Recruitment can be a tedious process for a lot of companies. The different stages require specific action plans to improve the efficiency and impact of hiring.

We’ve listed practical, easy to implement actions that you can add to your hiring checklist. These simple, cost-effective actions will help you achieve significant results in your recruitment efforts.

Stage 1: Finding The Right Talent

• Improve your job descriptions. A good and exciting copy can attract great candidates than the dull and traditional ones. Your job ads should communicate the exciting aspects of the opportunity and how the applicant can make a difference with the position.
• Ask for referrals. Employee referrals have proven to yield the highest quality of employees. Train your current employees on how they can tap their existing professional networks to refer quality candidates for open positions. When they successfully refer a potential candidate, make sure you respond within 48 hours.
• Touch base with previous top candidates. There are candidates who are great but did not end up getting the job. Reach out to them and ask whether they would be interested in your current vacancies.
• Recruit using social media. Traditional recruitment methods like newspaper ads and job boards often produce low-quality candidates at a very high cost. Social recruitment is cheaper and more efficient because you can find and recruit great talent with just a few clicks.
• Make creative recruitment videos. Encourage your employees to give short testimonials on why they love working in your company. Make it into a creative and fun video, and ask your team to share it on their social networks.

Stage 2: Talent Screening

• Present real work problems. During interviews, ask the candidates to solve real problems that you are currently facing in the company. This is better than giving them theoretical situations or puzzles because then you will know right away if they have the skills to actually fix your challenges.
• Be flexible with interviews. Some great candidates are currently employed and would have difficulty coming in for interviews. Try to accommodate their schedule and opt for other ways to interview them, like via Skype or phone call. You may also dedicate one night a week for interviewing candidates who may not have time during the day.

Stage 3: On-boarding Talent

• Find out their acceptance criteria. Before making an offer, ask the candidate what factors would make them accept a new job. Also, inquire about the deal-breaking factors that would make them drop out of the recruitment process or not accept an offer. Use this as reference,  when you draft their employment contract and highlight the great things you can offer them.
• Expedite on-boarding. Do your reference checks early and process the paperwork, the moment the candidate signs the dotted line. Make sure you’re ready to welcome the new employee in 2-4 weeks’ time.
• Assign a mentor. When you have a new employee, it’s a good idea to assign someone who can show them the ropes. It can be their supervisor or a colleague from the same department. The point is to make transitioning into a new job as easy as possible for the candidate so that they can be more efficient and make less mistakes.

Streamlining Recruitment

You don’t need sophisticated HR solutions to find and recruit great candidates. The competition for top quality talents may be steep, but having a streamlined recruitment process allows you to get to the best candidates faster than other companies.

Do you have other recruitment tips to add to this checklist? Share them in the comments section below.