How to Hire Employees? Best Step by Step Guide

Recruitment or hire an employee for business or company is the crucial step towards creating an impeccable team for your organization. Especially for small business operations that do not have any significant experience in hiring, the process to hire employees can be quite daunting. A wrong hire can cost heavy to the organization and impact productivity, spread negativity within the team and hence impact the overall brand reputation. Hence the whole process throughout the recruitment and hiring new employees must be well designed to facilitate hiring good resources.

Here are the steps to help you process the hiring more systematically.

• Identify the hiring requirement.
• Clear Outline of the position’s job responsibilities.
• Write a well-Designed Job Description.
• Sourcing or Searching Resumes.
• Pre-Interview Assessments.
• Conduct the interviews.
• Selecting and Shortlisting the Right Candidate.
• Background Checks and documentation validations.
• Make an offer.
• Robust Onboarding Plan.

Let us understand these steps in detail.

1. Identify the hiring requirement

The foremost step to hire employees is to identify the specific requirement and know-how resource fulfilment will optimally support the required business function. Every new employee is a cost to the company and it is essential to understand how he/she has to be positioned in optimizing product deliveries. Right identification will help you to avoid unnecessary hiring and keeping the bottom line in checks.

Consistent coordination with the business heads of your organization will help to know the progression of different products and the necessity to add resources to achieve deliverables.

2. Clear Outline of the position’s job responsibilities

Once you have identified the specific need of a resource, outline the key skills that the prospective employee should have to perform his role successfully in the organization.

For example: if you are hiring for a software engineer, identify the technological skill like Java, Python, HTML, MYSQL, etc. that you are looking for in the candidate.

A clear idea about the exact skill set requirement will help you begin the recruitment process and source candidates appropriately.

3. Write a well-Designed Job Description

Once you are clear with the requirements, the next step is to create a job description based on the outlined skill sets and responsibilities. A well-crafted job description is the first to connect with the prospective employees and is the first impression of your company to the candidate. Effective job descriptions should be clear and engaging to create interest in candidates to apply. Considering the age of social media, the job description should be concise and resonate with the mobile and social media engaged job seekers. You can refer to HR Templates for various job description template.

A good Job Description should be built basis the following key insights:

• Avoid the use of jargon or confusing language. Create a clear and professional job title that should indicate the role you are hiring for. A confusing and misleading job title can result in unmatching candidates applying for the role. Use optimum keywords in your job title and description to ensure visibility.
• Describe the job responsibilities clearly by breaking them into small duties and the skill requirement around the same to avoid any vagueness. E.g. if hiring for a digital marketing professional, instead of writing “you will be responsible for digital marketing department” write the clear job responsibilities under this.
• Brand your company and sell the job through a crafted Job Description. Mention about the perks and benefits at your company to build a compelling and exciting Job Opening. A well-designed Job Description should act as a glimpse of your company’s culture. E.g. paid vacation annually, work-life balance is a few highlighters to reflect a positive branding about your company.

4. Sourcing or Searching Resumes

Resume sourcing is a crucial stage of the whole recruitment process. Once the job description is readily highlighting the key requisites, identify the various methods or platforms that can provide you with your requirements. There are plethora job boards like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Google for Jobs etc that can be used for sourcing the candidates as per the matching skill set.

Also, understand that it is not just the key skill matching that would suffice to shortlist a candidate. It is also important to know if his temperament matches or suits the work environment. A candidate may be good skill-wise but might not fit into the culture of your organization. when sourcing distinguishes candidates on various parameters apart from skills like prior work experience, stability, cost, and other soft skills.

A key innovation supporting the screening of candidates is the software-enabled Applicant Tracking Systems used by small to large corporations in filtering and sourcing resumes.

What is the Applicant Tracking System?

Top employers are on a consistent hiring requirement and need to source on multiple positions at the same point in time. The whole task can be quite tedious and lengthy in the absence of structured support in filtering resumes.

Applicant Tracking Systems is a software-based system that facilitates filtering, ordering and organizing resumes as per your hiring needs. When you apply online for a job, It does not reach the recruiter directly and gets mapped as per the ATS algorithms to define suitability with the mentioned skill sets.

There are various Applicant Tracking Systems available around with their specific built-in features, benefits, and weaknesses. When you apply through any company website or even through job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed, your resume gets processed through ATS.

It stores resume in a large database that the recruiter can access to view either individual applicant or select few. Some applicant tracking systems are equipped with matching resumes against the job description and hence support further filtering. A common way that recruiter searches are through a combination of the job title and skillsets as per requirements.

For example: if there are 200 resumes or applications for the profile of MIS executive, ATS will filter out the one that best matches your skill needs like MS Excel, tally, etc.

Automation in HR is the buzzword today and the process of hiring employees is not eluded from the same. As the fight for tapping the best talent is getting fierce, close matching of the skill set and candidate’s experience has taken a priority. ATS is equally evolving to meet business needs and with artificial intelligence in HR is becoming the new key of revolutionizing the world, the process is only getting better and technical.

5. Pre-Interview Assessments

Many companies forgot this stage but this plays an important role in filtering and screening the right match for your job requirements from the pool of candidates. Pre assessments can be in the form of Psychometric tests, aptitude tests, personality tests, technical tests, etc. that assist in filtering the most suited candidates to move ahead for the further rounds of interview.

There are innumerable samples of such tests available online for reference. You can create and customize these tests suiting your business environment and needs.

6. Conduct the interviews

The interview stage for hiring employees is the most important as it is an opportunity to meet and know the prospective candidate who might just be selected and join your company hence fuelling the growth trajectory.

The candidate is also experiencing the culture of his prospective employer for the first time. So it is important to make the candidate feel comfortable and welcomed in the organization.

A casual and uninterested approach in handling a candidate can lead to a negative image of your company.

Build a rapport right from the beginning with the candidate by initiating a light conversation to move the flow of the interview. Have your questions ready in advance to evaluate the match with the profile you are looking for.

Ask questions that can provide the candidate with the opportunity to support with examples. This will highlight how well the candidate responds in particular business case scenarios.

There should usually be multiple rounds like technical and HR specific interviews to evaluate the candidate on different parameters of suitability with the organization’s culture.

7. Selecting and Shortlisting the Right Candidate

The next stage is to filter and narrow down to shortlisting the candidate based on the skills and evaluations during interviews. While selecting the candidate, think about all the stages of interviews and evaluate their responses accordingly. Shortlist the one who not only matches your requirement for the job but also is a cultural fit.

8. Background Checks and documentation validations

Validating employment information and performing background checks is extremely important in hiring employees to avoid bad decisions. A comprehensive background check can ensure all information about the candidate’s professional background holds correct as provided.

There are multiple agencies involved in conducting third party background verification to save internal HR time and help in a holistic verification of the prospective candidate to the company.

9. Make an offer

Once the background verifications are over, you are all set to make a well- suited offer to the candidate. You can go creative in drafting a compensation offer that involves rewarding employees through various incentives and includes a well-distributed component structure.

This will help to attract and retain the top talent and ensure your costs are well managed.

There various components that can be included are performance bonuses, profit sharing, flexible work hours, discount coupons or gym memberships, etc.

Along with the job offer also discuss if any particular work accommodation e.g. disability, caregiving responsibility, etc. is required for the candidate and its provision in your company as per legal jurisdiction. The documented offer letter should include the following:

• Compensation structure
• probationary period tenure
• leave provisions
• official working hours
• the job title and a detailed job role
• the type of employment ( part- or full-time, contract or permanent)
• reporting head and location
• performance review process
• any specific dress code requirements
• the start date of employment and, if the contract is for a fixed term, the end date
• the terms and process for terminating employment
• Any requirement for signing non-disclosure, non-compete, confidentiality or other agreements
• A clause stating that the offer is conditioned on successful completion of background check
• The date by which the applicant must respond and share the signed copy with the company.

Also to ensure that you are well aware of the government rules and regulations about leaves, holidays, wages, etc. and are following the compliances around it.

10. Robust Onboarding Plan

A well-designed onboarding is the first impression of the new joiner in your company. Make it Count!!

An effective onboarding plan ensures that your candidate gets well settled in the organization and adjust to your business requirements accordingly. Prepare an effective onboarding agenda that may comprise of designating a Buddy to the new joiner for a smooth induction, office tours, and department introduction to welcome the new employee.

Set aside meeting time with the Human Resource department to complete the documentation and understanding of primary office processes. You can also conduct a post week joining review to assure if the new joiner is well settled in his new role and organization’s culture. The first week is the window to the new goals that you will set for the new employee and determines how well the new joiner is adapting to his new professional journey with the company.

Final Thought

Hiring is an entire process and effective art to be built in the organization’s culture. Bad hiring is problematic for your company and costs as much as 30% of your employee’s annual salary. With the evolving corporate culture, innovative hiring methods to attract the top talent has become the key differentiator for a particular brand.

Effective hiring strategies involve not only the listed stages but a periphery of actions around creating a positive perception about the company. Maintaining proper social media branding comprising of regular updates on your company and showcasing its culture can benefit organically in the entire process of hiring and rather eases your tasks in selling your brand to the candidate. With the cut-throat competition even in the job market, much depends on how well designed are your processing in tapping the right resource.

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