“Whether your company produces cars or cosmetics, hiring great people for a business is always the most important task. After all, a company is only as good as the people it keeps, and as a Recruiting & HR professional, you have this responsibility on your shoulders.” – Praful, co-founder @ HireRabbit
As we know, ‘recruitment’ is about having a pool of potential candidates with the desired demographics, qualification and experience whereas ‘selection’ is a process of choosing the most suitable candidates from this pool through a combination of tools.
Many SMEs, having state-of-the-art technology, products and services, still could have an incompatible version of recruitment and selection process.
Here are a few important tools or themes to augment your recruitment and selection process while taking into account some emerging trends:
Augmenting recruitment
Brand-building (Attention-Desire-Interest-Action)
This marketing concept is too powerful to ignore. The better the brand perception, the higher the probability of prospects wanting to consider and join the company.
To better your brand perception, you as the HR manager, in consultation with your CMO/CEO, should design one-time/regular activities specific to the sources of candidates. Then, deliver them through appropriate channels, including social media and company website.
Selecting outsourcing partners
Conventionally, recruitment in most MSMEs is an outsourced process, either partially or fully. Your challenge is to select partners, who not only understand your business requirements, but also have capabilities (IT, qualified team and relevant experience) to match the speed and quality specifications. Further, you must evaluate all your partners to assess their worth and the value they bring to the table.
Admirer club
This is an in-thing in the HR space. It is about identifying, inviting and enrolling individuals – ex-employees, new prospects, spouses, recruitment consultants, placement coordinators of colleges, self-employed professionals, etc., – on a suitable platform and engaging with them with exciting information/activities. This can potentially turn into an influential source for obtaining resumes and building your brand.
Resume-screening software
You can either buy a software or develop it internally. The important task is to define the screening process (parameters and keywords) for specified positions and refine it on a periodic basis to align it with your dynamic business landscape.
Even if your recruitment process is outsourced, it is always valuable to re-screen resumes. A double-check always helps.
Virtual tour
Such a tour can help your potential applicants have a feel of what’s in store for them. It can be a part of your brand-building exercise (especially, on-campus pep talks) and the career section of your company’s website. This helps potential candidates to have a better perspective on your company and then make an informed choice.
Updated candidate databank
Turnaround time is a key parameter. This implies that you ought to have an updated databank of resumes available for anytime, anywhere access to the Heads of Departments (HoDs). Especially, for important positions (anywhere in the hierarchy), it is crucial to have at least three or four live resumes as backup.
This is possible only through a well-designed mini-process for exploring, obtaining, validating (against set parameters) and screening resumes from tagged sources on a continuous basis. The cost of this mini-process is worth its weight in gold!
Augmenting screening and selection
Psychometric tests
Psychometric testing is a scientific way of measuring an individual’s mental capabilities and behavioral dispositions.
These tests measure a candidate’s suitability for a job based on desired personality characteristics and cognitive abilities. Such tests lend more credence to the selection process and make it more objective. You can either outsource such tests or train yourself in administering and debriefing these tests. These tests are best suited for middle/senior management positions where consequences of a ‘wrong’ selection can be costly.
Training on interviewing skills
Most HR Managers and CXOs believe that HoDs ought to be good at interviewing by virtue of their experience. This is just not true.
HoDs of course can check the functional knowledge/skill of a candidate but that is not all. It’s equally important to check on soft skills – ability to work in a team, communication, etc., – and values of potential candidates.
Questioning/inquiring is an art and you must train your HoDs in this art to make sure that you have an effective and efficient selection process. Typically, large companies train their supervisors/managers on interviewing skills as a part of their career progression.
Case study
This most common method of management education is now a regular in corporate corridors. Here, it is important to pick an appropriate case that measures the skills, soft and hard, that the company is looking for in the candidates. This method could be an apt one for selecting junior and middle management positions. However, you and select HoDs should be skilled enough to administer and debrief the case study.
Gamification
Gamification works by encouraging prospects to engage in game-like, real-life behaviors and situations. You, with the help of your CEO/HoDs, can develop a virtual or physical version of the game that tests desired attributes. This could be a powerful tool for entry-level positions.
Aptitude test
Many companies, especially in the engineering industry, have been using this for a long period and it is a potent tool for MSMEs. You, with help from concerned HoDs, can develop and calibrate tests specific to your company’s business.
Such tests help in checking the foundational and functional knowledge of your candidates. It is an apt tool for shortlisting candidates for entry-level and junior management positions before the interview.
Job descriptions (JD)
This is definitely an ignored aspect of the selection process. Job descriptions help interviewers gain clarity about the position and when combined with training on interviewing skills, they’re better equipped to evaluate the candidates.
Conclusion
There is a tendency to dismiss deployment of such concepts and tools on the pretext of cost. Let’s acknowledge that errors in recruitment and selection process invariably have a direct impact on people-bandwidth, business performance and company culture.
Make sure that your recruitment and selection process is not just about filling numbers; make sure, it’s about aiding your business by making sure that you get ‘the right candidate at the right time at the right position at the right cost’!
