The Ultimate Guide to an Effortless Hiring Process in 6 Simple Steps

Increased productivity at work requires a well-functioning team. Hiring new qualified employees who fit perfectly into the team is a big challenge for many companies, because the hiring process takes a lot of time and resources. We'll show you how to streamline the hiring process to find the perfect new employees faster, more efficiently and more cost-effectively.

How Do We Define the Hiring Process?

Recruiting is used to find, evaluate and ultimately hire new colleagues to fill vacant positions or expand an existing team. To make the process as quick as possible, a well-structured checklist for hiring new employees is recommended. A well-thought-out structure not only helps your company find candidates faster, it also makes the candidate journey easier for applicants and improves employer branding.

There are usually multiple parties involved in this process, such as HR, management, team members, and the candidates themselves. Make sure that communication among all parties is flawless and actively involve applicants in the process.

Equally important is a hiring process that is agile because it must be customized for each position that needs to be filled. Hiring a marketing expert, for example, is different from hiring an IT specialist.

Before we explain how to hire employees, we want to point out a few common mistakes that unnecessarily complicate the hiring process. Recruiting is not only about finding new applicants, but also retaining them and avoiding bad hires. In light of this, we recommend avoiding the following mistakes:

1. Using Channels That Don't Appeal to Your Target Audience

There are a number of recruiting channels available to companies to find qualified personnel. Whether it be online channels such as job boards, career websites, social media or offline channels such as recruiting fairs, lectures at universities or employee referrals, each channel brings different advantages, and you should make the most of them as a company.

To find the recruiting channels that are most suitable, always keep an eye on the hit rate and analyze it. Do not waste your resources on channels that bring little success, and focus on those that your target audience uses most often, such as specialized job boards.

2. Job Posting is Poorly Formulated

In most cases, the first contact between the applicant and the company is through the job advertisement. This should be worded in such a way that candidates get an accurate idea of the company profile, the qualifications and experience required, as well as the benefits for applicants. If it is not clearly worded, applications often fail to materialize.

3. Communication Between Company and Candidate Takes Too Long.

Top talents are highly competitive in the job market, and if your company takes too long to respond to applications, they will look for another company. So make sure you have quick responses and smooth communication.

4. Poor Time Management

Both extremes, too much and too little time in the hiring process, lead to failure. If too much time goes by, the company runs the risk of the candidate looking for new opportunities and bailing. If too little time is spent, the risk of failure increases. So try to set a realistic timeline before starting the process.

Now that we have described the typical mistakes that should be avoided as much as possible, let's take a closer look at the hiring process and the onboarding process phases and explain which steps are necessary to hire suitable employees in a timely manner.

Your company should determine exactly how many positions need to be filled and who is best suited to fill them. Therefore, human resources managers should sit down with the respective department heads and create a detailed profile of the tasks, as well as the desired qualifications and experience. Department heads know best which candidates to look for and who will be a good fit for the team.

As previously mentioned, the timeline should be as realistic as possible and include a certain buffer in case something does not go as planned. During the hiring process, the following steps should be followed:

• Preparation (e.g., assessing needs, creating a profile and budget, selecting appropriate channels to reach your target audience)
• Recruitment (uploading job ad, active sourcing, screening applications, possibly holding short interviews)
• Decision (multi-stage interviews, assessment, signing the contract)
• Onboarding (setting up the workstation, creating an onboarding process checklist, training)

An application process that requires unnecessary registrations and filling out the same information multiple times discourages many candidates from introducing themselves to the company. Design your hiring process so that there are no annoying hurdles in the way of applicants. Likewise, make sure candidates can apply for the job from all kinds of devices.

Candidates put a lot of time into writing an application and want to receive a response as early as possible. Let candidates know what steps you need to go through to hire them and when they can expect a response. This is mainly important before the final interview so that the candidate doesn't drop out just before being hired. Candidates who are not invited for an interview within a few days should receive a rejection and can be added to the talent pool.

Many companies now rely on multi-stage interviews to get to know candidates better and assess their skills. For initial selection, it's best to conduct brief phone interviews to gauge applicants and their professional aptitude. After that, further interviews can be scheduled, on a face-to-face level, with the relevant HR staff and team leaders present as well.

The onboarding process starts as soon as the contract is signed and serves to retain the employee and to introduce the new colleagues well to the company and the company culture. Here, it is important to welcome the candidates and involve them in team activities at an early stage so that you get to know your future colleagues. It is also essential to get feedback from candidates on the hiring process so that it can be regularly updated and improved.

A well-planned recruitment process saves your company a lot of time and resources. For this reason, recruitment processes should be efficient, structured and agile in order to fill vacancies as quickly as possible. This not only makes it easier to hire new employees, but also strengthens employer branding, which then leads to more applications.

If your company is also looking for new talent, primarily in the field of IT and digital marketing, we at TieTalent will be happy to support you in this. With our service, you can find suitable personnel without unnecessary bureaucracy and waste of time.