualifications for the job. The goal is
to successfully qualify the applicants so that qualified applicants are not sorted out and
that only a small percentage of unqualified candidates make it to the next step. Common
reason for failure: the absence of a metric or feedback mechanism to measure the
percentage of applications that were misclassified or that advanced without meeting
minimum standards.
Step #12 The initial phone screen having screened resumes, the next step involves
screening the individual behind the application. The goal of this step is to gather additional
information on the candidates qualifications and fit, which should help you more
accurately determine which candidates advance to an interview. Common reason for failure:
no metric or periodic testing to determine the accuracy of the screening process.
Step #13 Interviewing and selling qualified applicants in this step the most
qualified candidates advance to formal interviews and other assessment activities. The
primary goal is to rank order the candidates by level of desirability, with a secondary goal of
providing a positive candidate experience that effectively sells the best candidates on this
job. Common reason for failure: the absence of a feedback mechanism to identify problems
and candidate dissatisfaction with the process that leads to top talent opting out before the
process is completed.
Step #14 The final interview the goal of this step is to confirm your initial
desirability ranking and set expectations among those most likely to receive an offer.
Common reason for failure: the very best candidates have been previously screened out by
mistake or voluntarily dropped out of the process, so remaining choices are mediocre.
Step #15 The reference checking process with your short list vetted and
expectations for an offer set, the next step validates the perception of your assessment team
using references. The goal is to gather additional information on the finalist(s) and ensure
information provided is not erroneous. Common reason for failure: the
reference checking process is underfunded and no one is accountable for demonstrating
effectiveness.
Step #16 The offer process the goal of this step is to put together an offer that is
within the companys boundaries and that meets as many of the candidates job acceptance
criteria as possible. The process should have the sales and influence component that work
to improve the likelihood of top candidates accepting. Common reason for failure: no one is
held accountable for this step and there is seldom an effective mechanism to analyze failures
and to provide feedback on how the offer process can be improved.
Step #17 The post-offer acceptance process once an offer is accepted, it doesnt
ensure the candidate will actually show up for work! The goal of this step is to ensure those
that accept our offers dont back out (as a result of a counteroffer or second thoughts). That
often means continuous communications with the new hire and providing more ties that
closely link the individual to the firm prior to their start date. Common reason for failure:
this step is often left to chance or is omitted.
Step #18 The onboarding process contrary to popular belief, the primary goal
of onboarding is not to get employees enrolled in benefits, but rather to provide resources
and information that enable new hires to become productive as fast as possible. Common
reason for failure: failures often occur because of the week handoff between the recruiting
and onboarding functions and no defined budget for onboarding.
Step #19 Feedback and new hire monitoring if the ultimate goal is continuous
improvement of the recruiting process, then this step is the most important of all. The goal
of this step is to assess the performance of new hires and to use that performance
information to validate or prove that the overall recruiting process is producing quality
hires. If a high percentage new hires fail, quit, or are poor performers, you will know that
the hiring process needs significant improvement. A secondary goal is using new hires to
determine what elements of the recruiting process were and were not effective. Some
organizations also consider it a goal for recruiters to work individually with new hires to
improve retention. Common reason for failure: this step is skipped altogether.
Criteria for Assessing a Recruiting Failure Point
After mapping each of the steps of the recruiting process, the next thing to do is to
determine if there are any indicators that point to an activity as a possible failure point. An
individual step becomes an automatic candidate for closer examination as a key failure
point if it meets one or more of the following six characteristics:
1. The step is absent if a step is nonexistent, it cant make its contribution to the
overall hiring process!
2. The step has no defined goals without published clear and measurable goals, it is
unlikely that any activity will purposely produce desirable results.
3. Performance measures do not exist without feedback mechanisms to provide
data or metrics to monitor the output of the step, the probability of failure increases
dramatically.
4. Handoffs are not aligned the handoff between preceding and subsequent
activities is not aligned. If they are not aligned, the outputs of one step will not easily
mesh with the inputs of the next step.
5. No individual is accountable if no individual owns the step, there is less
likelihood that errors will be caught.
6. The step has no defined funding without a defined budget, there is no need to
justify the existence and the performance of the step.

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