Steps of The Hiring Process: Full Guide

Whenever you choose a different hiring strategy for your company - the main goal is to find a perfect matching candidate. Step by step, you might guide the potential employee for a position in your hiring process, so let's take a look at the fundamental steps in hiring process!

Step-by-step process to hire employees

The steps of the hiring process should be precise and methodical. But first and foremost, you should determine the roles for hiring. It could be a request from the department manager, a plan for company growth, staff extension, etc.

The process of hiring employees is often undervalued. Once your company determines the need for professionals, it’s time to choose a recruiting strategy and start the hiring process.

Your recruiting strategy starts with research. How and whom business from your category is hiring may give you a point of reference for a position's salary, responsibilities, and skill set. Looking at the information from other companies would help them choose the same recruiting strategy or go another way.

Write the job description

A job description is a big part of successful hiring. This is one of the main steps of the hiring process. It should have a clear and complete list of the requirements, such as skills, experience, and knowledge set. The job description should also include salary, benefits, and career opportunities. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information about the position from the hiring manager or the team - the more precise the job description is, the better the job hiring process is. For an example of a well-crafted job description, take a look at our article on the Customer Service Coordinator Job Description.

Post your job opening

This step of recruitment process actually starts your search for the best-fit candidate! A lot of companies start posting on their company website. As a bonus, corporate social media can be an additional channel to engage more target candidates interested in your company and improve the employer’s brand of your company. 

Should mention that it is a chance to close a job internally - notify your employees about the new position. A lot of companies practice referral bonuses for recommendations from coworkers.

Find more insights in our blog post - Recruitment Marketing: All You Should Know!

Also, there are a lot of free and paid job boards to widen your search. Many of them have information about their candidate's profile, including skills, business area, etc. You may also research which job board vacancies like yours are posted or advise the customer support manager on a selected job site.

Don't forget about LinkedIn powerful tool for job posting - well known social platform with a massive base of candidates. This can be a quite handy tool in your job hiring process.

Active search: Recruiting

Contacting candidates via LinkedIn and other channels can engage the potential perfect candidates who are not looking for a new job at the current moment.

Review the candidates

Once you have a pool of candidates for a job, it comes time for the next step in the hiring process - reviewing CVs and profiles and choosing ones for the interview. 

Look how many points from your job need to meet with candidates' CVs and decide which you would like to meet closer.

Interview the most qualified candidates

The number of interviews depends on the job needs, but the first step of recruitment process when we speak about them is screening, also known as a short interview. 

Usually, it is about candidates' experience and soft skills and giving them an intro to the vacancy and information about the company. If you have trouble with interviewing, feel free to use the free template of questions for a job interview script.

Afterward comes the next step of recruitment process - an interview with the hiring manager (technical or managerial). Additionally, a final interview with senior management may take place. The recruiter’s task is to keep candidates motivated during all these stages and support them permanently.

Follow up with the interviewees

Following up with the interviewees is one of the underrated steps in hiring. It is not just a rejection or desire to continue hiring. It is about giving detailed feedback to the candidates.

A proper follow-up letter should include thanks for the time for the interview and feedback about processing or rejection and, in final, show a hope to stay in touch for other possible vacancies in the future.

Conduct a background check

To ensure hiring some candidates, companies should turn to a background check. The simple and trusted method is to refer to the candidate's social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Also, it is essential to mention the practice of verifying employment history and criminal checks. Such steps in hiring will help you to prevent an unpleasant surprise when hiring the selected employee.

Deliver a hiring decision 

Choosing may take time, but remember, others may hire suitable candidates while you are making a decision. Sure thing, this point is an important one and should be discussed with hiring managers. It would be best if you also had a candidates in reserve if another one declined an offer. 

Extend the job offer

Well, all steps in hiring process are taken, and it’s time for the most official part.

The job offer should be written clearly and include all necessary terms and conditions of employment. 

Here are some points:

• position
• salary
• expected start date
• working policy such as remote and overtime 
• vacation and sick leave 
• bonuses 
• and more on your company choice.

Need to mention that a job offer should have a chance to be discussed, and you need to be ready for the negotiation on salary and employee benefits. 

It’s hiring time!

The job offer was accepted - well done! This means that all steps in hiring process are completed and it’s time for paperwork with the company layer and preparing for the onboarding of the newcomer.

The well-planned employer hiring process is a massive part of the company's success. It won’t be perfect for every recruiting situation but it can be a bit flexible. Always keep an eye out if your hiring strategy is clear for all managers and improve it once it is needed.

Conclusion

Process of hiring employees is responsible and time-consuming. 

All the before-mentioned steps of the hiring process will definitely improve your recruitment experience. However, there are some tools that can accelerate the process. Pay attention to the Axterior recruitment platform. Axterior automates the hiring process by providing easy-to-use dashboards with all active and closed vacancies, candidates profiles, talent pools, and ready-to-use follow-ups. 

You don’t need to keep talent pools in bulky Excel tables, communicate with job applicants via dozens of messengers, or spend extra time filling candidates’ profiles - Axterior does everything for you. Try it for free now!