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Hiring Process Steps

Table of contents, what is a hiring process, 15 steps of the hiring process, plan your own hiring process.

1. Identify the hiring need

The hiring process begins by identifying a need within your organization. This need could vary from filling a vacated position, better managing a team’s workload, or expanding the reach of organizational tasks. Positions are, in other words, either newly formed or recently vacated.

2. Devise A Recruitment Plan

Once an organization identifies a hiring need, it should begin recruitment . In the case of newly formed positions, organizations should clearly identify how the new role aligns with its goals and business plan. Organizations should also keep relevant internal teams and employees apprised of the new position at each stage of the hiring process. It’s important that all those involved in the hiring decision agree to the hiring process, steps, and appropriate communication channels. Recruitment also includes strategizing how to publicize the new position, both internally and externally; criteria for initial candidate screening; what the interview process will look like; and who will conduct interviews.

3. Write a job description

The hiring staff should start by generating a job description that includes a prioritized list of job requirements, special qualifications, desired characteristics, and requisite experience. The job description should also include information regarding salary and benefits.

4. Advertise the Position

Identifying highly-qualified potential candidates begins internally. Start, therefore, by notifying current employees of the opening. Advertising the job may stop there, if you are determined to fill the position internally. If, however, you are interested in external candidates, you should include this information when you notify internally. External publicity will likely consist of utilizing a combination of the company’s website and social media platforms, job posting sites like LinkedIn, job fairs, industry publications and events, local newspaper advertisements, and word-of-mouth recruitment. Publicity will likely consist of utilizing a combination of the company’s website and social media platforms and job posting sites like LinkedIn, industry publications, and local newspaper advertisements.

5. Recruit the Position

Beyond simple job posts, the hiring staff should reach out directly to desirable candidates via LinkedIn, social media, and job fairs. Active recruitment will help generate applications from potential candidates who are not actively searching for new jobs but may be perfect for the available position.

6. Review Applications

Your organization likely already has a mechanism in place to receive applications--via email, an applicant tracking system (ATS) , etc. In many cases, the review process begins with Human Resource representatives who review the applications and eliminate any candidate who does not meet the minimum requirements for the position or the company more generally. In other instances, the hiring team or hiring manager may prefer to review each application. Once a batch of qualified applications are assembled, the hiring staff should review the remaining candidates and identify those they want to interview.

7. Phone Interview/Initial Screening

Initial interviews typically begin with phone calls with HR representatives. Phone interviews determine if applicants possess the requisite qualifications to fill the position and align with an organization’s culture and values. Phone interviews enable organizations to further pare down the list of candidates while expending company resources efficiently.

8. Interviews

Depending on the size of the organization and hiring committee, one or several interviews are scheduled for those remaining candidates. Interviews include:

• Early interviews are typically one-on-one, in-person interviews between the applicants and the hiring manager. Early interviews conversations typically focus on applicants’ experience, skills, work history, and availability.
• Additional interviews with management, staff, executives, and other members of the organization can be either one-on-one or group interviews with the hiring committee . They may be formal or casual; on-site, off-site, or online via Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. Additional interviews are more in-depth; for example, in interviews between a candidate and multiple members of the hiring team interviewer, each member of the hiring team focuses on a specific topic or aspect of the job to avoid redundancy and ensure an in-depth conversation about the role and the candidates qualifications and experience. Note: at this stage, you should also inform the candidates you elect not to request an interview that the search has moved forward and they are no longer under consideration.
• Final interviews often include conversations with the company’s senior leadership or a more in-depth discussion with an interviewer from an earlier stage in the hiring process. Final interviews are typically extended only to a very small pool of top candidates.

9. Applicant Assessment

Once the interviews are completed, or during their completion, company’s often assign applicants one or more standardized tests. These exams measure a wide range of variables, including personality traits, problem-solving ability, reasoning, reading comprehension, emotional intelligence, and more.

10. Background Check

Your initial job posting should indicate that all candidates are subject to a background check. Background checks review candidates’ criminal record, verify employment history and eligibility, and run credit checks. Some organizations also check social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to make sure potential employees are likely to represent the company in a professional manner. Drug testing may also be warranted, depending on the position.

11. Decision

After conducting background and reference checks, the hiring staff identifies their top choice. The hiring staff should also select a backup candidate, in case the top choice declines the offer or negotiations fail to produce a signed offer letter. In the event that no candidates meet the hiring criteria, the hiring staff should determine whether or not to start the hiring process over. If so, the hiring staff should discuss whether or not to adjust or alter the hiring process in order to yield more favorable candidates.

12. Reference Check

Reference checks should verify any pertinent information shared by the candidate about previous employment--job performance, experience, responsibilities, workplace conduct, etc. A typical question to ask references is “Would you rehire this person?”

13. Job offer

Once a top candidate is identified, the organization should extend an initial offer. The offer letter should include the position’s salary, benefits, paid time off, start date, potential severance pay, working remotely policy, included company equipment and other terms and conditions of employment. Negotiations are likely to follow. Therefore, the hiring staff should determine internally which elements of the offer letter are negotiable, and which are not. It is typical for terms like salary, flexible work schedule, and working remotely to be negotiable.

After negotiations, once the candidate accepts the job offer they are hired. An accepted offer letter begins a process of filling out and filing paperwork related to employment. Forms and paperwork might include:

• Form I-9 and E-Verify
• State Withholding and Registrations
• A checklist with all required paperwork to be completed by new employees
• An organization’s employee handbook

15. Onboarding

• A Guide and Template for Crafting Rejection Letters the Correct Way
• Candidate Aptitude Test
• Group Interview
• How to Calculate Recruitment Costs for 2022
• Interview Feedback Form
• Interview Scorecard
• Quality of Hire
• Screening Questions
• Skills Test
• Social Recruiting

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Building an Effective Hiring Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide for Hiring Managers and Recruiters

• December 6, 2023

Hey there, I’m thrilled to share some gems from my own journey in the world of hiring.  This article will kick off a series where I discuss what it takes to run a great hiring process.  I’ll cover the essential skills and habits that I’ve gathered from the best hiring managers I’ve worked with, and through my own several decades of learning and experience. We’ll start by talking about hiring plans.

The Kick-off: Developing your hiring plan

Think of this step as a project kick off – you are going to explicitly identify the hiring team, process, and objectives upfront, so you are ready to focus on finding the best candidates possible and will have clarity when it comes to recognizing and pursuing the ideal candidate.  

This is an essential step that is often missed by people who are new to hiring.

1. Understand the Role

First things first, let’s talk about the job title and its core responsibilities.  I’ve found the more specific you are here, the easier it becomes later.  This step goes beyond drafting the job posting (which I’ll cover in a different piece).  

The goal here is to make sure you really, clearly understand the 2-3 essential characteristics about the job, so you can carry these expectations over into all other steps of the process – from search, to screening and even new-employee onboarding.  

The clearer and more specific your thinking is during this step, the easier it will be for you to recognize suitable candidates and gain conviction through the hiring process.  Be sure to cover all of the following points.

• Screen the job title: Ensure it reflects the roles importance and scope. 
• Detail core responsibilities: Link them directly to your organization’s goals 
• Define competencies:  What are the ideal behaviors this role requires?  This perspective is useful for discerning between two equally qualified people with similar skills and experience. 
• Impact expectations: How will an amazing candidate make your team better?  How about you personally?  Consider defining impact thresholds that separate a good candidate from a great candidate.

2. Determine Employee value proposition

Ask yourself, why would an “A” player want this job?  What is it about this job and team that can attract an “A” player, and cause them to stay long term?  Hiring and changing jobs is easier than ever these days, and so it is essential to have a compelling employee value proposition for every role you hire.

I often capture this in a short 1-2 sentence paragraph, with perhaps a few bullet points on the most compelling items.  Bonus points if your messaging is aligned to your professional social media presence and company website.

3. Evaluating Performance

• Identify KPIs:  Identify 2-3 measurable performance indicators.
• Set performance factors:  Identify your non-KPI driven expectations.

4. Compensation Strategy

5. The Interview Process

• Who is involved in the decision?
• How many interviews are planned? 
• What types of interviews? (single, panel, case study, etc) 
• Will there be any testing steps? (ie, behavior or technical) 

6. Timelines 

7. pulling it all together .

          – Job title           – core responsibilities           – required competencies           – impact expectations 2) Employee value proposition  3) Performance expectations with 2-3 measurable KPIs  4) Compensation defined 5) The interview process defined; and 6) The timelines including an end-date and time blocked out for 1st and 2nd interview rounds

8. Impact of technology  

  wrapping up.

This approach ensures a comprehensive and aligned hiring strategy and gives you the best chance of landing a superstar hire for your team. 

  Additional Resources

Also, if you want a comprehensive job analysis template to get started on finding a perfect fit for your team, you can access our template for free here .

Author - Kent McCrea, Chief Executive Officer

With over two decades of experience in the technology sector, Kent specializes in leading business and technology initiatives, both internally at Procom and on behalf of its clients.  He’s built teams, led projects and navigated critical business transformation initiatives along the way.

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• How to build a best-in-class hiring pro ...

How to build a best-in-class hiring process

A hiring process is a structured approach to help you find, assess, and hire new members of your team. While it’s not often something we consciously build, an effective hiring process makes it easy to collaborate with stakeholders like human resources and your interview panel. Plus, it helps you check off every box and hire the best possible candidates. Learn the ins and outs of hiring, then get started with 11 concrete steps.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was your team. Hiring great people takes time, but it’s worth it because your team members are the driving force behind everything you accomplish. To accomplish big goals, you need a solid team. And to build your team, you need a well-planned hiring process. 

What is a hiring process?

A hiring process is a structured approach to find, assess, and hire new members of your team. It’s a standardized set of steps you follow every time you want to hire a new employee—whether you’re backfilling an existing role or adding a new role to your team. And while hiring can often feel urgent (especially when you’re understaffed or need to backfill a role), it’s worth it to set up a hiring process before you kick things off. With some extra time up front, you can save yourself even more time and hassle in the future.

Hiring is usually a cross-functional process. It involves working with stakeholders like recruiters and your human resources team, plus any coworkers that will help interview potential candidates. Hiring is also customizable depending on who you’re hiring and what resources you have available. For example, hiring a software engineer requires different steps than hiring a clinical therapist. Or, hiring responsibilities may be different at smaller companies with no HR team.

But if you’re not sure where to start or if wrangling stakeholders isn’t your cup of tea, don’t worry. A standardized hiring process makes collaboration easy. Once you figure out what works for you and document each step, you’ll have a roadmap to follow—so you know exactly what to do and who to talk to every time you want to hire someone new. 

Hiring process vs. onboarding process

Before you can onboard new team members, you need to hire them. That means your hiring process includes identifying job requirements, sourcing qualified candidates, interviewing, and extending a final offer. Along with those bigger steps, your hiring process also includes details like who communicates with candidates and how you should evaluate each applicant. Simply put, hiring includes everything up until a candidate accepts your offer. 

Onboarding starts after a candidate signs your offer letter. That’s when you start to welcome your new hire and bring them up to speed. Surprisingly, some critical onboarding steps often happen before an employee’s first day—like making sure your team member has a laptop and office access badge, or sending them a first-day email so they know what to expect. After an employee officially starts, onboarding continues as employees learn about your organizational culture , get to know their teammates, and learn about the tools and processes they need for their role. 

Why is a hiring process important? 

A structured hiring process doesn’t just make your life easier—it also helps your stakeholders and potential candidates. Here’s how: 

Create a positive candidate experience

Candidate experience is a key component of your company culture . According to a study , 78% of candidates say their interviewing and hiring experience indicates how a company values its people. That means it’s essential to put your best foot forward during the hiring process, because that’s when potential employees form their first impressions.  

A hiring process gives each candidate a consistent experience and helps you provide the right information at the right time. When you have a predefined hiring process, you can tell candidates what next steps look like and how long each step might take, so they’re not left wondering where they stand or what to do during downtime. You can also build essential communications into your hiring process to ensure you’re not missing any steps—like sending candidates the information they need to prepare for interviews or sending follow-up emails to let people know when you’ve hired a different candidate.

Avoid unconscious bias

Unconscious biases are learned assumptions, beliefs, or attitudes that we aren’t necessarily aware of. They’re also a normal part of being human—our brains process truckloads of information on a daily basis, so we sometimes take shortcuts. For example, we assume frost on our windshield means it’s cold outside, rush hour means lots of traffic, and the milk we just bought is safe to drink.

The examples above are pretty harmless, but our biases can also creep into the hiring process and influence who we choose for a specific role. For example, a Princeton University study showed that when symphonies started to hold blind auditions, female musicians were immediately 50% more likely to make it to the next round of the audition process. That means that when judges could see the gender of applicants, they were unconsciously biased towards male musicians.

But luckily, learning about unconscious bias can help you recognize when it’s happening and put active countermeasures into place. A structured hiring process helps you avoid unconscious bias by making you follow the same steps for every candidate. It lets you collect the same type of information for each applicant and make decisions based on data rather than the undefined idea of “culture fit.” For example, you can include a standard set of interview questions in your hiring process to ensure candidates are assessed equally in the same areas. 

Hire the right candidates

Hiring is a bit like speed dating. You and the applicant are both trying to decide if you want to pursue a long-term relationship—you’re trying to decide if the candidate is a good fit for your team, while they’re trying to figure out if they want to work at your company. It’s easy to rush this process and leave out key information that would help you both make the best decision. And when that happens, you might struggle with employee retention if new hires aren’t qualified for their role. 

But when you follow a predefined hiring process, you can make sure both you and your candidates have all the information they need before a decision is made. A hiring process helps you build in key steps like an initial screening call, a take-home practical assessment, and structured interviews with plenty of time for questions. This gives you a robust set of information to consider for your final decision. And equally important, it gives candidates a clear picture of the day-to-day responsibilities of the role and what it would actually be like to work at your company. 

Collaborate efficiently with stakeholders

Hiring usually involves working with multiple stakeholders—including recruiters, human resources, and any coworkers on your interview panel. Since different stakeholders need to be looped in at different parts of the process, it can be tough to coordinate all of the moving pieces. For example, the recruiting team might handle job postings and resume screening, the hiring manager might be responsible for scheduling onsite interviews, and members of your interview panel may be responsible for collecting and sharing their feedback for each candidate.

A structured hiring process gives you and your team a clear roadmap to follow. It tells you which stakeholders to loop in at every step, who’s responsible for each task, and how long each stage of your hiring process will take. To make things even easier, you can use a project management tool to plan and execute your hiring process. For example, Asana lets you create reusable templates that lay out each task within a process—including the task owner, due date, and any dependencies.

11 steps to build a best-in-class hiring process

Hiring can seem daunting—especially with all the complexities of job postings, interviews, background checks, and more. But like many things, you can simplify the hiring process by breaking it down into a series of bite-sized steps. To get you started, we’ve listed 11 hiring process steps that most companies share. Once you run through these steps a few times, you can tailor them to your specific needs and resources. 

1. Set your hiring goal

Before you kick off the hiring process, you need to set clear objectives that outline what you’re looking for. Setting goals gives you a North Star to aim for as you recruit and assess applicants. It helps you write a job description that addresses the gap you’re trying to fill, evaluate candidates against your objectives, and manage the timeline for your hiring process. When you set your goal, just be sure it’s SMART : specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

To formulate your hiring goal, ask yourself the following questions: 

Who is your ideal candidate? 

What specific skills do they have? 

What level of past experience do they have?

What hiring needs or gaps are you trying to fill with this role? For example, are you filling an open position, adding bandwidth to your team, or adding a new area of responsibility? 

When do you need to fill this role? How long should the hiring process take? 

2. Identify stakeholders

Next, it’s time to identify the stakeholders you’ll collaborate with during the hiring process. This can vary from company to company, but these are the most common stakeholders to look out for: 

Hiring manager: The person who will manage the new employee. The hiring manager often drives the hiring process and has the final say on which candidate is selected.

Human resources and recruitment team : Depending on the size of your company, recruiters may be responsible for job posting, outreach, initial screenings, scheduling interviews, and negotiating offers. At bigger companies, a recruiter may be your candidate’s main point of contact throughout the entire hiring process. At smaller companies, the hiring manager may be responsible for some or all of this work. If your company doesn’t have an in-house recruiting team, you may even outsource some steps to a recruiting agency. 

Interview panel : These are the people who will interview each candidate. They can be potential teammates, cross-functional partners , or people with specific areas of expertise. For example, if you’re hiring someone who needs to have design expertise, you may want to include a product designer on your interview panel. Just be sure to give each panel member guidance on the type of questions they should ask—for example, specify that the product designer should ask specifically about the candidate’s design experience. 

As you identify stakeholders, it can be helpful to create a RACI chart to outline who is r esponsible, a ccountable, c onsulted, and i nformed for each step of your hiring process. 

3. Write a job description

A good job description (JD) is key if you want to attract quality candidates. Ultimately, the goal of your JD is to help potential candidates understand what a person in this role actually does on a day-to-day basis, so they can decide whether they want to apply. That means it’s important for your description to accurately reflect the duties and responsibilities of the position. 

While job descriptions can vary, here are some key components to include: 

Job purpose

Job duties and responsibilities

Required qualifications (like education, experience, or skills)

Preferred qualifications

Working conditions (like whether the role is remote or in-person and what hours the candidate is expected to work)

A salary range and list of benefits

You can also outline key aspects of your company culture in your JD. For example, at Asana we include a paragraph at the end of each job description to emphasize how we value inclusivity and welcome candidates from all backgrounds. 

4. Advertise and recruit for the position

Now it’s time to put your job description to work. Finding great candidates can be tough, so companies often use a combination of advertising and active recruiting. If your company has a recruitment team, they typically handle both. 

To advertise the position , first decide whether you want to recruit internally, externally, or a combination of the two. For example, you may want to advertise the position internally first, then open it up to external applicants. Job boards and posting sites like LinkedIn are a great place to start advertising externally, along with job fairs and your company website. You can also lean on your current employees to help advertise the position by offering referral bonuses. 

To recruit for the position , you need to actively reach out to qualified candidates via LinkedIn, email, social media, or job fairs. The recruitment process helps generate applications from potential candidates who aren’t actively searching but might be a good fit.

5. Review applications

At this point, you should have a solid batch of resumes and cover letters to review. Take some time to review each application and decide which candidates meet the required qualifications listed in your job description. Try to stick to hard skills and concrete experience at this stage, since it’s tough to get a sense of soft skills from a resume. You can also build in guidelines to help combat unconscious bias as you review. For example, you could hide the applicant name to reduce gender or racial bias, or focus on relevant experience instead of years in the workforce to prevent age discrimination. 

At some companies with high application volumes, recruiters on your human resources team will prepare a batch of pre-screened resumes for you to look through. Your company may also use an applicant tracking system like Greenhouse, Workday, or ADP to store and organize job applications and contact information. 

6. Conduct a phone screen

A phone screen is your initial contact with a candidate—typically done over (you guessed it) the phone. The goal of a phone interview is two-fold. First, you want to determine whether the candidate has the required qualifications and aligns with your organizational culture and company values . Second, you want to give the applicant time to ask questions. Remember they’re also deciding if they want to work on your team. 

If you’re partnering with a recruiting team, they might conduct an initial phone screen first to verify the candidate’s eligibility and make sure they’re really interested in the role before passing things to you for a more in-depth conversation. 

If you’re not sure where to start, here are some example phone interview questions: 

Tell me about yourself. Who are you? What motivates you? What did you have for breakfast? 

Why does this job appeal to you? 

Walk me through your resume. Tell me about the accomplishments you’re most proud of for each of your roles. 

What would an ideal team setup look like for you?

What type of collaboration do you prefer? 

What do you need from your manager and your team in order to feel successful? 

What questions do you have for me? 

7. Assess skills

It’s tough to demonstrate hard skills during an interview. That’s why a skills assessment is important for roles that focus heavily on hard skills like writing, data analysis, or programming. For roles that emphasize soft skills instead (like customer service), you may not need this step. 

Your skills assessment can be a take-home assignment, a timed online assessment, or even an in-person test. For example, you could create a take-home writing assignment for a copywriter candidate or a timed online coding exercise for a developer candidate. For senior positions or roles that involve lots of cross-functional collaboration, the assessment is often a presentation. In this case, you can ask the candidate to present on a project they worked on—leaving time at the end for a panel of stakeholders to ask questions. 

Regardless of the format you choose, a skills assessment is the best way to see a candidate’s experience and skills in action. 

8. Conduct on-site interviews

On-site interviews involve a lot of moving pieces. But if you iron out a few key details first, you can organize every moving part and make your interview process as smooth as possible for everyone.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself as you plan on-site job interviews: 

How will you format interviews?

A candidate’s on-site interviews are often formatted as 1:1 meetings with each member of the interview panel. That said, you can also schedule group interviews with panel members who have similar expertise. You can even hold larger interviews with an entire team—but since this format can be intimidating, it’s best used when you’re trying to hire for management positions. 

You also need to decide whether your on-site interviews will be virtual or in-person. If you opt for virtual, be sure to choose a video conferencing platform that’s easily accessible to people outside your company. 

How long should interviews last?

This depends on whether your interviews are virtual or in-person. Research shows that video fatigue sets in at the 30-minute mark for virtual meetings, meaning it becomes much harder to focus past that point. On the other hand, we can usually maintain focus for 45 to 60 minutes when we’re talking face-to-face. 

When should you schedule interviews?

It’s usually more convenient to schedule a candidate's interviews in back-to-back blocks. This means the candidate only has to visit your office once if your interviews are in person. On the flip side, you might want to break interviews up over two days for virtual on-sites to avoid video fatigue. For example, you could schedule two 90-minute interview blocks during the same week. If you schedule interviews back-to-back, make sure to build in five-minute breaks between meetings so the candidate can get up, stretch, or use the restroom. 

How should interviewers prepare?

Being well-prepared shows that you value your candidate’s time and helps you collect better feedback. Here’s how to help your interview panel prepare and set them up for success:

First, make sure each interview understands what competencies they’re evaluating for. For example, a designer interviewing a design candidate should ask more technical questions, while a cross-functional stakeholder should ask about collaboration and how the candidate works with non-design team members. 

Ask each interviewer to come up with questions beforehand. This not only ensures that they’re prepared, but also helps reduce bias. 

If there’s anyone on your panel who hasn’t participated in an interview process before, see if your HR department offers training sessions for first-time interviewers.

How should you prepare the candidate for their interviews? 

It’s equally important to make sure your candidate feels prepared for their on-site interviews. Before the onsite, be sure to let them know the following: 

The date and time of each interview, including when they should arrive if they’re visiting your office in person. 

How to access your office—for example, will you meet them in the lobby or should they check in at the reception desk? For virtual interviews, provide instructions on how to access video conferencing links. 

Who they’ll be meeting with, including each interviewer’s name and title. It’s also helpful to provide an overview of each person’s area of expertise so the candidate can prepare questions in advance. 

Any relevant additional information—for example, if your office is especially laid-back you can let them know they don’t have to wear business casual attire. 

For virtual interviews, it can be helpful to schedule a quick 10-minute meeting with a recruiter or someone on IT before the on-site interviews start. During this time, the candidate can troubleshoot any tech issues that might come up. 

9. Make a decision

Now that you’ve interviewed the best candidates, it’s time to make a decision. This involves reviewing all of the feedback from your interview panel, either asynchronously or during an in-person meeting. Ultimately the hiring manager decides who to move forward with, but they should consider the input from each panel member. 

If you’re torn between two or three equally qualified candidates, try creating a decision matrix to structure your comparison and make an evidence-based choice. 

10. Complete a background and reference check

At long last, you’ve decided who to hire! But before you extend an official offer, it’s important to run a background and reference check. Here’s what each entails: 

A background check usually involves working with a background check agency to verify details on the candidate’s job application, like their employment history, education, and any criminal history. 

A reference check involves calling each of your candidates references, which are typically former coworkers or managers. Usually the hiring manager or recruiter does this step, and the goal is to double check that the candidate meets your hiring criteria—plus see if there are any red flags you may have missed. 

11. Make a job offer and negotiate

Finally, it’s time to make an official job offer. If you’re partnering with a recruiter, they typically make the initial offer and handle any negotiations. But regardless of who’s responsible, here are some things to keep in mind:

Once you finish negotiations, send an official offer of employment in writing. A verbal offer and acceptance isn’t binding like a formal written offer. 

Let the candidate know how long they have to make a decision. 

Once they’ve accepted the offer (fingers crossed), make sure to let other candidates know that the position is closed. 

Next step: onboarding

Like hiring, it’s important to have a standardized onboarding process. To build your own, check out our employee onboarding template—plus articles on how to create the ultimate onboarding process and overcome common remote onboarding challenges. 

Related resources

Data-driven decision making: A step-by-step guide

Listening to understand: How to practice active listening (with examples)

How executives and individual contributors differ when it comes to AI

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: Why leadership isn’t uniform

How to build a recruitment plan, step-by-step

• Recruitment Strategy

Job reqs are boom or bust, so you’re either scrambling to cover everything or worried about proving your team’s value. Every hiring manager has different expectations on compensation and time to hire, and when they change their mind, you always feel like the last to know.

To break the cycle, what you need is a robust recruitment planning process. A full recruitment plan should include an agreed-upon workforce plan, hiring approach, and marketing strategy. If you don’t have time for the full process, you can also do a quick-and-lite version if needed, though we recommend going through all the steps eventually.

A proactive recruitment plan is the first step to becoming a true strategic partner in the organization. You can get ahead of hiring manager requests, set clear expectations, and demonstrate how critical talent is for achieving the broader goals of the business.

We’ve asked our own recruitment team, as well as experienced recruiters from a range of industries, how they do recruitment planning. Here’s their step-by-step guide, along with the real templates they use every day as part of their recruitment strategy. 

Get your free recruitment planning template

Step 1: assess the situation, collect the headcount plan.

Ask each team to share the roles they plan to open this year, and how each role supports their team’s annual goals. For example, this can help you understand which roles must be hired by a certain date, and which roles are more flexible.

You need to understand what the company is trying to accomplish, how that rolls down to [each] department, and then how they see all these hires contributing to that. Mike Bradshaw, PHR Head of Talent Acquisition, Pinpoint

Review internal and external materials

Start by auditing your core metrics. Check internal reports and your ATS’s reporting for core hiring metrics, including:

• Time to hire
• Time to fill
• Average time in each interview stage

Candidate attraction

• Hires by source
• Candidates by source
• Offer acceptance rates
• Cost per hire
• Actual vs. budget
• Net Promoter Score
• Performance after hire
• Retention rates
• Candidates by demographic groups (race, gender, age, disability, veteran status, etc.)
• Hires by demographic groups
• Conversion rates on specific jobs by demographic groups

Then move on to qualitative materials, such as:

• Feedback from candidates (surveys, Glassdoor reviews, coffees with new hires)
• Feedback from hiring managers and leaders (surveys, performance reviews)
• Internal notes on what has and hasn’t worked before

And take a look at your current candidate experience, including:

• Careers site
• Job descriptions
• Communications sent to candidates

Ask for feedback

Have an open-ended conversation with your stakeholders about how they think hiring is going. Consider requesting feedback from:

• Recent hires
• Hiring managers
• Department leaders
• HR and recruiters 

Where do they see untapped potential? Where do they want to see improvements? What attracted them to the company and what was their candidate experience like?

Identify opportunities

As you review all this information, look for signs of issues and potential opportunities. It’s also helpful to write down your baseline in each area so you can track improvements over time. 

Typically, the opportunities you find will fall across three areas: Talent sourcing, employer brand, or new hire onboarding.

Finding talent: Are there untapped opportunities?

• Channels that work and don’t work, untested networks or tactics
• Channels that are delivering volume but aren’t delivering quality
• Channels that have delivered quality, but aren’t getting the attention they deserve

Branding: Are you selling your company?

• Is your employee value proposition (EVP) strong? How can it be improved?
• Is your messaging and branding cohesive across your careers site , branded emails , and job postings? 
• Is your EVP included in each job post?
• What are candidates saying about you in candidate surveys and review sites like Glassdoor?

Onboarding: What happens after a candidate accepts your offer?

• Are systems in place to give HR what they need to set up new hires for success?
• Is your onboarding process streamlined? 
• What’s the feedback from new hires and hiring managers about the onboarding process?

Step 2: Develop the headcount plan

Now that you have context, data, and feedback on previous hires, you can start planning for the future. The more an organization invests time into these exercises, the easier and more likely it will be to meet recruiting goals on time and within budget. 

Understand team goals and priorities at a high level

Organizational goals are driven by your employees. Meet with senior leadership and department heads to discuss company goals for the year. Is this a year of growth, or efficiency? Are there certain departments or regions we want to develop? Answering these questions will help your team to be aligned with leadership on the hiring mission and messaging. 

Design dream staff plans—then prioritize

Give department heads the opportunity to design their ideal team to reach that year’s goals, budget notwithstanding. This will grant you greater visibility into their vision for the department, and what skills they want on the team. 

Then, help department heads refine each job description and prioritize each role, based on actual needs and realistic expectations. Some roles may be less vital this year, or could be solved without a full-time hire. In these conversations, you can help shape the plan for each department, manage expectations around hiring, and avoid frustration later on. 

Get on the same page about levels

Internal alignment on levels ensures your hiring plan is both competitive and equitable. In a competitive labor market where remote work opens up more opportunities for employees, it is even more important to offer the right rate to hire the right person at the right level. 

At the same time, you want to avoid overpaying or overpromising. Not only will this impact your budget, but it could contribute to internal equity issues, which disproportionately affect women and people of color . 

Outline what is required at each level and define salary bands to mitigate the risk of some employees being unfairly valued. If it becomes harder to hire people at the right level because of pay, then it may be time to reassess trends in the market and adjust compensation levels accordingly.

Tip: Salary transparency attracts quality candidates. On Pinpoint, companies that include salaries in their job descriptions move 15% more applicants to the interview stage

Depending on the size of your organization, there are two ways to approach leveling: 

• Uniform leveling: Everyone across the company follows the same track (associate, manager, director, etc.)
• Functional leveling: Each department has a specialized and unique track. For example, the marketing team may have associates, managers, directors, etc., while the engineering team has engineer Is, engineer IIs, staff engineers, senior staff engineers, etc. 

Determine what makes sense for your organization based on your size and complexity. If developing levels from scratch, the process may take upwards of 9 months, but it will give your whole organization greater clarity.

Plan for backfills and promotions

In addition to new hires, you’ll also need to plan for people who are leaving their roles to minimize the impact of losing skills or capacity on the team. To anticipate backfills, consider past year attrition and industry benchmarks along with current economic factors (growth in the sector, recession, etc.). 

Then, look at your current team to understand who is at risk of leaving their role due to performance, attrition, or promotion. Meet with managers to understand who is on track to be promoted and when so you can plan for their backfill. Be conservative with your budget and resourcing plans so you aren’t surprised when the needs arise. 

Set realistic and fair budgets

With defined level expectations and a conservative hiring plan, it will be easier to set budgets for new hire compensation. To stay on top of industry trends and remain competitive, we recommend these resources:

• Comprehensive.io

Include a budget for the resourcing you will need to reach hiring goals. It can be difficult to anticipate how challenging it will be to hire certain roles, and your talent team may be impacted by attrition as well. It’s possible you will need to increase the capacity of your talent team with new hires or external support from contract recruiters, recruitment agencies, or recruitment process outsourcing provider (RPO).

Any budget proposal will inevitably result in pushback. By working through these steps, your plan should already be aligned with company priorities, but you can make your case even stronger by:

• Demonstrating past recruitment cost per hire and recruiting budgets as a reference, and reiterating how the organization wants to improve this year
• Leveraging leaders who are most invested in making good, fast hires to advocate for the budget
• Using research (benchmarks and models) to illustrate estimated return on investment of those hires for the company 

An iterative approach

A workforce plan will set you up for success, but won’t be set in stone. Shifting priorities, feedback from hiring managers and candidates, and macroeconomic factors will alter your plan over time. Regularly report on data, solicit feedback from stakeholders, and realign on goals to stay on top of these changes. How often you should check in on this plan will depend on your team size and existing processes, but here is an ideal cadence: 

• Weekly: Meet with hiring managers while you have active roles open
• Monthly: Meet with department heads if you are hiring for their teams
• Quarterly: Meet with all department heads to review goals, along with potential backfills and promotions

Step 3: Set realistic timelines

Manage expectations for your team and increase the likelihood of hiring people on schedule by setting estimated timelines. Outline the process for hiring managers and any other stakeholders to ensure they know what is required of them, like submitting requisitions in a timely fashion and allocating time in their schedules for interviews. When recruiters and hiring managers know what actions they need to take and when, your team will be able to respond quickly when strong applications come in. 

To set timelines, refer to historical hiring data along with industry benchmarks . Keep in mind that other economic factors may impact timelines. For example, post COVID-19 and the Great Resignation, more people have reevaluated their priorities and found that they could find better options that fit their values , meaning employers have had to act fast to land top talent. 

For hiring managers, the wait always feels long. Be upfront and provide a detailed timeline so they can see what is involved in the hiring process and feel assured that work is being done.

Example timeline from the Pinpoint Recruiting Team:

• Day 1: Job is posted
• Gather initial results from job posts and adjust accordingly (title, salary, location, etc.)
• Fine tune alignment on required skills and background with real world profiles
• Ramp up sourcing and screening
• Initial screening conversations with 5-10 candidates per week
• Hiring manager interviews with 3-5 qualified candidates per week
• Continue to fine tune alignment on job post and target profile
• Continue to source as needed to meet benchmarks for qualified candidates
• At Pinpoint, most roles can be filled in 60 days or less (time to accepted offer). Executive (Director and above), technical, or highly specialized roles could take up to 90 days to get to an accepted offer.

At Pinpoint, we dedicate a section of our internal communication tool to share documentation on the recruitment strategy and approach so the whole team has visibility. We also share reports from our ATS to keep hiring managers and senior leaders up-to-date on the status of open roles. 

If you still receive pushback, explain the value of having recruiters conduct a thorough, high-quality screen. With more time to vet applications, recruiters can protect hiring managers’ time and only forward the best candidates. If hiring managers become the bottlenecks, here are tips for staying on pace without adding more work to their plates:

• Ask hiring managers to share a sample of CVs or LinkedIn profiles that reflect the ideal candidate and align on what “great” looks like 
• Reserve interview blocks on interviewer calendars in advance 
• Bring in additional interviewers for various parts of the recruitment process
• Utilize automatic scheduling in your ATS to allow for one-click booking
• Align on the priority of roles to expedite those that are most immediately needed

Step 4: Launch the search

Search kickoffs are about identifying what kind of candidate you would like to hire, how you’ll get their attention, and how you’ll keep the search on track. 

Start by getting detailed information about what the hiring manager actually wants and needs via a Requisition form. It’s most helpful if they share this in advance so you can review it before the first conversation with them. You can then verify and expand upon this information when you meet.

While it can be tempting to publish open roles as quickly as possible, it’s worth investing time to customize job postings so they communicate your Employee Value Proposition and attract the right talent . This will allow you to bring in qualified, interested candidates more quickly. 

This also applies to marketing the role—collaborate with the hiring manager to think beyond your typical go-to job boards and identify if there’s anything new or different you can try for this particular search. 

Schedule an initial kickoff meeting with the hiring manager to establish your processes for working together. Identify a day and time to meet each week to check in on the search. Confirm the interview process early on so that everyone knows what to expect and this information can be shared with candidates, ideally in the job posting. 

Step 5: Coordinate the recruitment process

Once the search has started, recruiters will be overseeing a lot, including hiring managers. For them, hiring is essential, but it amounts to just a small percentage of their day. An ATS should make it easier for recruiters to keep the process moving without adding excessive work for hiring managers. Here’s advice from some of our customers on how they’ve been able to increase efficiency up to 70%, in part by collaborating better with hiring managers:

Hiring manager portals

The New York Public Library has about 400 managers who are involved with hiring, in addition to their many other responsibilities. The NYPL team set up a streamlined hiring manager view that made it easy for their team to comment, tag, rate, and share feedback on candidates all within Pinpoint. 

Hiring managers now have greater visibility and a more active role in the process, resulting in greater outcomes for everyone.

It’s really allowed us to coach our hiring managers to be better at creating a great experience for candidates. Craig Senecal Senior Director of Employee Experience, NYPL

Interview scheduling

Franklin Electric hires across a complex and international organization. Balancing people’s schedules and time zones can be a huge challenge. For them, the best solution was to find an ATS with automated interview scheduling . Hiring managers are thrilled to have the access and functionality to fill roles faster, without having to wait on HR.

It’s been a game-changer in terms of the impact and how easy it is. Amanda Hecht Corporate HR Manager, Franklin Electric

Icario is always looking for more data behind their hiring decisions, especially to keep track of their diversity and inclusion goals. After implementing Pinpoint, they began using candidate scorecards to standardize the feedback process and make more informed decisions. If your ATS doesn’t have built-in scorecard functionality, you can use this manual score sheet template .

It’s been really cool to see the type of metrics that we get, or that we can even get metrics in the first place! Rachel Todd Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist, Icario

Step 6: Report on progress

To track team goals, you’ll want to get a quick snapshot every week (or more likely everyday) of whether your search is on or off track. Your ATS should be your go-to source for data, with reports and dashboards that allow you to calculate key metrics. 

In some systems, you may need to create or download a report to get this information. If all else fails, you can also manually track this data outside your ATS (e.g. Google Sheets). 

Top 5 metrics to track during a search:

• # Days Open
• Average Number of Daily Applications
• # Candidates in Each Stage
• # Candidates Who Reached Each Stage (aka Historical Activity)
• Conversion Rates (aka Ratios)

These daily or weekly numbers are most useful when compared against benchmarks. You can establish benchmarks based on your own organization’s historical data or public information about the performance of organizations similar to yours. These benchmarks will vary based on industry, company brand recognition, company size, location, level of specialization, management level, and recruiter experience. 

Example: Benchmarks for Days Open

• By 21 days open, should be hitting goals for weekly candidates sourced, screened, and interviewed
• By 45 days open (for non-technical roles), should have 2-4 strong candidates in final stages
• By 60 days open (for technical roles), should have 2-4 strong candidates in final stages

Example: Benchmarks for Candidates in Each Stage

• 25-50 candidates receiving messages from sourcing outreach per week
• 5-10 candidates interviewing with the recruiter per week
• 3-5 candidates interviewing with the hiring manager per week

If you find yourself struggling to meet benchmarks as the search goes along, continue to revisit and ask questions about your sourcing and marketing plans. 

• Do you need to try new channels or new strategies to reach more candidates with the target profile?
• Has the target profile evolved?
• Are there enough people who fit your target profile to realistically fill the job in a reasonable amount of time? (E.g. if you’re looking for someone with niche technical skills within close proximity to a physical office, there may simply not be enough people in that target profile to find someone without providing relocation.)
• Should you try different messaging in outreach to candidates or in the job posting?
• Are you and the hiring manager both clear and aligned on what good and great candidates look like? 

Step 7: Improve year-over-year

The only constant in recruiting is change. Once you’ve devised your plan, be prepared to return to it repeatedly, iterating and improving on your recruitment strategy as you learn. 

With a hiring tracker and reports showing key metrics, your team will be more aware of what is working and can pivot quickly if needed. When you embed reporting into recruitment, your team will be able to see the forest through the trees and have more control over the process. 

And it’s never too late to start. Even if you are beginning this process mid-year, by the time you are planning for the next fiscal year, you will have more documented information to drive decision-making. 

By working directly with senior leadership, department heads, and hiring managers, you will also have greater visibility of the organization and more advocates on your side. With each subsequent year, you will be able to improve efficiency, collaboration, and the candidate experience. 

A final word of advice

As you’re going through the process, “ask a ton of questions and be selfish with your time,” says our own Head of Talent, Mike Bradshaw. When he took over the role—as the company’s first dedicated talent leader—he used a recruitment plan similar to the one outlined here to understand and prepare for upcoming hiring needs. 

Every one of us that's involved in recruitment—from leadership all the way down to individualized hiring managers—has improved the way that we think about talent as a result. Tom Hacquoil CEO Pinpoint

To get that kind of trust from the leadership team, don’t worry about asking a silly question; just focus on making sure you get all the information you need.

“Some people are sort of timid about asking questions, or asking them again, or asking for more time,” says Mike. It’s natural to want to look confident and autonomous, especially if you’re taking over a new role. 

“But then you end up making a lot of assumptions, and you might start running with something and find it doesn’t work out, and then you have to take a step back,” warns Mike. “Ask all the tough questions. Really try to understand what’s going on, good or bad.”

Further reading

Inbound recruiting vs. outbound recruiting, programmatic recruitment advertising: a recruiter’s guide.

Ready to get started?

How to Create a Recruitment Plan in 6 Easy Steps

Keeping a company brimming with the best talent requires a detailed recruitment plan , one that can be adapted quickly to internal and external changes.

Follow the steps below to create a steady flow of job candidates and help your business kick up a storm in your industry.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• What is a recruitment plan exactly? It’s the strategy that the hiring team uses to carry out recruitment. Done well, it can help the team be more effective and impactful business-wide!
• Wondering when you need this plan? Lot’s of occasions could warrant a recruitment plan. Think annual planning or a big change in your industry, for instance.
• The benefits of a successful recruitment plan range from working smarter and reducing hiring costs to freeing up your time for core tasks and more.
• Finally, we share the 6 steps you need to create a kickass recruitment plan that’ll help HR align smoothly with the business and contribute to impactful change.
• P.s. Within every recruitment plan, you’ll find a candidate screening and assessing requirements. For a modern, automated, all-in-one skills testing solution, check out Toggl Hire today.

What is a strategic recruitment plan?

A recruitment plan outlines a company’s approach to recruitment and how it will implement its recruitment processes most effectively. The plan should include all the relevant details required for making strategic future hires, such as hiring goals, procedures to follow, and the hiring budget, for example.

A good recruitment strategy will align with the organization’s goals to ensure the hiring manager is contributing to company growth and helping to manage any organizational changes.

Are Recruitment plan and Recruitment strategy the same thing?

While a company typically develops its recruitment strategy and recruitment plan in parallel, the terms refer to different components of the recruitment process. The easiest way to tell the two apart is to think of the recruitment strategy as the overarching, high-level document that covers the ‘ what ‘ and the ‘ why ‘, while the recruitment plan is more of a step-by-step detailed roadmap that outlines the ‘ how ‘ and ‘ when ‘.

When is the best time to create a recruitment plan?

If you’re wondering whether your company needs a recruitment plan or can wait a while before developing one, consider whether you’re in one of the situations listed below.

Annual planning — is your organization about to undergo its annual planning process? At that stage, hiring managers have an important role to play in aligning hiring strategy with the company goals during this process.

Organizational changes — if your company is growing , starting a new initiative or has seasonal hiring needs, a recruitment strategy will be essential in attracting quality candidates for your talent pipeline .

High turnover rate — if the business is losing it’s talent too fast, recruitment plans can help patch up any gaps in the workforce and ensure the best approach to improve retention .

External changes — a big change in your industry or shifts in the market could mean that your business needs to adapt its recruitment strategy to continue attracting the best candidates.

Why does our team need a recruitment plan?

A recruitment plan is your guiding star when it comes to predicting and meeting the company’s staffing needs. It provides a framework for all stakeholders that keeps everyone aligned and working towards the same deliverables in a structured, effective way.

With a detailed hiring plan, your team can streamline the hiring process and reduce recruitment costs . But the benefits don’t end there.

Recruitment Planning: 5 Key Benefits

The benefits of creating recruitment plans

Next, let’s dive a little deeper into what hr professionals, businesses, and applicants will get out of making planned recruiting efforts.

Smarter decision-making

Hiring teams need to work effectively and make smarter decisions throughout the talent acquisition and onboarding process.

By working with tools such as a recruiting funnel and modern recruitment software and using metrics throughout the process, the team can continually make accurate data-driven decisions to improve their output.

Delivering a streamlined hiring process

A recruitment plan can help recruiters work strategically , resulting in a continually improving hiring process that saves time and enables more focus on high-priority tasks.

Providing an engaging candidate experience

A well-executed recruitment plan improves the overall candidate experience . Treating applicants like professionals will likely enhance your company or department’s reputation and increase the likelihood of attracting top talent.

Meeting specialized hiring goals

The hiring team can include and adapt its recruitment strategies to reach specific hiring targets , such as diversity and inclusion goals , and the right candidates.

Reducing hiring costs

By continually updating and improving the hiring plan, the team can optimize metrics like Cost-per-Hire and more easily stick to the recruitment budget .

Boosts adaptability to internal and external changes

Hiring managers can predict and adapt to any internal changes , like a new office location, or external changes , like an economic crisis, to ensure an optimal workforce at all times.

Ok. Now that we’ve explored the benefits of a recruitment plan, let’s get you started on the right steps for how to develop a recruitment plan successfully.

6 steps for creating a successful recruitment plan

Keeping the hiring team and other stakeholders on the same page with proper planning will ensure everyone’s work complements each other, and enable you to make smarter decisions faster .

Plus, you can provide feedback quickly to queries from those who need to know (and those who are just sticking their nose in. 😉 )

Following these 6 steps will help you prepare for your recruitment planning period.

#1 – Setting recruitment goals

A recruiting plan means nothing without including specific goals . Rather like building a house without an architectural diagram, it could result in things going horribly wrong! That’s why your hiring team needs to set short-term and long-term goals , to ensure that your recruiting plans are set for success.

Note : It’s essential to define and assign a metric for each goal too. Without metrics, you won’t know how well you’re achieving your goals, or whether you’re lagging on some of them.

Why separate long-term and short-term goals?

Short-term and long-term recruitment goals are typically a bit different. While a short-term goal may be to update your career webpage, a long-term goal could be to improve the diversity of your candidate pool.

Over the hiring timeline, it can help a lot to split goals into short-term and long-term targets. Here’s why:

Improved team focus — so your team can more easily prioritize tasks, know how to best manage resources, and keep a focus on immediate needs and future goals.

Ensure a feasible plan — by marking goals as either short-term or long-term, the team can rest assured that not everything must happen immediately. And prevent a feeling of mental overwhelm.

Facilitate continuous improvement — short-term goals are the best opportunity for testing new ideas or recruiting tactics, like trying out a new candidate screening tool. Once you’ve established how effective the initiative was, you can adjust it so it delivers long-term benefits, like improving the candidate experience .

Examples of short-term vs long-term goals

#2 – Identifying hiring needs

Before you start planning your new hires, you need to know what skills and competencies the business will need over the next year. So, how do you evaluate and prioritize these hiring tasks?

High-priority needs could include things like analyzing the company’s annual goals and strategy to align recruitment planning and successfully complement the rest of the business. Or performing skills gap analysis to spot any skill gaps between the current workforce’s capabilities and the skills that you’ll need to have onboard in the long term.

While medium priority tasks could include evaluating your staff turnover rate to ensure sustainability and keeping a close eye on industry and workforce trends .

On the other hand, improving the collaboration between HR and other departments is a good example of a lower-priority hiring need .

Ok, but how do you know which roles to prioritize?

You can make your hiring activity choices based on factors like these below.

#3 – Setting your hiring budget

Think about the costs associated with these components of the hiring process to optimize your hiring budget (and put a smile on your hiring manager’s face 😊).

• Recruitment marketing — what you’re spending (and will spend) on advertising roles and improving your employer brand, including social media advertising, job posting, job boards and career events.

Recruitment technology — the tools your team uses to streamline the hiring process, such as chatbots, applicant tracking systems, and candidate relationship management ( CRM ) software.

Assessments — an online skills testing platform for screening applicants.

Interviewing costs — any costs incurred through in-person or video interviews.

Recruitment team salaries — the total salary cost for your team.

External recruiting — if you need the services of external recruitment agencies, perhaps for a new or niche role.

#4 – Attracting and sourcing the best talent

You need to get the word out through as many channels as possible to keep your recruitment funnel topped up with qualified candidates. Your sourcing methods are essential in attracting potential candidates for your job postings.

For the candidate selection process part of your recruiting plan, you could include components like:

Defining your target candidate profiles — what skills and experience do they need for the role (and include this info in the job description ).

Updating your employer value proposition (EVP) — the EVP is what a company offers its employees in return for their work.

Recruitment events — including job fairs, conferences, and internship recruiting .

Managing candidate engagement — staying in touch with your candidate pool via email, social media or another medium.

Employee referral program — getting your employees to refer the great talent they know personally saves your team time.

Need some inspo on new approaches for hiring new employees?

#5 – Streamlining your recruitment process

It’s possible that not all parts of your hiring strategy are as effective as they could be. There may be some methods or tools the team has used for too long that need updating, for instance.

Here are a few tips to help you refresh your recruitment process :

Revamp your application process . Consider letting candidates apply via skills tests instead of CVs, for instance!

Set clear evaluation criteria , such as clearly defined job requirements .

Craft clear and engaging job descriptions that include all the details a candidate needs to know to see if they’re a good match.

Deliver an effective screening process . Your team can save time by automating screening tasks.

Conduct structured interviews using set interview questions and techniques, and skills tests results to inform your interview prep and guide your interview questions.

Use the right candidate assessment tools and homework assignments to screen whether applicants have the right skills.

#6 – Analyzing your recruiting plan

The best way to assess the efficacy of your recruiting plan, and continually improve it, is by using a recruitment funnel (a framework that helps you organize, manage and enhance every stage of the recruiting process).

With a recruitment funnel, you can use recruitment metrics , such as Time to hire, Quality of New Hire made, and Cost per hire, to determine how well you’re doing at each stage of the funnel.

Along with leveraging the findings from your metrics, you can also receive and implement any feedback from candidates and hiring managers.

Managing the latest recruitment trends and technology

Staying up-to-date with industry trends and best practices will ensure hiring teams operate efficiently and help the organization retain a competitive edge . Luckily, this is where technology comes to the rescue.

For instance, think about the major industry shift towards skills-based hiring practices. Harvard Business Review shared this recently about how skills-based hiring is on the rise:

Many companies are moving away from degree requirements and toward skills-based hiring , especially in middle-skill jobs, which is good for both workers and employers. HBR

And when hiring teams have the right recruitment tools, their tasks become easier, and the technology saves them time. So, don’t waste time rebuilding everything in-house when you can plug and play an all-in-one skills platform at affordable prices .

Juste loves investigating through writing. A copywriter by trade, she spent the last ten years in startups, telling stories and building marketing teams. She works at Toggl Hire and writes about how businesses can recruit really great people.

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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.

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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.

What is the hiring process timeline?

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:

• Create a job announcement. The job ad should have an accurate job description. The right description combines two elements: what the company is looking for in a candidate and how the company will help the new employee succeed. In many cases, you’re writing for a specialized audience with specific expectations. Omitting important information about your company and the job might prompt a qualified candidate to look elsewhere.
• Post the job opening. Circulate the job announcement on jobs boards, industry websites, social media and professional networks.
• Look for outside insight. Discuss your hiring process with trusted professionals, personal advisors or anyone who has shown a knack for providing insight into your business and industry. Sometimes, outsiders can offer fresh perspectives that will send you and your HR team in an exciting new direction. They might even name the person who eventually gets the job.
• Talk to recruiters. Contact recruiters who have been effective in your industry.
• Reach out to your network. Recruit candidates directly through social media or other more traditional networking methods, such as making phone calls. It never hurts to remind people that their talents are held in high esteem, even if they don’t apply for this particular position.
• Receive and review applications. Within a week of posting the job, you should have some applications and résumés coming in. Start looking through them to identify some good fits.
• Conduct initial interviews. Once you have identified some qualified candidates, you can start conducting phone or video interviews.
• Ask for additional information. Request more information from candidates (if needed). Have them answer emailed questions, take an editing or programming test, or provide work samples.

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• Schedule and hold in-person interviews. Based on your first round of interviews, start scheduling and holding in-person interviews. In emergency situations, video conferencing might suffice.
• Finish the first round of in-person interviews. Depending on the position you’re filling and many other factors, the number of weeks you spend on the first, second and additional interview rounds will vary.
• Hold the second round of interviews. Schedule and conduct second-round interviews, and set up candidate presentations and group interviews.
• Do reference checks. Contact references. The hiring manager or HR specialist may do this step earlier in the process, but if they haven’t, now is the time.
• Conduct follow-up interviews. If necessary, do another round of interviews, often with applicants meeting with senior management.
• Have candidates make presentations. Schedule and hold sessions in which selected applicants make presentations.
• Finalize the shortlist. Narrow your list down to a few candidates you would feel comfortable hiring.  
• Make a job offer. Once you have a top candidate in mind, make an offer. Be sure to have all of the particulars, like salary and benefits, outlined in your offer.
• Not every candidate will jump at your first offer. Be prepared to negotiate salary and other terms of employment.
• Conduct background checks. Before you finalize any hiring agreement, make sure everything in a background check (if you choose to conduct one) has been addressed.

How long does the average hiring process take?

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 for how long your hiring process will take by asking yourself these three questions:

• Does your company put a large emphasis on cultural fit? Hiring managers are increasingly keen on finding candidates who fit into a particular system of customs, goals and values. Finding such people extends the selection process with additional interviews, sometimes in informal settings.
• Is your job opening for a position that requires significant judgment and creativity? As automation eliminates many routine, task-oriented jobs, a higher percentage of positions require advanced thinking skills. That means you must think longer about whom to hire. Tools such as skills assessments and personality testing are often worth your investment.
• Does the job description emphasize customer service skills? Customer service skills have never been more important to business, and they are measured more accurately in a lengthier interview process.

Although these three instances can add extra time onto your hiring process, it’s important to assess each position carefully.

How to create an effective hiring process

Your HR team must create a hiring process that is comfortable for both the company and job applicants. Tests of general intelligence and specific knowledge have their place, especially in identifying candidates who do not meet the minimum qualifications. Nonetheless, the final decision on a candidate typically depends on the judgment of a hiring manager or senior executive.

Hiring managers oversee all steps in the selection process, including recruitment, screening, scheduling and holding interviews, testing, and, finally, the negotiation of job offers. But senior executives can also be involved in the hiring process, at least in an advisory capacity. After all, they are ultimately responsible for who works at the company and how well employees perform.

The ideal hiring process needs to be flexible enough to heed the wishes of senior executives. Companies with the best people tend to be those in which an HR specialist and a CEO talk to each other.

The complexity of your hiring process will depend on various factors, including the following:

• Company size
• Degree of profitability
• Position within a competitive market
• Company history
• Company culture
• Number of positions you’re seeking to fill
• Level of the position
• Whether the position is a new role for the company
• Number of people involved in the hiring process

How to speed up the hiring process

Taking the time to hire the right person can prevent mistakes, but it can also give your favorite candidate the chance to wander off to a different opportunity. In addition, a leisurely hiring process means other projects may not get the attention they deserve.

Craft a job description that is clear and specific.

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.

Consider only the best candidates.

Be true to your screening process, and bring in only select candidates for interviews. Trust your instincts about candidates after reading their résumés. A certain candidate might look interesting, but will that person really 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.

Don’t overlook internal candidates.

Internal candidates may not be perfect, but neither are external applicants, despite their impressive résumés. 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. [Read relate article: Why You Should Promote from Within Your Company ]

Simplify the application process.

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 résumé. 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.

Get a head start on references.

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.

Be flexible.

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.

Outsource certain tasks.

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 .

Frequently Asked Questions about the hiring process

Here are a few common questions — and their answers — many small business owners have about hiring new employees.

How much does the average hire usually cost?

The cost of a new hire depends largely on their starting salary and any immediate perks. There are, however, nearly universal costs associated with hiring that occur even in dramatically different industries.

The average cost for hiring a new employee is roughly $4,700, according to SHRM . That includes the cost of HR to process the new employee, payment to the employee that will likely not yield productive work (such as during orientation or training), and myriad other expenses that are part of the process.

What tools can help make the hiring process more efficient?

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, highly rated 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 lifecycle.

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.

Does the hiring manager make the final hiring decision?

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.

Does the hiring manager or HR make the job offer?

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.

What day of the week/time of day is best to make a job offer?

Tuesday tends to be the most popular day of the week for employers to extend job offers. This is because Mondays are typically 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.

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How To Create A Strategic Hiring Plan

Mariya is a talent acquisition professional turned HR leader with experience in large corporates and start-ups. She has 10+ years of experience recruiting all over the world across many different industries, specialising in market entries, expansion, or scaling projects. She is of the firm belief that great candidate and empoyee experiences are not just a luxury, but a must. Currently she is the People Lead at Focaldata.

Hiring the right talent starts with careful planning. Use this article to understand what a hiring plan is and how to create one that's efficient, sustainable, and tailored to your organization's talent needs.

It’s estimated that the cost of a bad hire is around $17,000 (and I’d say that’s conservative when you consider opportunity cost).

This is one of the reasons why proper hiring planning is incredibly important.

Be it annually, semi-annually, or quarterly, getting all the team leaders together to discuss and understand how each team will grow and develop is key to sustainable growth.

Here I’ll take you through why and how to create an efficient, sustainable hiring plan.

What Is A Hiring Plan?

A hiring plan is a strategic document or process outlining an organization’s hiring needs over a set period. It involves forecasting the organization's future talent needs based on factors such as growth forecasts, changes in business strategy, turnover rates, and skill gaps within the current workforce.

Often, a hiring plan is considered more of an operational plan than a strategic one. This is because it should always be grounded in delivery within a specific budget for recruitment , time, and resources, and it’s less likely to contain expansive analysis.

Why Create A Hiring Plan?

Creating a hiring plan is important for several reasons:

• Strategic alignment : A hiring plan ensures that your organization's talent needs are aligned with the overall strategic objectives. By forecasting future talent requirements, the plan helps ensure that the right talent is in place to support the organization's goals and initiatives.
• Hiring efficiency : Without a hiring plan, organizations may face inefficiencies and increased costs associated with rushed or reactive hiring processes. A well-defined plan helps allocate resources effectively, minimizing unnecessary spending on recruitment and onboarding , and leading to a better candidate experience . It also helps avoid mis-hiring and over-hiring.
• Workforce diversity : By incorporating diversity and inclusion initiatives into the hiring plan, organizations can attract a more diverse pool of candidates and foster a culture of inclusivity within the workforce. This can lead to better decision-making, innovation, and employee satisfaction.
• Employee retention : A well-executed hiring plan considers not only the recruitment of new employees but also their long-term success and retention within the organization. For example, it helps define roles and responsibilities and opens up conversations about internal mobility and development.

Overall, a hiring plan provides a roadmap for effective talent acquisition and management, helping organizations build and maintain a skilled and motivated workforce that drives success.

Who should be involved?

Hiring planning is a collaborative process between recruitment and hiring teams and leadership:

• Hiring manager : Provide insights into the skills and qualifications needed for the role.
• Human resources : Manage the planning process and put the plan into action.
• Department heads : Offer perspectives on how the new hires will interact with different teams and what competencies are necessary.
• Team members : Gather feedback from team members about what they think’s needed.
• Senior management : Executives may need to be involved, especially for strategic or high-level positions, to ensure alignment with the company’s goals and vision.
• Finance department : Ensures that the hiring plan aligns with the budget and financial planning of the organization.

The Hiring Planning Process

The hiring strategy process flow goes something like this:

• Defining company and team goals.
• Assessing specific skill needs/gaps. Often, the easiest way to identify your needs is to look at gaps in skills and experience (a skills gap analysis ). Additionally, creating an org chart to go with the new hiring plan helps visualize reporting lines and working relationships.
• Assessing if the skill gap is coachable for the current team. If not—create the positions.
• Work with HR/Talent Acquisition to create job descriptions
• Work with other team leaders to discuss your ideas for hiring this person so there’s no overlap.
• Create a plan on when you need to hire and how you will do it.

The way I approach this is by running a hiring planning session with every leader in the company for the next 12 months (could be less) and we walk through things like skill gap analysis and job creation.

Throughout that process, I ask questions that bring us into the realm of workforce planning . I seek to understand current business performance needs, and then think about whether any skill gaps are coachable for the current team.

After that, it’s important to collate the headcount from all the different leaders together (including the job descriptions) and start identifying where some teams potentially may be hiring duplicates. 

This is something to watch out for in the following teams:

• Sales <> Marketing
• Engineering <> Product <> IT <> Data
• Finance <> Business Operations <> Data
• HR <> Finance
• Finance <> Procurement (if not within finance already).

For example, I once had to step in when Finance wanted to hire someone to head procurement but the supply chain team was already looking for someone to head up procurement!

Often, these situations are because one team feels like they aren’t getting enough information or bandwidth from another team and they think that hiring someone to bridge the gap and take over will help (but it never does).

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Questions To Ask While Making A Hiring Plan

Asking the right questions will make your hiring plan more strategic and sustainable.

Most line managers should be able to answer the following questions in a manner that helps you and them understand the most important aspects of their hiring needs and the scope and urgency of a role.

Q: What resources/budget do you have (if you have one)?

Let’s face it, this is very much the deciding factor here. If you go through the entire checklist and discover that you won’t be able to find the person you need with the budget you have, you will be able to go back to Finance/C-leadership to discuss this with the answers from below.

If you don’t have a budget, keep in mind the expense so you can advise finance. You may need to make tradeoffs on things like certain skills or seniority to fit a smaller budget.

Q. What will this person do here? What are the specific outcomes we expect of this role in the first 6 months/12 months/more?

I recommend talking about specific outcomes so that there a tight focus on why this person is needed. This is how you avoid hiring for skills only (i.e. “Oh this person’s skills would be nice to have in the team” —doing what?).

Q. Who will they interact with the most internally? Do we need their input in the hiring process or during the formation of the job description?

There are very few roles nowadays that don’t interact cross-functionally in the company. Getting outside opinions can broaden or narrow the role, but it’ll make it a better fit either way.

For example, if Finance wants to hire someone for Data, what is the current Data team not providing them with?

Q. Is there an overlap between the person in this role and anyone else in the company? If so, to what degree is there overlap and what are the differences making this role necessary?

Continuing with the example from above, if Finance hires a Data person, they will need to work with the Data team. But is it appropriate to have so much overlap, or can the Data team spare capacity to provide Finance with the information they need? Or, should the Data team just hire the person to keep the reporting lines clear?

Q. What experience and/or skills will the best candidate need to achieve success in the role?

This is so you and the hiring manager have some idea about what you’re looking for. Ideally, there should be some criteria that are a “must-have” and some that are “nice to have”.  

This should further cement the need for the role and start you thinking about the urgency. You should avoid being too nebulous e.g. if all you can think about is people that are good with communication and self-motivation, you may need to go back up to the outcomes. Of course, being overly prescriptive is also a hindrance.

(I cover this some more in my article on candidate sourcing ).

Q. When is the role needed—yesterday, in 3 months, in 6 months?

This is where we start thinking about the urgency of the role. This will help you and the talent acquisition team plan when a role should be posted, what is the urgency, and how many resources to put into it right now.

Q. What happens if we don’t hire the person in 6 months?

This is more of a mental exercise to think about the urgency. It’s easy to say “Well we won’t achieve our targets” and be done with this prompt. 

Take your time to think about what will happen if you don’t have this resource but the demands of your team remain the same. This is how to truly get the urgency of the role.

In my career, I’ve only had one manager tell me “Hey Mariya, my role is not urgent but wanted to give you the heads up that I need this resource in 6 months and it’ll be a tough one, so let’s post it now.” It brought tears to my eyes—be like that!

Q. Who can/will take up the mantle in the interim?

Again, this helps assess the urgency of the role and also gets the line manager thinking about creating a stretch goal for someone internally or making it part of their development plan. 

I’ve seen many a time when hiring is the first go-to, but, once we get to this question, we discover there are a lot of under-utilized people in the team already.

Q. What is the career path (if any)?

This is something any manager should think about when they look to hire anyone. Sometimes the answer is that there isn’t one because it’s a super senior role already (e.g. looking to hire a C-level role). 

Other times, however, it’s because the company needs this person only for a fixed amount of time when they look at it carefully. If so, perhaps getting a contractor is a better fit than a permanent staff member who’ll then be idle after the project.

To help make a decision, take a read of this article on Contractor vs. Employee: Pros And Cons .

Q. Do you have the time to hire right now/when will you have the time?

Hiring should take a fair bit of the weekly calendar and, the more urgent the role, the more time someone should be prepared to dedicate to the recruitment process .

Job posting, checking the applicant tracking system , posting on social media, screening resumes, and interviewing all take time. 

Other things I see people forget to factor in time for include providing proper interview feedback (top talent requires good feedback), background checks, and onboarding.

Often, discussions I have with hiring managers looking to scale teams quickly revolve around their team having the capacity to run a great onboarding process for all new employees. If capacity is an issue, you might consider turning to an onboarding software tool to help streamline processes.

Q. What about company culture?

Note that in none of the above I talk about "company culture fit”. This is because I’m of the firm belief that this can be really limiting at this stage and can be a source of bias.

Focus on things like behaviors, skills, and experience fit of the ideal candidate and you will avoid all your new hires looking like they came out of the same mold.

Armed with the answers to these questions, go back to your leader or leadership and discuss the hiring plan.

If you have a dedicated hiring team/resource, be prepared to debate the urgency of your role with other teams that have equally or more urgent roles. 

The answers to the above questions also have the benefit of guiding both the selection process and the hiring decision down the line so they are doing double duty!

Hiring Planning Checklist

Most companies operate on an annual or semi-annual strategic hiring plan, so here is a checklist of what you should verify and plan for by the time the hiring period you have planned for starts.

• An overall hiring plan for the company
• A space for each team to hire throughout the period for the different roles they have
• You have verified with cross-functional stakeholders about the role you're adding
• You’ve answered all the questions in the section above
• You’ve started creating job descriptions with HR/Talent
• You’ve started thinking about how to hire this person ( how to find employees , the interview questions, or tasks in the hiring process)
• Once you have posted and started hiring for the role, you start thinking about what the next iteration of your team looks like for the next round.

Taking The Time To Properly Plan Hiring Pays Dividends

A hiring plan takes time. It can be labor-intensive, and it can make you think of things you don’t have ready answers to. 

However, that shouldn't stop you from going through the process and trying to go a bit deeper into the planning to make it more sustainable and accurate.

As if right on time, just as I was writing this article, a friend reached out to me with the following story. 

They were in discussion with a company that liked their skills but, over the course of almost 9 months, kept changing the roles my friend was being considered for. 

This is a waste of everyone's time and likely an indicator that they really didn't have a plan in place when they engaged my friend in a discussion. 

It makes me think that they saw their experience and fell for the trap of “We’d love to have someone with that experience on board” without knowing what they would do with them.

Eventually, they ended up abruptly pulling out of the process, wasting everyone’s time and leaving a bitter taste.

I wish I could tell you this is a one-off example of a particularly bad candidate experience, but it’s not. It seems to be the norm in this “hire first ask questions later” environment that we’ve bred. 

I’ve been part of these scaling efforts myself—doubled even tripled teams in a year—but I’ve always tried to be the voice of challenge in those rooms. 

This has helped the teams I’ve worked with have a clearer goal in mind so that they can, in turn, give the right candidates the best candidate experience and maintain a great employer brand .

Hiring goals should be treated just like any other goals—every minute you spend planning before you execute like mad is at least a few minutes you don’t spend backtracking and wasting.

I’m not saying that this means you will never make people redundant, but it’s always healthy to question yourself from time to time to check if you’re on the right path.

To you, hiring and firing may eventually end up looking like numbers or line items but, to people, this is their livelihood.

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5 steps to an effective recruitment plan template

Recruiting and retaining top talent isn’t easy, especially if you’re hiring for a global workforce.

The good news? You can use a recruitment plan template to streamline the hiring process. This makes it easier to scale your business anywhere in the world.

Read on to learn how to develop a recruitment plan template that works.

What is a recruitment plan template?

How do i create a recruitment plan template, it’s time to implement your recruitment plan template.

Businesses looking to scale can’t afford to waste time and energy developing a new recruitment plan whenever they need to bring on more talent. A recruitment plan template is a business’s structured approach to recruiting, screening, interviewing, and hiring new employees. It includes the detailed steps, strategies, and timelines required to find the best candidates.

A consistent, reusable template makes sure you aren’t recreating the wheel each time you need to recruit and hire new workers. As soon as you’re ready to expand or fill positions, you can start immediately with your template. 

HR personnels can save a lot of time by developing a recruitment plan. A comprehensive plan outlining timelines, budgets, and qualifications for new hires cuts down on the guesswork and streamlines the hiring process.

Recruitment plan templates also help you track efficiency. You can see what you are doing well while identifying any areas that need refinement to consistently find the best candidates.

There are five key steps to creating an effective recruitment plan template. Identify your needs, establish your approach, decide how to locate candidates, start your efforts, and refine your methodology over time.

Let’s dive further into each step.

1. Identify your needs

The first step for developing a recruitment plan template is to take stock of your current needs by answering the following questions:

Who does your business need to hire?

Start by narrowing down which positions you need to fill and what type of person you are looking for. Are you looking for independent contractors to complete short-term projects? Or employees interested in remote positions in another country?

Review your short-term and long-term business needs, especially if you plan to expand. 

How many positions need to be filled?

Once you’ve taken stock of the types of team members you need, narrow down the number of positions you need to fill. Take a look at your current job descriptions, and revise them as needed.

Don't forget to identify any in-house promotion or advancement opportunities for your current employees. You need to keep this information in mind to determine how many recruits you need.

What is your timeline?

Now set your timelines for recruitment, vetting, and hiring. Of course, recruitment timelines vary depending on your business needs. On average, you can expect the entire process to take about 3 to 6 weeks .

Factor in time to onboard employees. New team members need additional time to familiarize themselves with company policies and job responsibilities. Onboarding may also include company or job-specific training for new hires.

Where are you looking to expand?

If your business is looking to expand internationally, there are additional factors to keep in mind. Each country has unique labor, employment, and tax laws that can affect your recruiting and hiring processes.

A Global HR partner like Remote can help you expand your business in a new country. We have legal entities around the world, offering you the expertise and support you need to stay compliant in every country.

Once you know the answers to these questions, you're ready to tackle your recruiting approach.

2. Establish your approach

Start by looking at your previous hiring efforts to see what worked. Keep past successful strategies in your recruitment plan template.

Next, investigate the region you want to expand into, including any expectation that local employees have. Budget salaries, benefits, and other compensation to attract the best possible candidates. 

Plan how to advertise your business to appeal to candidates. Make sure your process is aligned with your company’s values, mission, and goals. Find a talent assessment tool to predict the performance of potential hires. This can increase productivity by 10% and boost employee retention rates.

The average cost per new hire is $4,700 , so keep this in mind to determine your recruitment budget. See how much you want to spend on advertising, job postings, and recruiting events.

It's easy to only consider these hard costs, but you’ll also want to factor in soft costs. For example, managers may need spend valuable time to support HR leaders during recruitment.

3. Determine how to find the best candidates

Businesses have more options than ever to attract top-notch candidates.

Job boards are one way to get the word out that your company is hiring. Most job boards charge a fee for you to advertise, so research your options carefully. Some broadly advertise across industries, while others focus on specific niches.

Job fairs are another option. Some are in-person, while others are held as virtual events. If you go this route, plan who is hosting the event and how those individuals will vet potential candidates.

Social media is a great way to find top candidates. About 57% of people search for a new job through social media, while 73% found their last job using social media. Tap into the social media accounts your company already participates in, whether that’s LinkedIn, Instagram, or something else entirely.

Outsource your recruiting to a reputable staffing agency. Work with a staffing agency to identify your ideal candidate profile. The agency should complete the searching, screening, and interview process for you. If you’re hiring internationally, don’t forget the benefits of partnering with an employer of record (EOR). Remote’s EOR platform helps you hire excellent candidates in your location of interest while keeping your business compliant with local labor, tax, and employment laws. 

Once you’ve decided on the specific methods through which to find candidates, you’re ready to start recruiting.

4. Start your recruitment efforts

As you begin the recruitment process, think about how you want to screen applicants. You'll review job applications and resumes, and maybe also do a skills assessment. Continue with background and reference checks as needed, and complete an initial phone or video conference screening. Once candidates are vetted, you can start the interview process. Decide who will interview and the questions will look like. Some jobs may require a panel or succession of interviews to determine the best person for the job. 

A good recruitment plan template also covers the onboarding process. Employees are 2.6 times more likely to stay with a company that has a smooth onboarding process. Unfortunately, only 12% of employees say their organization did a good job with onboarding.  Don’t be a company that gives a bad onboarding experience for your employees. Check out our tips to create a smooth, satisfying onboarding process for each new hire.

5. Refine your template over time

Once you landed on your ideal recruiting plan, review its efficacy over time. Use a variety of metrics to analyze your recruiting and hiring results, and refine the plan until it’s seamless.

Your metrics could include the time taken to fill new positions. You can also track the acceptance rate of each position listed. 

You can also track how new hires grow into their position over time. Are they successful in their roles? Can you identify candidates with growth and advancement potential? Do you notice a difference in employee turnover rate? Consider your metrics carefully, and use them to drive your future recruitment efforts. Over time, you will have a plan focused on locating and retaining the best possible candidates for your company.

Start building your recruitment plan template by defining your company’s needs. Who is your ideal candidate? Which positions do you need to fill? What is your timeline? 

If you plan to expand internationally, you can join forces with a Global HR partner like Remote. You can easily post open positions in Remote Talent to attract top talent across the world. Learn how you can find the best international candidate through competitive benefits as part of your recruitment plan. Contact Remote to start recruiting and hiring internationally today.

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How to Improve Your Hiring and Recruitment Process

Learn how to create and improve your hiring process to increase employee quality and retention.

Table of Contents

To make your business the best it can be, you need to assemble a great team. That starts with a well-rounded recruitment and hiring process, which helps you identify the best candidates for your open positions and set up new hires for success. This guide examines the importance of a recruitment and hiring process and offers guidance on how to improve it. 

What is a hiring process?

A hiring process is a step-by-step method to find, recruit and hire new employees. A good hiring process will help you attract and retain high-quality employees who match your brand. The specific elements of a hiring process are unique to each company and role, but there are general steps that every business can follow to attract and hire qualified candidates.

What steps are in the hiring process?

Although it varies based on the company, industry and role, most hiring processes include these 10 basic steps.

1. Write a job description that accurately reflects your hiring needs.

A job description is one of the first interactions a job applicant has with your organization. Make sure you are writing good job descriptions that accurately reflect your brand and the open roles.

For example, be clear about the specific responsibilities and requirements, and use some brand-specific language that gives the job applicant a feel for your company culture. Explain what you need from them and what you can provide them in return.

A well-written job description will help weed out candidates who aren’t the right fit, so it should leave you with a more focused group of resumes to evaluate.

2. Advertise and recruit for the open position.

Once you have your job description, the next step is to advertise it and recruit for the open position. Post it in multiple locations, such as your careers page, job boards, job fairs and social media. Encourage your staff to reach out to their networks for the position as well.

Zuraida Curtis, employment law editor at Brightmine, advises businesses to follow these tips for creating a successful recruitment strategy:

• Analyze. Take a close look at your business’s needs and goals.
• Identify. Know your long-term plans for expansion or reduction in staff, critical roles in the business, and any gaps that need to be filled. Be on the lookout for seasonal fluctuations in staffing requirements.
• Determine. Figure out the best recruitment method for your business. Job searches via social media are increasing, for example, so you could use this method to target candidates with specific skill sets.
• Secure. Provide a competitive salary and opportunities for personal growth within your business.
• Establish. Choose and implement a method for measuring results and testing whether your strategy is working. Establish a training budget to develop and enhance your employees’ skills and knowledge.

3. Analyze candidates’ resumes, cover letters and applications.

As applications start flowing in, you’ll need to come up with a process for reviewing them. You can designate one or more people to review applications and narrow down your viable candidates. You can also use some form of recruitment software, like an applicant tracking system (ATS).

An ATS analyzes candidates and searches for any flaws in the hiring process. It filters candidates according to hiring needs and makes it easier for recruiters and hiring managers to view an applicant’s performance. The software can’t make wise decisions about whom to hire, but it simplifies relevant keywords in a resume, aligning candidates with your business’s wants and needs.

With automatic rankings, you can compare resumes against the job description. The software then forwards the resumes with the highest matches to the next stage. It’s also a powerful solution for coordinating the candidate pipeline and ensuring that quality candidates are not lost in the shuffle.

4. Do a phone interview for the initial screening.

After you narrow down your pool of job applicants, conduct a phone screen interview with each of the top candidates. A phone interview is a brief, preliminary screening that takes about 15 to 30 minutes. Keep phone screens as uniform as possible. Ask a few basic “get to know you” questions, as well as inquiries about their skills, experience, and interest in the company and position. This interview should give you a sense of who the person is and what soft skills they possess. [Avoid these illegal job interview questions .]

5. Conduct final-round interviews.

Your phone interviews should narrow down your pool of candidates. Conduct in-person interviews (or video conference interviews, if you’re recruiting remotely) with the remaining candidates. These interviews are more thorough to help you select your top candidates. Include multiple stakeholders in these interviews to get a broader picture of how well each candidate would fit within the organization and role.

6. Have the job applicant perform applicable assessments.

Depending on the role you are hiring for, you may want job applicants to perform applicable assessments. For example, if you are hiring for a copy editing position, you may have the candidate perform an editing exercise. Someone hiring for a sales position may have the candidate give a sample sales pitch based on a specific product the company sells.

Assessments aren’t always necessary, but they test whether the candidate can perform the responsibilities of the role. The assessment can be performed before, during or after the formal interview.

7. Run a background check, and contact references.

Contacting references and running preemployment background checks are important parts of the hiring process. They are often the final steps. There are many great background check companies that can help you run legally compliant background checks.

The purpose of a background check is to ensure the candidate is legally fit for the position. However, you should avoid discriminating against candidates based on their results. For example, refusing to hire a candidate with multiple traffic violations would be valid for a truck-driving position, but it’s not relevant to a marketing position.

8. Make a hiring decision.

Use the knowledge you’ve gained about your job candidates throughout the hiring process to make a final decision about whom to hire. Consult all parties who spoke with each candidate to make a more informed decision. Consider their qualifications and cultural fit, but don’t make decisions based on biases or discrimination.

“Try to avoid hiring on gut instinct,” Curtis told Business News Daily. “Have a structured hiring process with an effective interview process. Verify qualifications through the interview process, and complete background checks such as references.”

9. Extend a job offer.

Extend a job offer to your top pick. Highly qualified candidates are typically not on the market long, so extend the job offer quickly once you’ve decided. Include information regarding salary and benefits, and be prepared for some negotiation during this time.

10. Hire and onboard the new employee.

Your employee onboarding process can make a big difference in how successful your new hire is within your organization. First, send the necessary paperwork to the candidate for them to sign. If you use recruiting software, it will likely have e-signature capabilities, allowing new employees to accept an offer and complete onboarding paperwork remotely.

Comprehensive programs take it one step further, automating the entire onboarding process and providing your new hire with all of the training and materials they need. This will not only set up the employee for success but also improve employee retention.

How to improve your hiring process

If you already have a hiring process in place, there is a good chance it can be enhanced to better serve your business needs. Here are 13 tips to improve your hiring process.

1. Build a strong employer brand.

More than 75 percent of professionals are passive candidates who aren’t currently looking for a job but are open to new opportunities. Building a strong employer brand not only reduces employee turnover by 28 percent but also attracts these passive candidates to your company over others.

A Glassdoor survey found that 69 percent of respondents are likely to apply for a job if the employer actively manages its brand by responding to reviews, updating the company’s profile, and sharing updates on the company’s culture and work environment.

When you focus on building a well-known employer brand , you won’t have to do as much active recruiting; you’ll be a highly sought-after organization that attracts lots of applicants.

2. Answer candidates’ frequently asked questions.

Another excellent recruitment strategy is to create a page or section on your website that addresses questions that candidates often ask. Many candidates may be reluctant to apply for jobs because they still need answers to certain questions before they apply. You can either take specific questions that new candidates have asked you or ask your present employees what questions they had before they were hired. This will help you create a page that covers the concerns candidates may have, thereby informing candidates and saving time.

3. Move as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Workleap reported that the best candidates are off the market in 10 days. Act quickly, especially when you know you’re interested in a specific applicant. Even if you haven’t made a decision yet, follow up with the candidate often, discussing further details of the position to ensure you’re on their radar. Respond to any questions or concerns right away to keep them updated throughout the process.

4. Write better job descriptions.

Many companies write job descriptions with lists of responsibilities and requirements, but these job postings aren’t always helpful. Making job descriptions accurate and succinct is essential for attracting the right types of candidates for your open positions. Failure to do so can make it even harder to sort through the applications you’ll get back, and you may not even get a suitable candidate for the job. Focus on what your company can do for potential employees, and you’ll attract candidates who better fit your needs.

5. Embrace digital trends and social media.

Most people want to work for companies that keep up with the latest tech trends. Part of embracing the digital age means using public social media profiles for candidate research. Like most employers, you’ll probably conduct a standard preemployment background check on applicants, but social media screenings of a candidate’s public social media profiles can offer more details about the individual as a person and an employee, for better or worse.

It’s legally risky to allow a candidate’s social media activity to factor into your hiring decisions, because it can result in unconscious bias or discrimination. However, it can give you a better picture of a job applicant you’re interested in hiring.

Social media recruitment is also a great strategy for reaching the right audience and attracting talent, said Kayla Vatalaro, former head of talent and social impact at Asana.

“We believe in the power of the employee voice to tell the Asana story, and our employees have a significant influence on social media,” Vatalaro said. “Every week across our social channels, our employer brand team shares an Asana Women Wednesday post, featuring the great work of one of the women from our global team.”

Vatalaro said this form of employee advocacy has increased traffic to the company’s careers page and become a crucial part of its recruitment and talent management strategy. 

7. Encourage employee referrals.

One of the best ways to hire quality candidates is through referrals from current employees or people in your network. Referrals are a good way to screen potential candidates before interviewing them. If your trusted employee recommends a previous colleague or a friend whose work experience they know well, it gives you a level of security knowing that this new applicant can do good work. In contrast, when you hire a stranger, there is less certainty about a candidate’s work ethic and potential fit for the team.

Although you shouldn’t give referrals preferential treatment, a recommendation from someone already on staff or in your network is an added benefit for that applicant. Ensure that the candidate’s qualifications make them an ideal fit for the job, and use the referral as insurance that you’re making the right hiring decision.

One way to solicit referrals from current employees is to implement a referral bonus program. If an employee refers an applicant and that applicant eventually gets hired, the employee who referred the new hire can receive monetary compensation. Even if the bonus is only a few hundred dollars, it makes employees more willing to recommend people they know are quality candidates. 

8. Optimize for mobile.

A mobile-friendly hiring process is one of the best ways to draw in candidates. According to SmartRecruiters , close to 90 percent of job seekers use a mobile device when looking for a new job opportunity. That number has risen significantly over the past few years.

To that end, your app or website should allow candidates to accept offers, hold live video interviews, complete referral tasks and self-schedule interviews. For retention purposes, you can also build in functions for new employees, such as an interactive employee handbook , benefits registration and access to paid-time-off (PTO) balances.

9. Fit the personality to the job.

Although the right skill set may seem like the most important factor in whether a candidate is a good fit, the truth is that skills can be acquired, but personalities cannot.

During the selection process, consider how a candidate’s personality traits align with the daily job tasks. For instance, a trait such as empathy is much more important for a nurse or a social worker than it is for a tax attorney or a computer programmer.

“ What kind of person you hire depends on [the] culture of [the] organization and the kind of job,” said Maynard Brusman, a San Francisco-based psychologist and founding principal of consulting firm Working Resources. “A great person with all kinds of skills may be a good fit for one and a poor fit for another, simply based on their personality type.”

10. Improve your interviews.

A study by Leadership IQ found that failures exhibited by new employees may result from flawed interview processes. In the study, 82 percent of the 5,000 managers surveyed reported that the interviewers were too focused on other issues, were too pressed for time, or lacked the confidence in their interviewing abilities to pay attention to red flags.

According to Mark Murphy, founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, this is because the job interview process focuses on making sure new hires are technically competent, whereas other factors that are just as important to employees’ success — like coachability, emotional intelligence, temperament and motivation — are often overlooked.

Interviewing the candidate

One way to improve the interview process is to double up on interviewers. Multiple interviewers in the room at once can have several benefits:

• It shortens the interview process.
• It lightens a hiring manager’s load.
• It hands employers a better opportunity to give candidates honest feedback.

Doug Camplejohn, CEO and founder of Airspeed, advised hiring managers to have an open discussion about the interview in front of the candidate as if they weren’t in the room. It may seem strange, but he said candidates appreciate the candor.

“It’s a much more honest process than saying your thank-yous and then rejecting someone over email or through a recruiter,” Camplejohn said. “Even candidates who we’ve passed on have commented on how refreshing the process is and asked to stay in touch.”

Letting the candidate interview you

Allow prospective employees to interview you as well. Letting candidates ask questions gives you a chance to see what’s important to them, Brusman said. It also lets them determine whether they want to keep pursuing a job at your company.

“Be open and honest about what it’s going to be like to work for your company,” Brusman said. “You want to give a realistic preview of the work environment.”

11. Offer quality employee benefits and perks.

A comprehensive selection of employee benefits and perks can be a good way to attract a diverse and talented applicant pool. In addition to providing competitive salaries and a good company culture , companies that offer work-life balance and comprehensive health insurance packages appeal to a broad range of candidates. There are plenty of traditional work benefits that attract top talent, and there’s no shortage of unusual and creative perk options . Flexible work offerings, like the ability to telecommute, have become very popular with employees since the beginning of the pandemic. 

When you’re explaining your benefits to prospective employees, you can also highlight other features, such as your company’s efforts to create a culture of diversity and inclusion and opportunities for employee advancement.

12. Use recruiting software.

Recruiting software is designed to automate the tedious parts of recruiting and allow you to do much more than you would be able to handle manually. It can easily blast out multiple customized job postings, send bulk rejection or welcome emails, and automatically transition candidates to the next phase of the recruitment process based on preset configurations. When recruiting software tracks your candidates every step of the way, you reach the best candidates and streamline the hiring process. If you’re looking for a more robust option, take a look at the best HR software providers , which have options for streamlining recruitment.

Automation and tracking capabilities increase your hiring efficiency, allowing recruiters to focus on what matters: engaging with great candidates. This reduces recruiting time and increases employee engagement and satisfaction. Some recruiting software can handle multiple aspects of the onboarding process for you. Recruiting software that provides analytics gives you insight into how your hiring process is performing and where you can improve.

Platforms such as BambooHR allow you to track and hire job applicants, onboard and offboard employees, access HR management tools, track employee time and PTO, and view advanced reporting on candidates and employees. Read our BambooHR review to learn more.

13. Monitor your reviews.

Potential employees often seek inside information about companies they want to work for, including salary estimates, interview tips, and reviews from current and former employees from sites such as Glassdoor. Studies show that 86 percent of Glassdoor users read company reviews and ratings before deciding to apply for a job. Top candidates may not even apply in the first place if they don’t like what they see — 50 percent of job seekers said they would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even for a pay increase.

Actions that draw in candidates include being active on review websites and posting accurate information. If you have a lot of negative reviews from former employees, it may be time to work on your company culture before you try to fill any open positions. This can improve your employee retention and lead to more positive reviews that will attract quality employees.

Recruitment and hiring require a strategy

It can be easy to pay attention to recruitment and hiring only when you need help, but these activities deserve a comprehensive and ongoing strategy. By considering the elements above and following best practices, you can maximize the chances that your business finds the candidates it needs when the time comes. After all, your business is only as successful as your team, so filling your open positions with top talent should be a key priority.

Tejas Vemparala and Sammi Caramela contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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How to create a recruitment plan that will actually improve your hiring

If you’re a recruiter hiring without a recruitment plan, things probably get really hectic sometimes. It’s not difficult to see how we can get lost between taking new job briefs, sourcing talent , conducting interviews , and coordinating offers for multiple vacancies.

Do you find yourself wishing you had more control over your hiring? The best way to ditch the stress is to put some time aside to evaluate your recruitment planning process. When we’re multitasking under pressure, we tend to follow the path of least resistance, using what’s always worked best. But often what worked well yesterday has morphed into a stumbling block today because the working environment has evolved.

While a recruitment plan is no magic wand, it will bring order to the chaos that can come from recruiting for several positions simultaneously.

What is a recruitment plan?

A recruitment plan is a predetermined strategy for recruiters and hiring teams to implement during the hiring process.

‍ Having a recruitment plan in place from the beginning streamlines processes and also gives everyone a timeline to work with. As a recruiter, you can plan your work more efficiently. For line managers, it provides insight into the time to hire and to fill an opening. Once a department head knows how long a vacancy will be open, they can introduce contingency plans, if necessary.

There’s no one size fits all recruitment plan to follow because vacancies differ, and so do companies. But there are steps that make up the core of all hiring processes . It’s best to start with these core steps and build a plan that can be optimized and expanded as needed.

Recruitment strategic planning in a nutshell

Irrespective of the company or the position, every recruitment drive has the following seven components:

• Identifying a new vacancy
• Understanding the job requirements
• Recruitment budget
• Sourcing potential candidates
• Screening and interviews
• Making a job offer
• Hire and onboarding

In between each step could be others, but every new hire must follow this route.

Devising your recruitment plan means to come up with a strategy around these core steps that will improve your hiring. The time you invest in setting up your recruitment strategic plan will be immensely valuable to you and hiring teams in the future.

7 critical points of a long term recruitment plan

Once you have a recruitment plan in place, you want it to evolve as your company does so that you don’t have to go back to the drawing board in a year or two. See your plan as a living document that can be continually edited and updated.

To begin with, though you’ll have to do some groundwork so let’s revisit the seven core steps and build on them.

1. Identifying a new vacancy

First, determine if every job must be a new hire. A new vacancy is an excellent opportunity to conduct a gap analysis and bring in skills that are lacking. As systems and processes progress many positions change and you might not need to find a candidate with the same abilities as before. A new opening can be a great way to upskill an existing employee and give them a promotion. You can also find that the vacancy can be merged with another position, giving someone more responsibilities and a welcome raise.

2. Understanding the job requirements

Job descriptions and titles quickly become jaded and irrelevant. Make a point of checking the existing job description of every new vacancy and rewrite it if necessary. There’s little value in using an outdated job description when sourcing candidates because you won’t attract the right people. Job titles also have an impact so make sure that the title equals the requirements . New openings also open the way to adding diversity , so check your diversity targets.

3. Recruitment budget

Few things in business trigger more stress than budgeting struggles. Calculating a budget for every hire will help guide your recruitment because you’ll have to be mindful of where you incur costs. An undeveloped talent pipeline, advertising in the wrong places, and a protracted time to fill all add up to losses. Draw up a recruitment budget with the rest of the hiring team before any hiring processes begin. That way you have more control over your cost per hire and recruiting yield ratios.

4. Sourcing potential candidates

Planning where you’ll find the right candidates is essential. Not every job board works for every vacancy, and if you go the wrong route, you’ll end up losing precious time. Take some time upfront to identify where you’ll attract the best talent in the shortest time for each job. Also, don’t forget about your talent pipeline and employee referrals . With a bit of research, you could find the perfect fit without having to advertise externally.

5. Screening and interviews

If you’ve got your job description right, it will be easy to use AI recruitment during your hiring process. Not only will it save you time, but for initial screening, AI will eliminate any biases from your candidate selection process. You can load questions about qualifications, years of experience, and skills to your application process to exclude unsuitable applicants. Basic skills assessments can also be loaded to applications where relevant, particularly for technical roles. As a result, you’ll be able to set up interviews with most of the remaining candidates because you know they meet the minimum criteria.

Watch our webinar where we discuss if AI-assisted recruitment can reduce bias

6. Making a job offer

It’s imperative that the whole hiring team is on the same page when it comes to making creative job offers . More junior positions will probably require less in-depth assessment than more senior roles before a hiring decision is made. Keep the lines of communication open within the team because candidates can easily be lost if you take too long to make an offer. Discuss salary expectations with shortlisted candidates in their final interview. That will eliminate salary as a reason for a candidate turning down an offer. Once a candidate has accepted an offer, ensure that they know what the next steps are. Advise them that you’ll be engaging with them regularly until the day they start and encourage them to contact you if they have any questions or concerns.

7. Hire and onboarding

No candidate can be appointed until the day they start. There’s no problem if a candidate is immediately available, but the longer a notice period, the higher the chance of a fall-out. Even if a candidate accepts an offer, they’re under no obligation to actually start. There are instances where someone will accept an offer and then change their mind without letting you know. Make a point of engaging with candidates working their notice period regularly. Also, establish upfront who’s responsible for onboarding new employees . Research shows that proper onboarding is vital and 28% of employees quit in their first 90 days because of poor onboarding. If a new employee has a bad experience or feels ignored in the first few weeks of their tenure, you could be faced with a resignation much sooner than anticipated.

Proper planning and technology will improve your hiring practices

As much as collaborative hiring is invaluable when it comes to selecting the best candidates, having a number of people involved can create confusion and time delays. Using an ATS eliminates team confusion because everyone has access to all information in real time. Updates on progress, new applications, interview coordination and interview outcomes updated in real time keeps everyone in the loop.

An ATSs will also give you the HR metrics that you need to keep your hiring plan a living document. You can easily access real-time and historical data to identify problems in filling any role. By using predictive data , you can optimize your recruitment planning process for better future hires.

Discover how Recruitee makes it easy to hire with your team , optimize your processes , and measure the success of your recruitment efforts

Adrie is a content strategist at Foleon, and the former Head of Content & Branding at Recruitee!

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8 steps of the selection process for hiring employees

The employee selection process is the series of steps followed by a hiring team to gather necessary information for making a hiring decision. It includes stages like screening calls, in-person interviews, background checks, and job offers. This guide provides essential insights to help you develop an efficient selection process for your organization.

Content manager Keith MacKenzie and content specialist Alex Pantelakis bring their HR & employment expertise to Resources.

Let’s face it: finding and selecting a candidate for a job isn’t as cut and dried as it may initially seem. You don’t just look up and down the list of candidates and say, “Hmm, that person will do just fine.”

Instead, you have to go through numerous steps to get to the final stage of the employee selection process, right from building a hiring plan , drafting a job announcement, conducting interviews , running background checks, and sending the final offer letter, among many other steps along the way.

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If you’re like any employer, HR representative or recruiter, you probably don’t have the time to get into the nitty-gritty details of the selection process. Whether you want to hire an intern for your company, fill positions in your rapidly growing startup , build out your sales team , or grow your employee base by tenfold , there’s something here to meet your needs: a quick step-by-step guide to follow for your recruitment and selection process so you can get that new star candidate on your team.

Here are eight steps in the selection process for hiring employees and how to best go through each — if you’re interested in specific employee selection process steps, click on the table of contents below:

1. Application

The application phase in the selection process is sometimes seen as passive from the hiring team side – you just wait for candidates to respond to your job ad. However, applications can and should be selection tools, helping you sort candidates as qualified or unqualified.

How can you do this? There are two options to get started: qualifying questions and gamification.

Qualifying questions

If you’re using software to build your application forms, using qualifying questions at the beginning of your selection process should be easy. You can add two or three questions relevant to the position. The candidates must answer these questions in order to apply. For example:

• Briefly describe your experience with Excel.
• What’s the difference between content marketing and journalism?
• Can you legally work in the UK?

Some of these questions could require simple yes/no answers with the wrong answer automatically disqualifying a candidate – this is something that can also easily be done via recruitment software. Of course, automatic disqualification should be reserved only for absolute must-have skills. For example, if you’re looking for a senior designer, a disqualifying question could be “Do you have 5+ years of design experience?”

Help candidates complete your applications

Of course, you want candidates who start completing your forms to actually go all the way and submit their application. Yet, so many candidates abandon applications because it takes too long to complete them or they’re too complicated. To avoid this, here are a few things you can do to streamline this part of the selection process:

• Keep qualifying questions to a minimum and make sure they don’t require complex or long answers.
• Try applying to one of your open roles; that’s how you’ll be able to spot glitches, hurdles or lengthy applications.
• Test your application forms’ (and careers page’s ) mobile version. Many people apply via mobile so it needs to work well.

To see whether there’s an issue with your application forms, you could also track your application abandonment rate . Ideally, you’d like it to be close to 0%, so the higher that number is, the more improvements your applications need.

Gamification

Gamifying your recruitment process isn’t a new trend, but with the progress of technology, you can now use gamification tools more effectively in the selection process. Especially in the application phase, consider asking less-experienced candidates and those transitioning from different backgrounds to play online or offline games.

The reasoning behind this is that candidates who are recent graduates, or have made a career change, won’t have much relevant experience to showcase in their resumes — despite being possibly the right fit for a job. This can be a problem when you’re trying to evaluate them based on their application. By using gamified assessment methods in the that stage, you can shortlist promising people and your hiring team will have better chances of interviewing only a few truly qualified candidates.

This also gives you an opportunity to diversify your applicant pool when you find the majority of applicants that meet your required background come from a narrow subset or demographic.

There are many options to insert gamification in your selection process ; for example, an online service like benchmark.games or coding challenges , like Workable’s integrated tool HackerRank , could be useful.

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2. Resume screening

Now that you have wrapped up the application phase of the employee selection process, you have a collection of resumes or CVs to sift through and filter those deemed suitable for a screening call. What you’ll need to do now is go through resumes one by one, whether manually or software-assisted, and identify prime candidates.

This is one of the most traditional employee selection methods to move candidates to the next step by identifying and disqualifying those who don’t quite fit what you’re looking for.

There may be hundreds – in some cases, thousands – of applicants for a single job. There are numerous ways to filter resumes:

This is a practical side of the selection process; you’re looking for the background that qualifies a candidate for the position you want to fill. You’ll want to know if they have the academic knowledge or professional expertise – or both – to perform a job well.

For instance:

• If you’re looking to fill an accounting position , someone with an accounting degree yet with little to no practical work experience might be suitable for a junior-level position.
• If you’re looking for a bartender , someone who has already worked at several reputable pubs or restaurants in your area may be a good fit.
• Or, if you’re looking to fill an editorial manager position , you want to know they have the academic expertise that proves their advanced ability to think, edit, and write for school assignments, coupled with a number of years in a high-intensity media environment requiring decision-making on the fly.

You want to be careful not to stick to these parameters too rigidly; many qualified candidates may not have the traditional background for this position. Learn about how non-traditional candidates can bring as much to the table as their traditional counterparts.

Resume layout

Even something as simple as the layout of a candidate’s resume can be an indicator of how qualified they are for a position. The skill of organizing and presenting information in a clear and concise way is on full display here.

Consider the following examples of how a resume’s layout can offer a quick demonstration of a candidate’s skill set:

• If you’re looking to fill a creative position – such as graphics or web design – the resume layout can be a powerful indicator of how well they can design.
• If you’re looking to fill a sales position , the manner in which they present a resume can show you how they might be able to catch your client’s eye with important, relevant information to convert them into buyers.
• If you’re looking for a marketing copywriter , the resume shows their ability to describe things in a tight, concise and engaging manner.

Here are some original ways a resume can be presented.

On the flip side, you’re also looking for resume red flags that a candidate may not be what they present themselves to be. For instance, a resume can include obvious copy-and-pasted boilerplate text, mismatched dates, typos, embellishments or even clear fiction (such as a school that doesn’t turn up in a Google search).

Cover letter

Similarly to the resume, a candidate’s cover letter gives you an idea of who they are and what they bring to the role. You’re looking for tightly and smartly written language that clearly describes what they can bring to the position. Does the candidate:

• Describe their skills and background in a relevant way to the position being applied for?
• Show their knowledge of your company and its goals, and how they can contribute?
• Write in a professional, error-free manner that reflects their ability to communicate via email and other channels?

Intangibles

It may initially seem corny to list one’s hobbies and personal interests in a resume, but even those can be great indicators of the kind of person applying for the role. For instance:

• “Running” indicates they’re a healthy person and disciplined enough to train for 10Ks or marathons on a regular basis.
• “Volunteering” shows they’re interested in the bigger picture (i.e. your company’s mission and vision) and can have the empathy that would make them a great team member.
• “Chess” indicates an ability to process complex information in a logical/logarithmic way, an invaluable skill for a developer position

Unconscious bias

As through every step of the employee selection procedures, you want to keep your unconscious bias in check. Harvard’s Project Implicit is a great tool to help you realize where your unconscious biases lie and how strong they are. Maintain that awareness as you sift through resumes.

For example, during the selection process, watch out for potential biases including someone’s name, gender, race, age, class, and even academic background – for instance, just because someone got their MBA from a local college rather than from Harvard doesn’t necessarily make them less worthy of a candidate or their MBA degree less impressive.

If you are like many employers and recruiters, you’re also actively pursuing a D&I initiative. If you’re looking to build a gender-balanced team in a sector dominated by one gender, check out these five steps in which you can do it successfully.

This stage of the employee selection process often involves multiple parties in the hiring team, including the HR representative, the hiring manager, the recruiter, and sometimes even the direct report. Learn more about how you can work together as a team within the same platform, including adding comments, scores, and other data to each application.

If this feels like a time-consuming affair, you’re probably right. There are numerous AI tools within Workable’s software that enable you to speed up this stage of the selection process.

3. Screening call

The screening call, or phone screen, is among the initial hiring stages where recruiters shortlist applicants. The purpose of this call is to establish whether the candidate is truly interested in the job and (at least) minimally qualified to do it successfully. This way, only the best applicants will go to the next, stricter (and more expensive) hiring stages, like assessments and in-person interviews, saving your team time and money.

Schedule a phone screen

The email you’ll send to candidates to schedule a screening call is important; that’s because it may very well be your very first communication with that candidate. So this is your chance of setting the tone of your relationship with that candidate and, who knows, future employee.

In this case, you need to be straightforward and positive, giving out a professional outlook. Thank the candidate for applying to your open role and ask them if they’d like to speak with you so you can get to know them and give them details about the job. Keep it short and sweet.

Here’s our template to get you started – make sure to customize it to fit your company’s voice.

Prepare well beforehand

Without being able to see candidates face to face and connect with them or assess their body language, and with the added issues of occasional bad signal or background noise, you might find screening calls difficult to navigate. The key is to prepare thoroughly: know exactly what you’re looking for and what you want to learn about each candidate, as well as what information you’d like to convey, before you begin with the selection process.

• Write down your requirements. You probably already know the basic qualifications you’re looking for, so make a list of basic ones you’d like to check during the screening call. These might include “must be able to start work within the month” or “they should want to relocate.” It might be useful to give some thought on what you can be flexible on – for example, would you be able to convert a full-time job to part-time or agree to flexible hours?
• Read candidate resumes. This is important for two reasons: you’ll show candidates that you’re serious about their application, and you’ll be able to spot discrepancies you can ask about. For example, if candidates have a huge gap in their employment record, you might ask why that was.
• Make sure you can answer basic questions. Candidates will be evaluating your company throughout the recruitment process, just like you’ll be evaluating them. To persuade a good candidate to complete and assessment or come in for an interview, you should pitch the position and your company effectively. Do your homework about the role and refresh your knowledge of the company’s mission.

Select the right questions

The questions you’ll ask should tell you whether the candidate is suitable and interested in the role. So make sure you address both those points during the screening call (without going into too much detail in terms of skills – reserve these questions for later hiring stages.) Here are a few example questions :

• When could you start if you were offered the job?
• Would you be comfortable with 50% travel?
• How much money would you like to earn in this position?
• What did you find most interesting in the job description?
• What interests you about our company?
• Tell me about this two-year gap in your resume
• Why do you want to leave your current position?

Ask questions and listen carefully to the candidate. Determine whether their attitude suits your company and whether their answers are satisfying. Watch out for answers that may not sound genuine or contradictions with their resume or application.

4. Assessment test

Once you’ve screened candidates and sorted them out into “promising”, “maybe”, and “disqualified” groups, you want to look at the surviving candidates and further assess their ability to do the job you’re looking to fill. These assessments can take place in a multitude of forms in the selection process:

• An in-person audition for an acting position, a sales job where you request the candidate to pitch you a product, or a kitchen position where you ask them to cook something for you on the spot.
• A written or online test to test for aptitude, personality, intelligence, etc.
• A practical skills test to determine a candidate’s typing speed, data entry capabilities, memory, etc.

It should be noted that personality- and culture-based assessment tests are often debated as to their applicability in determining the success of a candidate in a certain job – not everyone agrees that a Myers-Brigg assessment test is a good thing, for instance.

However, practical skills assessments are a powerful tool to determine whether a candidate is indeed able to do a job well as they’ve claimed in previous stages of the employee selection process.

Check out our top 10 assessment tools for different focal areas, including judgment, aptitude and coding skills. Also, learn about Workable’s own assessment tools and integrations to best optimize this stage, as well as a selection of “how-tos” for assessing a candidate’s skill sets for different common positions within a company. Assessments can also be gamified, as above .

Navigate the assessment stage effectively

Timing is a consideration. You want to give candidates enough time to complete the assessment – for instance, give them 3-5 business days to complete a short test. Stay close to realistic goals that you might expect of them if they were working in your company; don’t ask them to complete a complex project in a 24-hour span, but don’t give them 20 days either.

Communication is key. Explain clearly to candidates the scope and purpose of the assessment, so they understand fully why you’re doing it. You don’t want them thinking you’re asking free work of them.

In many cases in this phase of the selection process, you aren’t just looking at a candidate’s ability to do the task at hand; you’re also looking at the way they communicate themselves leading up to, during, and after the assessment. You’ll also want to look at the way they approach the assessment, especially when it comes to creative projects such as in development and design which often require some collaboration and planning.

A follow-up interview – separate from other interviews – dedicated to this particular assessment can shed valuable insight on how candidates worked on the project and their takeaways and learnings from it.

It’s important to note the many variables associated with an assessment. It’s not necessarily enough that a candidate is able to perform the task with flying colors or seemingly unlimited creativity. You’re looking at all the ways in which they’ve gone into it; perhaps a junior developer has not completed a technical test perfectly but demonstrated great intangibles in the “good” questions they’ve asked of you or in their receptiveness to feedback and a willingness to grow and learn.

Or, perhaps a senior designer didn’t do exactly what was asked of them, but “bent the rules” a little bit and turned out an even better product in the end; and what’s more, they talked to you about their idea before going ahead and doing it.

5. In-person interviewing

You’re now deep in the selection process, having screened candidates, evaluated their skills, assessed their abilities, and created a shortlist of the most qualified people. It’s finally time to meet in person with those promising candidates and determine who’s going to be your next hire.

A good interview will help you make better hiring decisions, as you will objectively evaluate and compare candidates’ potential. But there’s more to do than the actual interview. You need to prepare yourself and the entire hiring team to make sure you ask all the right questions. More specifically, you should prepare:

• Role-specific questions , to evaluate candidates’ knowledge and experience
• Soft skills questions , to identify candidates who are good not just on paper
• Situational questions , to learn how candidates would address different scenarios and issues that may arise on the job
• Behavioral questions , to discover how candidates have previously handled professional challenges
• Career goals questions , to find candidates whose professional goals align with your business objectives
• Collaboration questions , to identify team players
• Adaptability questions , to learn which candidates are more flexible and will have a smooth transition to their new role if hired

Once you have your set of interview questions ready (and double-checked that you’re not asking anything illegal ), you can invite candidates to your offices – or schedule a video call if you’re hiring remotely. Here are a few tips to help you schedule interview with candidates more effectively:

• Schedule interviews at least two or three business days in advance. Surely, if you’ve found the perfect candidate or if you’re in a rush to close an open role, you want to speed up the process. But, calling candidates to ask them to meet on the same or next day could send the wrong message and make you look desperate. Besides, candidates might be working elsewhere, so they need to adjust their schedule. They also need some time to prepare themselves for the interview (e.g. do some research on your company, take a closer look at their assignment, etc.)
• the exact day and time of the interview, taking into consideration different time zones if you’re interviewing remote candidates
• the address of your offices along with directions on how to get there (or, instructions on how to log in to a video platform, in case of a video interview )
• the names and roles of the interviewers
• the scope of the interview (e.g. “We’ll go over your assignment” or “You’ll meet with the CEO”)
• the estimated duration of the interview

Add any other details that candidates might find useful, such as what they need to bring with them (e.g. their ID for security reasons or their portfolio) or where they can park their car. You can use a scheduling interview email template to save time; you will only need to adjust the names and dates every time you invite a candidate to your offices but the main information will stay the same.

• Offer candidates a few alternative days for the interview. Busy schedules and multiple interviews and interviewers can make the interview scheduling process very complicated. To save time and avoid back-and-forth emails or double-bookings, let candidates pick the most convenient day and time. You could either share via email your availability (highlighting your preferred three or four time slots) or share your entire calendar through a self-scheduling tool .

Before the day of the interview, make sure that all interviewers are well-prepared. For members of your hiring team with little or no experience in recruiting, consider running a mock interview; this way, they’ll feel more comfortable when they actually meet with the candidates.

Here’s a checklist that will help you conduct more effective interviews  during the selection process:

• Stick to the interview questions you have prepared; small talk with candidates or questions that are irrelevant to the job could result in biased hiring decisions.
• Ask all candidates the same set of questions in a structured way; this way, it’ll be easier to compare their answers and select the most qualified ones.
• Be prepared to answer questions from candidates , too; they’ll probably want to learn more about the team, the company goals and the employee benefits .
• Review candidates’ profile (e.g. resume, assignment, previous communication) before you meet them; you’ll refresh your memory and won’t ask things they’ve already mentioned.
• Provide interview feedback to your hiring team as soon as the interview finishes; the best hiring decisions rely on collaboration.

Keep in mind that a good interview will not only help you spot deal breakers , it will also impact the overall candidate experience . Naturally, you won’t hire every candidate you interview. But, if you come to interviews prepared, ask job-related questions and are respectful to candidates, even the ones you reject will leave with a positive impression about your company.

Want to learn more about how to organize and improve your interview process? Read our detailed guide here .

6. Background checks

Background checks reassure you that your finalists are reliable and don’t pose risks to your company. For example, employers may conduct pre-employment checks to make sure candidates have told the truth in their resumes or don’t currently do illicit drugs. In fact, there are several types of background checks including:

• Criminal records
• Credit reports
• Driving records
• Verification reports (e.g. identity, education, work history, social security number, national insurance number, etc.)

These checks are most useful in the selection process when there’s high risk involved in employing someone unsuitable in a particular job. For example, you probably wouldn’t want a convicted sex offender working at a nursing home or someone with bad credit handling your company’s finances; current drug users would be a huge safety risk as machine operators and professional drivers with extensive drunk driving records would probably not make the best hires. And so on.

So in these cases, conducting a pre-employment test would be very important (you could do background checks in other instances too, but there might not be a necessity to do so). If you’re thinking of conducting background checks , be sure to:

a. Consider legal aspects of background checks

First, some background checks are mandated by law in certain industries or roles depending on location. For example, in some jurisdictions, working in substance abuse facilities or daycare centers requires passing a criminal record check. So make sure you know the applicable regulations to order background checks as necessary.

Also, pre-employment checks are themselves regulated by law. For example, in the U.S., you need to comply with the guidelines set by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The UK has its own set of guidelines regarding background checks. Local laws in your area may also require a candidate to have an offer in hand before you can ask permission for a background check.

b. Choose a reputable and reliable background check provider

There are generally two options for conducting background checks : the full-service provider and online DIY websites. DIY websites let you do your own investigations and are cheaper, but many may not be compliant with local laws and using them to research candidates may pose legal risks.

Full-service providers, on the other hand, are usually compliant (though you should always ask for proof that they are) and can undertake the full investigation on your behalf. Look for providers and evaluate them based on compliance, costs, turnaround time and types of checks they offer.

If you’re using recruiting software like Workable, you’ll be able to access background checks straight from the system via an integrated provider, thus saving time.

c. Navigate discussions with candidates appropriately

The law in many places mandates that you ask candidates’ permission before you conduct checks in an employee selection process. So, you need to tell them that you’re thinking of looking into their past. Afterwards, you also have to inform candidates of your intention to reject them (adverse action notification) to give them time to rebut a false report. Candidates will inevitably have their own concerns and questions on the pre-employment screening. They may distrust your intentions, see this as an invasion on their personal information or believe you’re looking for reasons to reject them.

Be honest about what background checks are for. If they’re mandated by law, say so. If it’s your company’s policy for certain roles, be sure to explain how you’ll handle results: for example, let this candidate know that they’re one of your finalists (perhaps the only finalist) and you just need to reinforce your decision to hire them.

After you’ve ordered the test, it’s good to keep in touch with candidates for as long as you’re waiting for results (which can be several weeks).

For more tips on how to handle potentially awkward conversations about background checks in the selection process, see our 8 useful tips .

d. Interpret results correctly

There are a number of background check red flags you can find after you get the results of a test. Some might justify an immediate disqualification, such as if you learn that a candidate for a role as an accountant has been convicted of fraud or embezzlement.

But other results might not be as serious. For example, one candidate might have lied about where they went to school. You might decide that lying is enough to disqualify them, but that’s not necessarily the case. In these instances, it might be useful to have an open conversation with a candidate and see if they regret lying, or if they had a reason to do so. The report might even be inaccurate, so it will be fair to hear the candidate’s side of the story.

With that in mind, it’s important to understand that employment background checks should be used as one of many employee selection tools – they alone shouldn’t make the hiring decision for you. Background screening shouldn’t be used as a way to disqualify someone or reduce the number of applicants for a position. Checks are meant to reinforce a hiring decision and ensure candidates who have been selected for a job are suitable.

7. Reference checks

In the final stages of the selection process, you might want to get some references for your best candidates. This way, you’ll get feedback about their performance from people they’ve actually worked with in the past, such as former managers, former colleagues or business partners and clients.

You could ask candidates to provide contact details from former employers and coworkers. Or, you can reach out directly to people you know they used to work with. In any case, when requesting references for a candidate , it’s best to initially send an email to introduce yourself and explain why you want this information. This way, you can schedule a call where you’ll discuss in more detail.

During reference checks, you will:

• Confirm what candidates have already told you (e.g about time of employment and previous job responsibilities)
• Learn how candidates use their skills on the job
• Discover potential weaknesses or lack of practical experience
• Understand how candidates behave in the work environment (e.g. if they’re punctual, if they receive feedback well, etc.)

To obtain objective and relevant information, you need to ask targeted questions. Here are a few sample questions to ask when getting references for candidates:

• When did [Candidate_name] work at your company and what was their job title?
• What were [Candidate_name’s] main responsibilities?
• Could you mention one or two group projects [Candidate_name] was involved in? What was their role and how did they collaborate with their colleagues?
• Do you think [Candidate_name] could take on a more senior role? Why or why not?
• Given the opportunity, would you rehire [Candidate_name]?

While getting references, keep an eye out for red flags. For example, it’s not a good sign when you notice discrepancies between what the candidate mentioned during the interviews and what their former employer told you. You should also consider any negative feedback you get that shows that candidates aren’t as skilled or as reliable as they seem.

Once you’ve taken everything you learned in the selection process into account, from your own candidate evaluation to background and reference checks, you’re ready to make your hiring decision.

8. Decision and job offer

Congratulations! After a series of well-organized selection processes for recruiting new employees, you’ve finally found your perfect hire. Now it’s time to let them know you’re offering them a position at your company. The job offer process is a critical one; done right, you’ll soon welcome your new employee in the office. But, if you miss something, you might lose a great candidate and have to start the hiring process all over again.

Here are some tips that will help you streamline the job offer approval process :

• Discuss employment terms early in the selection process. Salary, bonuses and working hours are all potential dealbreakers, so it’s best to learn whether you agree with candidates on those factors before you offer them a job.
• Make an informal verbal offer. It’ll cost you time if you wait to craft a formal job offer letter before you inform candidates. You can first call them to give them the good news and get a hint as to whether they’re going to accept or reject your offer. Be sure to give the candidate the opportunity to “think on it” so they don’t feel pressured to give an answer right away.
• Read more on our guide on how to write a standout job offer letter .
• Consider using different templates per role or department. For example, check our sales job offer letter and our developer job offer letter .
• Keep HR, Finance and the CEO in the loop. A job offer process usually requires filling out paperwork, getting approvals and completing other prep work before you welcome a new hire in your offices.

If you’re using Workable, you can simplify the offer letter approval process by keeping all necessary data in one place and automating parts of the process.

When a candidate accepts the job offer a hiring cycle ends successfully .

Now what? It’s time to start preparing your new employee’s arrival. You can send them a welcome email to get them excited and plan their first day for a smooth onboarding. Before that, though, don’t forget to inform rejected candidates that they didn’t get the job; not only are they potential employees for another position down the road, but also a positive candidate experience will work miracles for your employer brand.

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40 Ideas to Shake Up Your Hiring Process

• Joseph Fuller,
• Nithya Vaduganathan,
• Allison Bailey,
• Manjari Raman

Innovative approaches that your company may not have considered.

Many companies today are struggling to hire and retain talent, but more often than not the problem is self-inflicted: They’re simply not using a broad enough array of tools, sometimes because they don’t even know the tools exist. In this article, the authors list 40 tools — some familiar but underutilized, others unfamiliar and innovative — that can help companies find and keep the people they need to succeed in both the short-term and the long-term.

Despite challenging economic conditions, companies are still finding it difficult to attract and retain the right talent. That’s one of the takeaways from the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report , which showed that job vacancies still remain above 10 million as of November 2022. We’ve confirmed that trend in our own work: Last August, when we surveyed 800 senior business leaders, more than 95% of them told us that hiring and retaining talent was one of their top three priorities as they strive to deliver on their strategies. However, those needs are not constrained to the short-term: More than two-thirds of the leaders we surveyed reported that filling positions for lower and higher wage workers is critical for their organization’s ability to compete, both in the next 12 to 18 months and in the next three to five years.

• Joseph Fuller is a professor of management practice and a faculty cochair of the Project on Managing the Future of Work at Harvard Business School.
• NV Nithya Vaduganathan is a managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group, a leader in BCG’s People and Organization and Education practices, and a Henderson Institute Fellow on new talent models.
• Allison Bailey is a senior partner and a managing director at BCG. She leads the firm’s People & Organization practice globally and is a coauthor of several publications on the future of work, the bionic company, digital learning, and upskilling. She is also a fellow of the BCG Henderson Institute.
• MR Manjari Raman is a senior program director and a senior researcher for Harvard Business School’s U.S. Competitiveness Project and the Project on Managing the Future of Work.

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How to Create Your Recruitment Plan for 2024

Many talent acquisition leaders agree the best way to create your annual recruitment plan is to learn what did and didn’t work with your last recruitment strategy.

These TA leaders recommend conducting a retrospective that covers high-level metrics and progress (e.g., overall recruitment budget spent, hiring plan goals met) and more specific objectives (e.g., candidate experience ratings, social media job ad engagement).

Lever Director of Recruiting Caitlyn Metteer mentioned how analyzing your hiring team’s sourcing, nurturing, and interviewing efforts from the last calendar year is the best way to improve your recruitment model and hiring process next year.

“Assessing your recruiters’ efforts to convert potential candidates into new hires can help you refine your team’s recruitment process, address any hiring manager issues, drive down cost per hire, and ensure your headcount grows to meet your business needs,” said Caitlyn.

4 factors that should inform your talent acquisition team’s recruitment plan for 2024

Of course, you need to evaluate and address more than just your people and processes to create a highly effective recruitment plan for your team for the year ahead.

You must also determine if your existing applicant tracking system can help your team better identify and engage candidates efficiently and effectively and streamline your recruiters’ work.

Aptitude Research Founder Madeline Laurano explained to SHRM how “HR and TA leaders are prioritizing candidate relationship management (CRM) solutions ” and ditching their dependence on old-school ATS without CRM functionality.

This increased investment isn’t just to help TA leaders empower their teams to recruit smarter.

Paradox VP Client Advocacy & Marketing Josh Secrest told SHRM recruiting tech “plays a crucial part in why the best recruiters stay in their role and why they also might look elsewhere.”

With that in mind, here are four tech-related considerations for your 2024 recruitment plan that will impact how well your team connects with and converts high-quality candidates .

1) Audit your entire talent acquisition tech stack

A recent Talent Board report found one-quarter of talent leaders said their standalone ATS doesn’t easily connect with other recruiting tools in their tech stacks.

More than one-third of talent acquisition directors are also concerned their tools won’t sync with their ATS because it’s a legacy offering.

Want to avoid ending up like these talent leaders? Make upgrades to your tech stack (perhaps an old-school ATS) a primary focus with your 2024 recruitment planning.

Some key questions to ask about your TA tech stack during an audit include :

• Does your ATS offer robust, easy-to-use CRM capabilities?
• Is your candidate data centralized in your ATS, or is it stored in multiple systems?
• Can your recruiters easily and quickly find the info and data required to succeed daily in your ATS (e.g., details on active and archived candidates, pipeline insights)?
• Do other essential tools (e.g., background check tools, team collaboration platforms) and the most popular job boards directly connect to and share key data with your ATS?
• Does each team member have a custom data “view” in your ATS (e.g., recruiter operations dashboard for talent ops managers, team overview dashboard for talent leaders)?

Talent analytics is an important element of the modern TA tech stack.

“Data-driven recruiting is now table stakes for all talent teams,” said Caitlyn. “Fail to provide your recruiters with an intuitive and advanced TA analytics solution, and you won’t be able to compete for talent at the level desired by your C-suite and hire highly qualified candidates.”

2) Assess every aspect of your full-cycle recruiting

Securing the right TA tech is vital. However, your recruiters need to make the most of their central recruiting solution to effectively advance candidates through their funnel .

As a talent leader, you must assess their progress (or regression) in areas including :

• Sourcing : Evaluate your sources and source origins (e.g., organic job board posts, paid ads and InMail). Lessen reliance on “weak” sources and prioritize “strong” ones.
• Job postings : Ensure your job listings have inclusive language, spotlight your company culture and employer brand, and feature engaging copy. Also, adjust job descriptions in postings that tend to generate few applications.
• Nurturing : Analyze your nurture engagement data. Look at open, reply, and conversion rates for emails (and, if applicable, texts) your team sent to candidates in 2023.
• Interviewing : Address any interview process issues. For instance, eliminate or shorten any interview stages you deem took too long to complete, on average, last year.
• Workflows : Adjust recruitment automation workflows in your primary recruiting software to ensure each recruiter’s work is highly streamlined and structured .

“No full-cycle recruiting strategy is perfect,” said Caitlyn. “But regular, data-backed alterations to your team’s daily activities and recruitment model at large can help you consistently improve core metrics tied to your team’s speed, quality, efficiency and productivity.”

3) Chat with HR, your C-suite, and hiring managers

These three stakeholders can offer invaluable insights you can use to build your recruitment plan. The key is proactively engaging them to secure the data, info, and preferences that will inform your TA resource allocation in 2024 .

Speaking with these hiring team members and executives ultimately helps you :

• Understand which business units and locations are top priorities in 2024 in terms of headcount growth : The more information about your company’s specific hiring needs you can get from your CEO, CRO, CHRO, and other business leaders, the stronger your recruitment plan will be.
• Gauge hiring managers’ satisfaction with your recruiters’ efforts to fill roles over the past year : These chats will help you learn if they were happy with new hires and if they thought the average time to fill for open positions aligned with their timeline expectations.
• Get insights on skills gap analysis your HR team and leadership team conduct : This analysis typically takes frequently year-round. But many C-suites and CHROs tend to conduct an end-of-year skills gap analysis to identify immediate role- and team-based needs companywide.

“Dedicated one-on-ones with these business leaders and people managers will take time,” said Caitlyn. “But, the insights you will glean from these discussions will prove more than worthwhile to your recruitment planning .”

4) Keep your entire recruiting staff in the loop

Don’t forget to share your ultimate recruitment plan — including changes to tech they’ll have to use in the year ahead (and related processes) — with your recruiting staff.

“You likely already schedule time at the end of the year to go over insights tied to your recruiting performance and hiring data with your team,” said Caitlyn.

“Use this time to also explain what will change in the year ahead in terms of your technology and standard recruiting processes for your team,” she added.

Caitlyn added this transparency can instill more trust in your recruiters, who will understand why you’re making changes to the way they work and how those changes will help them improve their output and achieve KPIs.

Talent leaders must also detail what training will be needed for any new tech that will be onboarded — especially if that solution is a new TA suite to replace a legacy ATS .

Note who will teach recruiters how to use new tech and who TA specialists should turn to internally (e.g., talent operations, IT) and externally (e.g., your ATS vendor’s support staff) when they need guidance on how to best use the tech.

“This hands-on guidance and education will ensure your entire team hits the ground running with your new platform of choice from day one of implementation,” said Caitlyn.

Chat with the Lever team to learn how you can build a data-driven recruitment plan using LeverTRM as your talent team’s primary ATS + CRM solution in the years ahead.

Further reading

How does an ats work with an hris , how to streamline healthcare recruitment with scalable technology, 12 important talent acquisition metrics you need to measure.

How to create a strategic hiring plan

1) assess your specific needs.

A strategic hiring plan begins with defining what you are looking for in a candidate. Speak with key stakeholders to define goals for the role and discuss expectations. Dig into how success will be measured, and ensure you thoroughly understand the responsibilities of the role. These are questions candidates will ask, and it is important to be able to answer them honestly. Talking to the candidate's future manager can be useful as well. Ask them what they value in an employee, what skills they'd like to see and dig into their management style—knowing these details will help you find a match that is suited to the role and fits in well with company culture .

2) Get the Job Description Right

When thinking through how to create a hiring plan, writing the right job description should be at the top of your list. The majority of hiring managers— 72 percent —say they provide clear job descriptions, but only 36 percent of candidates say the same. A job description should be informative, but it must also do more than simply list desired skills. It should get applicants excited about the role, explain what makes your company unique and describe key responsibilities. Speak to someone who has previously held the role to make sure you accurately describe the position. If you will be posting on external job boards, investigate how similar positions are being advertised. As you contemplate how to create a hiring plan, think of your job posting as a marketing tool—what can you include that will make the candidate you want apply for the position?

3) Identify the Right Places to Look

There are many places to source candidates: external job boards, social media, employee referral programs and career pages on your company's website. Depending on the type of person you are targeting, your hiring plan may include posting on all of these platforms, or just on a few of them. When creating a strategic hiring plan, add passive candidates to your list of options as well. According to a LinkedIn study, 90 percent of global professionals are open to hearing about a new job. Seek out passive candidates at industry conferences, networking events or on social sites like LinkedIn. You may also want to consider sharing the job posting with company board members, partners in your community or trusted business associates who may be willing to recommend a candidate or share the role with their respective networks.

4) Plan How You'll Conduct Interviews

Thoroughly preparing for the interview process from start to finish should be a key part of your hiring plan. During the initial screening process, plan to focus on the candidate's resume and online presence to assess how well they match the job description. During a phone screen, make sure skills align with your expectations. If any red flags come up, move on. Use in-person interviews to answer final questions and make sure the applicant is a cultural and behavioral match. Candidates may sometimes look perfect on paper, but simply not mesh well with current employees. If possible, plan to involve internal staff in interviews, especially if they will be working directly with the new hire. Set aside time to gather everyone's feedback on the candidate—a fresh perspective is always valuable, and existing employees may catch something you overlooked. And don't forget to think about the hiring process from a candidate's perspective. The smallest negative interaction could lead to rejecting a job offer. Make sure the interview process is well-organized, easy to navigate and professional.

5) Prepare to Close the Deal

Once you've found the perfect candidate, prepare to move fast with your offer. You don't want to compete with another offer or risk losing the candidate because they are tired of waiting for you to respond. After closing the deal, don't forget to use recruiting data to track your successes. By analyzing metrics such as where best hires come from, how long it takes to make a quality hire and how many candidates you need to interview to fill a position, you can reshape your next strategic hiring plan to invest effort in the places where it will pay off most. But remember, successfully making the right hire is just the tip of the iceberg. Prioritizing employee engagement, nurturing a strong relationship and ensuring job satisfaction are an equally important part of a strategic hiring plan. By dedicating the time, effort and research needed to make the right hire, you can avoid past mistakes, build a strong company culture and ultimately retain your best employees. Want an easy way to create a strategic hiring plan for your organization? Cornerstone's HR Suite is a flexible and cost-effective solution that allows you to identify future talent gaps, identify top performers using data, compare talent metrics against industry peers and more.

Related Resources

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Decoding artificial intelligence in Human Resources

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various industries, but the mystery deepens regarding its application in human resources (HR). Unlike other scenarios where the goals of AI are clear, AI in HR presents unique complexities due to its specific and ever-changing data. HR is one of the most challenging fields for AI implementation. From the nuances of natural language data to the subjective nature of HR concepts, navigating the intersection of AI and HR requires careful consideration. In this article, we will explore the intricate landscape of HR AI, address its challenges, and shed light on its groundbreaking features. it can bring to Human Resource Information Systems. (HRIS)

An adaptative HCM solution that works for everyone

Effectively managing your people means always having the right people with the right skills in the right positions as often as possible. This means supporting individual employees and managers as they complete tasks and actions related to your people and providing a foundation of planning and analysis for your organization. With the Cornerstone HCM platform, you can improve efficiency, engage your people and give your HR teams the tools to make HR a strategic part of your organization.

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How to write a business plan for recruitment in 2024 (template included)

• Published on June 3, 2020
• Updated on February 12, 2024

Writing a business plan in recruitment has always played a crucial part in the interview process for a number of recruitment agencies around the world.

A comprehensive business plan can demonstrate a recruiter’s commitment, knowledge and commercial acumen. During economic uncertainties in 2023, these qualities are more important than ever.

Arriving at an interview armed with a comprehensive business plan before you’re even asked will no doubt set yourself apart from other recruiters.

During economic uncertainties, managers will need to present a business case to leadership for budget approval in order to make a hire. Your business plan will be an important element of this business case. An impressive business plan could be the difference between landing an offer today, or falling into a pipeline of other candidates.

In this article, we share a step-by-step guide outlining how to create a comprehensive business plan. We walk through the key components and include examples.

At the end of the article, you can download a free recruitment business plan template which is tailored towards the key components mentioned in this article.

A business plan should be packed full of relevant information but should be compressed and to the point. Avoid verbiage, stay specific and keep to 4 – 6 pages.

Introduction

Start with a title. Include your name and the company you’re writing the business plan for. A little personalisation will go a long way.

Underneath your title, outline the objective of your business plan and again personalise it towards the agency you’re interviewing with. While you have the hiring manager’s attention, this paragraph is an opportunity for you to demonstrate how comprehensive your business plan is. The aim is to capture the hiring manager’s interest so they continue to read each component:

“The objective of this business plan is to outline the value I can add to employer’s name.

In this business plan, I have highlighted my specialism, hiring activity in my market, my candidate and client strategies, my methodology, how I plan to recruit through economic uncertainties in 2023, my competition and my personal revenue projections over 12 months.”

You can use this paragraph as a way to introduce your business plan verbally if you’ve called up a hiring manager. You can also use this extract in a cold email.

Your specialisation

This is a crucial positioning statement for your value-add. It sets out precisely where your network and experience lies and what you intend to bring to the table in your new role.

Your specialisation can be described clearly by outlining what roles you will specialise in, what industries you will target, what level of seniority you will focus on and what geographies you will cover.

For ease of reading, you can use each component as a title and use bullet points to expand upon your answers.

Taking a Technology recruiter as an example:

What roles I will specialise in:

• Product Management permanent roles
• UX/UI Design permanent roles

What industries I will target:

• Series A – C funded technology startups (high investment, high growth and high volume of roles)

What level of seniority I will focus on:

• Mid to senior (120 – 180k salary range for Product Managers, 140 – 200k salary range for Designers)

What geographies I will cover:

• Based in Singapore, the local market will be my core market
• Secondary markets include Jakarta, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur due to less competition from recruiters and high volume of roles

Hiring activity trends

The hiring activity trends section provides an opportunity for you to demonstrate and portray your knowledge of the market.

The 3 important components of this section are: hiring activity over the past 3 years, hiring activity for next year and how you predict hiring activity to shift beyond that.

Utilise your own knowledge of the market but back it up with research gained from reputable sources related to your market e.g. Tech in Asia, Tech Crunch, Channel News Asia, The Straits Times or The Financial Times.

You’ll want to cover how hiring activity has increased or decreased, what the drivers of growth are in your industry and what the threats and challenges are within your sector.

Candidate strategies

Moving on from market trends, this section indicates how you will acquire candidates for your desk. It offers an opportunity for you to demonstrate the experience you’ve learnt in candidate management from your previous firm, but also an opportunity for the employer to ensure that your approach aligns with theirs.

3 key components of this section include: how you will generate candidate leads, what challenges you expect to face and how you will overcome these challenges.

Taking a Front Office Banking & Financial Services recruiter as an example:

How do I plan to generate candidate leads:

• Direct headhunting using a LinkedIn Recruiter account, this costs approximately $X amount, the key benefits being access to a high volume of InMails and enhanced search capability. This has been the sourcing tool for 60% of my previous placements

Challenges I expect to face:

• In light of economic uncertainties in 2023, highly sought-after candidates may be risk-averse and may not see this as a good time to move jobs

How I will overcome these challenges:

• I will develop relationships with these candidates for the future but I will adjust my sourcing strategy accordingly by increasing volume of direct approaches

Client strategies

A similar section to candidate strategies but geared towards clients. Arguably more important than candidate strategies during a recession as the market could be job-short – even in the good times, strong business development capabilities in recruiters are harder to find.

This section includes 6 key components including how you plan to onboard new clients, how you plan to sustain relationships with clients for repeat business, what industries your clients are in, the challenges you expect to face and how you will overcome these challenges.

Take these bullet points as a basic example:

How I plan to onboard new clients:

• During a recession, I plan to cultivate relationships by helping and consulting clients on non-recruitment related issues, such as advising clients on the current state of the market
• I plan to generate leads by making 25 cold calls per day during the ramp-up period, to again offer support and advice where needed, and to leverage any open roles
• A soft approach of connecting with hiring managers, HR contact and C-Level candidates on LinkedIn, to establish working relationships and eventually convert into clients

How I plan to sustain relationships with current clients and win repeat roles:

• The most important way to sustain relationships is by offering a service that is superior to competitors. That is by being transparent, sticking to deadlines and delivering results
• Regularly catch up with clients on a monthly basis to see how they’re doing and see if you can generate new roles
• Keep yourself updated on company news and congratulate clients on milestones e.g. if they generate a Series C round of funding

What industries I will target clients in:

• Series A – B funded technology startups
• During a recession there is less of an appetite to use agencies due to an unprecedented volume of great candidates available in the market
• Offer free support to companies currently not using agencies, provide an impressive service and convert into paying client post-recovery

The 6th component is “examples of target clients” and this is where you can really demonstrate tangible market knowledge. Use company names, find the potential contact in each company and add your comments, such as the volume of roles you expect from that client. 5 examples should be enough to peak your hiring manager’s interest.

You can use a table to display this information with ease:

It goes without saying that you should never be tempted to use information that is proprietary to your previous employer. This information can be openly found with some basic LinkedIn research.

My methodology

Are you a recruiter that is focussed on crunching numbers? Are you a recruiter who is focussed on cultivating long-term relationships? In this section, you can include a few quick bullet points to explain how you approach recruitment. This information gives your hiring manager an indication about whether you hold similar values and whether you have similar working styles.

How you can adapt to recruiting during a possible economic downturn

This section is a new one in response to market conditions in 2023 but can demonstrate how you are prepared to deal with current and upcoming challenges.

You can use this section as the title and include bullet points to outline how you will adapt to these market conditions.

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My key competitors

Which recruiters and agencies offer the greatest competition? Demonstrating your knowledge in this area highlights that you are commercially aware outside of your core market.

Include about 5 different competitors who are directly competing in your patch. You can use the table below to display this information:

Personal revenue and target projections

In many business plans, financial projections are of utmost importance and can demonstrate your commercial acumen. If you’ve ever watched Dragon’s Den, you’ll know what happens when you don’t know your numbers!

Project your personal revenue for 4 quarters. You can start your calculations by predicting the average annual salary of a candidate in your patch. You can project your average percentage fee agreed with clients and from there you can calculate your average fee. Once you have this, you can predict the amount of placements you’ll be making per month.

Make sure your revenue projections are realistic and achievable. Avoid the temptation to predict vastly optimistic revenues, especially during a possible recession. You must allow time to ramp-up and there must be a logical relationship between your historical and predicted revenues.

The plan only includes project revenue. Your historical revenue should be on your CV.

Take the below as an example:

My predicted average annual salary of candidates:

My predicted average percentage fee agreed with the client:, my predicted average fee:, my predicted average placements per month, my projected revenue over 12 months.

Underneath, you can also include the KPIs you will set yourself to guide you in achieving these numbers. For example, you can set yourself a guideline for how many CVs you need to send, how many candidate meetings you need to arrange, how many client meetings you need to arrange and so on.

The template

We’ve constructed a free template built around the components mentioned above, so you can create your own for when you reach out to hiring managers.

To download this template, please add your email below and you’ll be redirected to the template.

By downloading our busines plan, you agree to our  Privacy Policy and Notification Settings .

This step-by-step guide should give your hiring manager a clear idea of your plan. If executed successfully, you’ve already demonstrated your commitment, knowledge and commercial acumen before even attending an interview.

The way you’ve structured your plan will give your hiring manager a very clear indication of your methodology and whether you’d fit their structure. Keep in mind that if your methodology is focused on high volume recruitment, it’s not going to work well with an executive recruitment agency.

As a next step, learn this plan inside and out. Be prepared to pitch your plan to your hiring manager and answer detailed questions surrounding each component.

Leave your interviewer with no room for concern and secure that role! Lastly, if you enjoyed the article, please consider subscribing or following us on LinkedIn to have new articles for recruiters like this delivered directly to your inbox.

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As Founder of Charterhouse Partnership, I led the opening of 5 international offices, hiring & training hundreds of recruiters. Please subscribe to our weekly newsletter where I share my insights on the recruitment industry.

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More From Forbes

20 simple ways to take your recruiting efforts to the next level.

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With candidates being more educated and experienced than ever, attracting top talent has become difficult in recent years. To set their organizations apart in a competitive hiring landscape, leaders must commit to elevating current recruitment efforts within their businesses.

From taking a critical look at your current candidate experience to leveraging social media to share open roles, even the smallest of changes can be effective in getting new eyes and increasing action on job postings. Below, 20 Forbes Business Council members share additional steps any business can take to take recruiting efforts to the next level.

1. Enhance The Candidate Experience

Focusing on the candidate experience is key. It's about creating a positive impression at every touchpoint by including structured interviews, a strong employer brand showcasing company culture, streamlined processes with modern recruiting platforms and transparent communication. Even with the best practices in place, always strive to elevate the candidate experience to draw in exceptional talent. - Johnny Hecker , Consensus Cloud Solutions

2. Optimize The Business's Online Presence And Branding

One simple yet highly effective step any business can take to elevate its recruiting efforts is to optimize its online presence and employer branding. By doing this, you create a compelling narrative about your company that can attract high-quality candidates who are a good fit for your organization. - Rodney Milbourne , RCNL, LLC.

3. Leverage Social Media

Utilizing social media has been our company's game-changing move when it comes to hiring top-tier talent. With culture and communication styles so prominent in social media content these days, displaying upcoming roles and new hires on social media has given us a plethora of options and candidates. Why pay for leads on Indeed when you can make the hiring process entirely in-bound thanks to social media platforms? - Willow Kai , Becca Luna Education

4. Invest In Company Culture

The physical and relational environment within any organization has the potential to attract, motivate and keep talent. Optimism, positivity, cleanliness and attention to space are attractive. Conversely, pessimism, negativity, disorder and working in a space that you don't want to invite others to see are all unappealing. - Hugh Breland , U & I

5. Create Compelling Job Descriptions

Craft compelling job descriptions outlining responsibilities, qualifications and benefits to attract top talent. Highlight the role's uniqueness and the company's ethos to engage candidates effectively. Providing comprehensive details aligns candidates with the company's vision, improving applicant quality. In essence, prioritizing well-crafted job descriptions is key to attracting the best talent. - Sahit Muja , Albanian Minerals

6. Prioritize Industry Experience And Skills

To improve recruiting efforts and attract top talent, it's important to prioritize candidates' industry experience and skills. Utilizing your current employees’ networks to recommend candidates who align with the company’s culture and goals can ensure a better fit within the company. - Ajamu Kambon , Deep Root Records

7. Have Employees Post Roles On LinkedIn

Have your most talented and industry-recognized team members actively post about available roles on LinkedIn. Employees and managers who actively solicit their networks will typically draw out similar, outstanding talent. You can even make it simple by providing the copy and images to go with their posts, meaning all they have to do is copy and paste to spread the word. - Marc Minor , Higharc

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?

8. Create Employee Referral Programs

Encouraging and incentivizing current employees to refer qualified candidates can enhance recruitment efforts. Referral programs can speed up the hiring process since referred candidates are pre-vetted by employees, reducing the time spent on screening and interviewing. Offering rewards for successful referrals can boost morale and make employees feel more involved in the company's growth. - Nevila Dudaj , Adriatik Tours LLC

9. Improve The Interview Process

The best approach is to improve the candidate interview process so they can become brand advocates. Regardless of the decision to employ a candidate or not, a positive interview will make them recommend others and provide referrals. This practice provides more positive feedback from the candidates, improving the company's reputation among the talent community. - Maneesh Sharma , LambdaTest

10. Adapt To Changing Standards

Different generations have varied priorities, so understanding these generational differences and tailoring policies to fit the demographic of your team is crucial. For example, IT professionals may find traditional industries less attractive, so adapting policies to meet their expectations can help. Ultimately, fostering an environment that aligns with your team's diverse needs builds loyalty and retention. - Karan Singh , ACG Associated Capsules Private Limited

11. Consider Working With Agencies

If financially possible, it is in your best interest to consider working with agencies that assist in finding the specific person your business needs. While the agencies may cost a bit upfront, their strategic effort to fill specific roles can save time and money in the long run. - Lourdes McAgy , Total Nutrition Technology

12. Showcase A Positive Work Environment

Show you believe and commit to a positive work culture. Consider an organizational ombuds who can help diffuse conflict and provide a positive informal resource for employees. These employees provide leaders with information on patterns and trends that can help them understand where the problems are and help mitigate lawsuits and PR nightmares. - Ellen Miller , International Ombuds Association

13. Leverage Role-Specific Tests

One key factor in improving the recruiting process for any company is the use of role-specific tests. These tests should be carefully prepared to assess candidates' skills and abilities. By assigning points to each answer and using a data-driven approach, managers can accurately score candidates. Many companies still rely on generic interview questions, which can lead to poor hiring decisions. - Yuri Kovalov , PFLB, Inc.

14. Focus On Making A Good First Impression

Businesses can define their culture and brand in a way that will attract the right employees. Any prospective applicant’s first stop is a company’s careers page where open positions are posted and a company can make a great first impression. Include information on what it’s like to work at your company, employee testimonials, company values and any other details that help you stand out. - Kelly Helfman , Informa Markets

15. Prioritize Employer Branding

One simple step any business can take to elevate its recruiting efforts is to prioritize employer branding. Employer branding refers to how a company is perceived as an employer, including its reputation, culture, values and employee experience. By strengthening the employer brand, businesses can attract better talent. Define and communicate values and create a positive candidate experience. - Mystique St. Hill , New Deal Logistics LLC/The St. Hill Foundation

16. Offer Various Ways To Access Wages

One tactic I highly recommend to separate yourself from competitors hiring from the same pool of candidates is to provide access to different ways of earning wages. For example, some companies give employees access to their wages at the end of their shift without any migration into payroll, and this service can be free to the employer and employees. If you put in your ad that you can pay daily rather than bi-weekly or monthly, you win. - Shawn Hull , Blue Coast Savings Consultants

17. Create A Culture Book

An effective but seldom-used tool that any business can leverage to increase the effectiveness of its recruiting efforts and attract better talent is to have a culture book. A culture book is a presentation that tells the story of the unique culture of the company through pictures and words, highlighting its personality, core values and unique offerings in the industry to its employees. - Tina Corner Stolz , LXCouncil

18. Foster A Culture Of Learning And Development

Many of our current employees joined us because we value constant learning. We foster a culture of learning and development and clearly state it on our site and in job postings. After salary, candidates care about their professional growth. Create clear career paths, offer an annual training budget to your workers and then communicate these initiatives during the recruiting process. - Christine Pilkington , Crisp Media Inc.

19. Invest In Family-Friendly Policies And Programs

Today's savvy workforce expects top-tier benefits and offerings. Invest in family-friendly policies and programs for mental well-being, paid parental leave, childcare and more to not only recruit but also retain existing talent. As an added bonus, you'll reduce rehiring expenses and boost internal company morale. - Dirk Doebler , Parento

20. Provide Opportunities To Make A Difference

In terms of attracting the best web3 talent, I would say that top developers and engineers are drawn to opportunities that give them the chance to work at the cutting edge and make a difference while showcasing their talent. This is actually true of most roles within blockchain since the field attracts people who want to challenge the status quo or otherwise use technology to institute change. - Deng Chao , HashKey Capital

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No matter what stage of your career you’re in, there’s a place in our teams where you can make a difference.

You can search our site for open positions that fit your interests and skill set by desired location, keyword, career area and company division.

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If you’re not selected to continue in the hiring process for a particular job opening, you’re encouraged to continue to search the Bank of America Careers site and apply for other positions that fit your skills and experience. Your candidate profile and resume will also be available to our Talent Acquisition team to be considered for alternative vacancies.

If you’re a former Bank of America employee or returning to the workforce, we offer resources like workshops and recruiting events to help with your transition.

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While candidate experiences vary, you can expect the interview process to include a mix of phone calls, in-person conversations and video interviews with HR team members, business managers and possible peers. You may also be asked to complete exercises and assessments to measure key aptitudes and values.

Over the course of the interview you’ll learn about Bank of America’s products, services, history and mission. We’re also excited to learn about your aspirations, character and values — and how they align with our own. We’ll be looking to discern how you would fit into our culture and help us deliver even better results for our clients.

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How to Write a Job Proposal (and Land the Role You Want)

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A job proposal is a detailed document, typically three to six pages, that outlines why you’re a good fit for a role. It’s different than a cover letter in that it’s typically not a part of a formal application process.

• A job proposal is something you write and share with the hiring manager, or another contact you’ve made at the organization, either to get your foot in the door or to secure a job after a round of interviews.
• You can also use this technique if you already work at a company and want to transition laterally, be promoted, or propose an entirely new role.
• Your proposal should include: Why you want the role and why you have the skills and experience to add value. It should also signal how deeply you have thought about the organization, its needs, and how to address them.
• It’s typically best to send it to a direct contact at the organization, either along with your thank-you notes after an interview, or to a recruiter or employee you’ve connected with via LinkedIn.