What is Recruitment?
In Simple words, ‘Recruitment’ denotes selecting a right person for right position at right time.
Recruitment is a process of attracting qualified applicants for a particular job. The process begins when the job requirement arises and ends when the position is closed. The result is derived from a pool of applicants, from where the appropriate candidate is selected.
What is Recruitment Cycle?
Recruitment Cycle consists of many steps. The real time scenario of Recruitment cycle is as follows:
1. Obtaining job requirements from the concerned department / line managers
– The first process in recruitment is obtaining the job requirements from the concerned department / line managers.
– Different employer will have different requirement. Also, single employer may have different requirements.
– Each employer will have their own specification for their job requirements like age, gender, background, subject knowledge, experience etc.
– Clear understanding of these requirements is very important as it would spoil the whole recruitment process if misunderstood.
2. Analysing the job requirements
– This is noting but Job analysis.
– Perform a job analysis and document the job description.
3. Sourcing the candidates
There are many methods of sourcing like –
Advertisements, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs;
Recruitment Web Portal research, which is the proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond to job postings and other recruitment advertising methods
Recruitment Consultants – basically they are HR recruitment consulting professional who understands the job description from the employer and help to identify the right candidate accordingly.
Employee Referrals – This is one of the best methods where the employer seeks the help of his own employees to fill up the job vacancies. As a token of appreciation, some employers offer an attractive cash incentive to those employees who help the employer to find a suitable candidate through his reference.
Word-of-mouth referrals – This is obtained through friends, relatives and other known people. This also helps to a large extent.
4. Screening and filtering
– This is one of the critical and time-consuming processes. The complete data base has to be screened and the profiles which fit the relevant job description need to be filtered.
– Factors for filtering are age, background, experience, subject-knowledge, communication skills, achievements in the past etc
– Possibilities are there that most matching profiles might be ignored by oversight, unfit profiles might be filtered for lack of adequate knowledge. Hence, adequate care needs to be taken in this process.
5. Interaction with candidates
– This is a step whereby the recruiter comes to know more about the candidate through direct conversation through phone conversations, mail exchanges, and face-to-face discussions.
– This basically helps the recruiter to know about their strength & weakness, capability & inability.
6. Arranging Interview
– After ensuring that the filtered profiles match the relevant job requirements and also the fact that the concerned candidates are interested in attending the interview, the recruiter arranges for the first round of technical interview.
– This also involves confirming the availability of the concerned line-manager who is going to interview the candidates.
– Some organizations have the policy of conducting a preliminary written / online test before the interview. Preliminary tests mostly are in the format of objective type questions with multiple options and the candidate has to select the right answer.
7. Feedback of the interviewer
– After the interview is over, the recruiter has to obtain the opinion of the interviewer.
– At this stage, the opinion of the interviewer is very important as the chances of rejection happen if he doesn’t like the performance of the candidate.
8. Short-listing the candidates
If the interviewer rates the candidate positively, then the recruiter has to mark the concerned profile as short-listed.
Then, inform the candidate accordingly.
9. Arranging final round of interview with managers
A final round of technical interview with the concerned reporting manager is compulsory.
Here, the mentality of both the interviewer and interviewee travels in the same path that they might work together if the situation goes well.
10. Arranging HR round of interview to finalise the terms
Here comes the stage whereby the recruiter obtains a ‘go-ahead’ from the interviewer.
Then, discussing the terms like date of joining, salary package and other perquisites, joining formalities etc.
11. Issuing the offer letter
At this stage, after mutual consent, the recruiter issues a formal offer letter to the selected candidate.
It takes the form of either signed hard copy or scanned signed copy.
This will help the concerned candidate to put in his resignation letter to his current employer.
12. End of Recruitment Cycle:
Recruitment cycle will not be considered as complete without the candidate actually joining duty.
It’s not that all candidates who accept the offer joins the organisation.
The candidate cannot guarantee that he would join the organization for the reasons like –
– he might have gotten some other offer or
– using this offer letter, would have negotiated with his company for salary increment or
– he would have changed his mind about the job-shift.
Hence, it becomes the responsibility of the HR division to ensure that the candidate who has been issued offer letter joins duty on the committed date. Also, the HR managers should be able to keep alternate solutions during situations when the candidate does not join the duty.