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The hiring process is an important part of running a successful business. Make sure to develop a process that will lead to fruitful new hires.
The quality of your employees can have a major impact on the success of your business. Although you may be tempted rush through the hiring process to find new staff and get them onboarded as quickly as possible, hiring the right employees is a critical task that shouldn’t be rushed. Skipping steps along the way can cost you in the long run. Here are some best practices for a solid hiring process.
It’s important to be flexible with the hiring process timeline because you might find you need to adapt it based on the requirements of the role, your industry or your company. However, you shouldn’t necessarily customize the selection process for each candidate. Doing so often leads to excessive time spent with candidates for high-level positions and insufficient time spent with candidates for low-level positions. You need good people at all levels. Remind yourself that finding the most qualified candidate is worth the effort, no matter the job level or business environment.
With that in mind, when you’ve identified the need to hire someone, use this model to guide you through the process.
A standardized hiring process can help reduce hiring errors or discrimination that may occur due to unconscious biases. Once you’ve found and hired the best candidate, follow these 11 tips to onboard your new worker successfully.
According to Get Hired by LinkedIn News, the hiring process takes about three to six weeks, on average. However, the timeline for completing the hiring process, from the initial job posting to the acceptance of an offer, varies among industries and companies.
For example, five industries with some of the longest hiring timelines include government, aerospace and defense, energy and utilities, biotech and pharmaceuticals and nonprofits.
The industries with the shortest hiring processes are those with dynamic staffing patterns and a greater emphasis on abilities than educational credentials, such as restaurants and bars, private security, supermarkets, automotive and beauty and fitness.
Your company’s hiring timeline will be unique to your business and possibly even the department or position you are hiring for. In addition to looking at the average hiring timeline for your industry, you can get an estimate of how long your hiring process will take by asking yourself these three questions:
Although these three instances can add extra time to your hiring process, it’s important to assess each position carefully.
You may be tempted to rush through the hiring process, but the last thing you want is to make a panic hire or accidentally hire a deepfake because you didn’t do your due diligence during the hiring process.
The complexity of your hiring process will depend on various factors, including:
With these factors in mind, you use the following steps to create an effective hiring process.
Clearly define the roles you are hiring for. Your definition should include details like the job responsibilities, required skills, qualifications and experience.
Consistency is an important part of an effective hiring process. Create a plan that outlines key stakeholders, goals, hiring timelines and workflows. Educate your staff on this process so everyone is on the same page. When we spoke with Matt Erhard, managing partner at recruitment and executive search firm Summit Search Group, he highlighted this as one of the most important steps.
“Establish standards and systems for every stage of the process, from determining your hiring needs through sourcing, screening, interviewing, selecting and onboarding,” Erhard told us. “When you have clear standards and steps in place for the team to follow, there is less risk of confusion or need for discussion as you move through the process, which allows the process to flow more seamlessly.”
Find an applicant tracking system (ATS) that meets your hiring needs and train your workers to use it. When looking for an ATS, focus on the tools and features you currently need and which might be valuable as your business grows. It can be helpful to conduct demos and free trials to test out the software before making a purchase.
If you are a very small company only hiring for a role or two, you may be able to skip this step. However, an applicant tracking system can be a valuable tool in tracking and managing applicants throughout the hiring process.
Be efficient and effective with your screening process. Erhard suggests doing this through asynchronous assessments.
“Skill assessments, personality tests and one-way interviews can be very useful tools for improving hiring efficiency,” he said. “They allow you to gather information on a wider variety of candidates before you start meeting with them one-on-one, allowing your HR team to make more efficient use of their time and focus their greatest effort on the strongest candidates.”
Whether you use phone screens, skills tests, interviews or other assessment methods, just be sure that each step is necessary and well-thought-out to enhance efficiency. The last thing you want is a prolonged interview process that deters top applicants.
“Many believe a longer hiring process equates to thoroughness, but lengthy timelines can deter quality candidates and suggest indecisiveness,” said Adam Lenhart, managing partner at Optimum Supply Chain Recruiters. “Focusing on efficiency while maintaining quality helps organizations attract mission-critical talent in a competitive market.”
Additionally, consider using a scoring system to rank candidates based on key criteria and use a consistent format during interviews.
When evaluating two candidates, make your decision based on data. Use interview feedback, test results and reference checks to assess candidates objectively. This can help you create an effective process and reduce the potential for hiring bias.
You can also use data to improve your overall hiring process. Top-rated HR software can provide you with valuable data points around whether your hiring process is successful or needs to be modified.
“Utilizing analytics to track metrics such as time-to-fill and candidate source effectiveness offers valuable insights into what works and needs improvement,” said Lenhart. “Continuous refinement of recruitment strategies ensures an optimized process.”
Your hiring process is never complete — it can always be improved. Evaluate your process continuously through data points and feedback from candidates and hiring managers.
Creating an effective hiring process takes time, but it’s worth it when you are able to find the right staff for your business. Here are a few best practices to help you achieve the best hiring results.
The description of the role should be complete but not laden with details of every possible demand that the new hire will face. The right job description can act as a road map for the entire hiring process.
“Clearly defining the role you are hiring for is essential,” said Lenhart. “This means outlining the skills, experiences and qualifications necessary for success in the position. A well-crafted job description attracts the right candidates and sets the expectations for the employer and the potential employee.”
Be true to your screening process and bring in only select candidates for interviews. Trust your instincts about candidates after reading their resumes. A certain candidate might look interesting, but will that person be a good fit for your company? Instead of scheduling five to 10 people for a first interview, you might want to go with three to five. Avoid interviewing too many candidates who might look interesting but do not meet the minimum qualifications for the role.
Internal candidates may not be perfect, but neither are external applicants, despite their impressive resumes. And even if an internal candidate is interviewed but not hired, at least that person will not feel taken for granted. “Recruiting” people who are already on board is a way to build better communication links within your company. [Related article: Why You Should Promote from Within Your Company]
Go the easy-apply route, instead of requiring detailed information upfront in a lengthy application, which can discourage would-be candidates. At the outset, ask simply for a cover letter and a resume. It takes only a few minutes to glance at this information. If you like what you see, you can get more detailed information during the next stage of the hiring process.
Contact job references earlier in the hiring process, rather than later. Tacking this step onto the end of a series of interviews can delay hiring. (A key contact might be on vacation, for instance.) Also, checking references is an important way to evaluate talent and should not be treated as an afterthought. Knowing more about a candidate who comes in for an interview will help your HR team ask better interview questions, leading to a richer exchange of ideas and information.
If a candidate does not have a particular advanced degree or the same background as everyone else at the office, must that be a dealbreaker? If you cling to too many preconceived notions about the ideal candidate, you might overlook someone who could bring new ideas to your business. This is especially true as Gen Z makes its mark on the workforce, many of whom don’t subscribe to the belief that a college degree isn’t needed to have a successful career.
If you anticipate becoming overwhelmed by the hiring process — and that might happen, for reasons out of your control — outsource some of the process to a professional staffing agency.
There can be many challenges during the hiring process, but this list of the 10 do’s and don’ts for hiring can help you smooth out the process.
Here are a few common questions — and their answers — many small business owners have about hiring new employees.
According to SHRM, the average cost of hiring a new employee is roughly $4,700. That includes the cost of HR processing the new employee, payment to the employee for work that will likely not yield productive work, such as during orientation or training, and a myriad of other expenses associated with the process.
However, although some hiring costs are nearly universal regardless of industry, the cost of a new hire depends largely on their starting salary and any immediate perks.
Applicant tracking systems are popular. They help HR post job listings, they parse and organize candidate resumes, they identify well-qualified candidates and they help companies track candidates throughout the hiring process. Other, more comprehensive, HR software can also be used to streamline the hiring process if you want something that can help hire, onboard and manage workers through their entire employee life cycle.
Another useful tool is a good old-fashioned referral. Employee referral programs require an investment to set them up, but they can generate big rewards by attracting quality hires to your company who may not otherwise hear about your company.
Yes, the hiring manager is the final decision-maker when selecting which candidate will receive the job offer. Recruiters or other HR professionals may be involved in the hiring process, but the hiring manager has the final say.
The hiring manager. Although HR and hiring managers will often work closely together throughout the hiring process, the hiring manager will be the one to reach out and extend the job offer to the selected candidate. They are the ones who will be working directly with the candidate after they are hired.
Tuesday tends to be the most popular day of the week for employers to extend job offers. Typically, this is because Mondays are reserved for catching up on administrative tasks, yet hiring managers want to get to viable candidates as soon as possible. If a decision is made later in the week, many managers also opt for Thursday, so they can get the offer in before the weekend.
The most popular time of day for extending an offer is 11 a.m. It is considered late enough in the morning that most people are awake and alert. It is also before lunch, which gives offer recipients a likely opportunity to respond to the offer.
Skye Schooley contributed to this article.
