Personnel recruitment and selection: the process, techniques, software
Recruiting tips |

Personnel recruitment and selection: the process, techniques, software

Are you a recruiter and have you wondered how the recruitment process works and how best to carry it out? In this article we try to clarify this question, talking about techniques, software to speed up time to hire, outsourcing and much more.

Whether we call it “recruiting/recruitment” or “personnel selection”, this is one of the most important – indeed crucial – activities within a company, be it an SME, a medium-sized enterprise or an enterprise. Being able to select employees who are in line with expectations, who know how to work in a team, who apply their skills and who are willing to continue learning at the same time, is anything but simple.

That is why recruitment, which is usually carried out by the Human Resources/HR department (although in smaller companies recruitment may be carried out by the administrative department or directly by the owner), is a very complex activity.

In fact, it requires an investment on the part of the company, not only of an economic nature (initiating a series of actions to match job supply and demand), but also of a legal nature (it is necessary to understand which contract to enter with the candidate) and of a psychological nature (to assess the candidate’s profile and how he/she can relate to the company). It goes without saying that hiring people who may leave after a few weeks or who do not guarantee adequate performance is a big waste not only of money but also of energy.

That is why the recruitment and selection process involves several steps, all equally important for hiring the person.

The recruitment process: how it works

The phases of the recruitment process can basically be reduced to 4:

  • attraction – trying to attract candidates
  • selection – in which the best candidate for the company is identified
  • onboarding – the candidate has been hired but needs to be fully integrated into the company
  • evaluation – assessing the performance of the selection process through the analysis of key metrics (KPIs), to understand what went well and what didn’t

The first phase: candidate attraction

Have you ever heard of the “law of attraction”? It says, more or less, that any event, whether positive or negative, is attracted directly to us.
And in a way it is not very different in this very first and, no less important, recruiting phase. However, contrary to popular belief, this is the beginning of a search and selection process, but it is the culminating phase of another internal company process.

In other words, when a division or a sector, as a result of work peaks or of people who will leave or have left the company for a defined period (maternity leave, leave of absence, dismissal, etc.), needs to find and select new employees or collaborators. The need may also arise from the fact that the company is expanding its sectors or has won a client or something else.

Talent acquisition, in turn, consists of various aspects: HR communicates internally that they are looking for staff – referrals from people already working in the company are always valuable -, publishes advertisements on various job portals and/or social media and implements employer branding strategies to create a positive perception of the company.
In this way, they ‘push’ candidates to send their CVs through a self-application in the ‘work with us’ section of the company website (career page). At the same time, or alternatively, recruiters can initiate social media recruiting activities in order to identify the most potentially suitable profiles.

The second phase: the actual selection of employees

OK, the first (many) CVs have arrived. How to select staff? Now begins a rather “dense” phase: CV screening, followed by telephone or e-mail contact and subsequent interview of candidates. But between the first and the second phase there is … the sea. Often we have to deal with CVs that contain little information or are sent by those who do not fit the profile, CVs that look so good that they seem ‘overblown’, CVs that are not very comprehensible or are more than 3 pages long! Consequently, this phase can be very time-consuming, but it can be speeded up by using ATS Recruiting Software (such as In-recruiting) which can identify the candidate profiles that are most in line with the position sought.

After the screening of the CVs another important step is the interviews or selection interviews where you understand who the person in front of you is, what his soft skills are and whether he is in line with the company culture.

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The first interview, usually an acquaintance one, will be preparatory to the one that will be done later with the area manager or with the owner or managing director, so it is important to identify already during the first interview who is in line with the sought-after profile in order to reduce the so-called “time to hire”.

The third phase: onboarding new employees

Once the assessment phase is over, there is another interview to organise: the hiring interview in which the candidate is offered an employment contract, job classification, salary level, possible benefits, the procedure for requesting leave and holidays, working hours, etc. This interview usually, but not necessarily, takes place in front of the HR manager, the entrepreneur or an executive manager and can often end with the so-called “promise to hire” in which, pending the signing of the actual contract, the company commits to hiring the candidate. A sort of preliminary agreement between the parties.
Once the contract has been signed, however, another delicate phase begins: the integration of the worker, a particularly critical moment especially in SMEs, which are often not very structured or family-run.

The first 6 months are crucial for employee retention: company and employee (or collaborator) study each other after getting to know each other and try to understand whether the initial premises and promises can be fundamental for the success of the relationship. That is why it is important to have a plan and to foresee step by step possible doubts, second thoughts, etc… In particular, it is necessary to monitor the situation if the incoming person is going to work in a difficult context, with excessive workloads or with a new client.

The fourth step: the metrics of the selection process

Having said that, it is important to concretely analyse the time to hire, to understand how many hours were spent and how much energy it required. Therefore, it is essential to map it and calculate the so-called ROI (Return on Investment).

How to do this? In this case, it helps a lot to use what is technically called the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which tracks all the phases, allows you to monitor the progress of the selections and also to not “miss” those candidates who seemed interesting even if others were chosen.

For example, with In-recruiting, it is possible to exploit advanced search algorithms to quickly identify candidates in line with one’s job advertisements. This is an important factor because it speeds up the time to hire.

Outsourcing: outsourcing personnel recruitment

Many companies prefer to outsource part or all of the recruitment process to recruitment companies. The advantages for the company? They can be varied:

  • Concentrate resources on personnel management instead of recruitment;
  • spending less time when the profile sought is not particularly high or is just starting out (internship, apprenticeship, etc.)
  • employing one’s own resources on high-level profiles

In addition to outsourcing, it is also possible to cosource, i.e. to be supported in order to manage the entire selection process together (in fact, this is known as RPO or Recruitment Process Outsourcing).

Recruitment: why rely on a headhunter

Some phases of the process of recruitment and selection of employees can be entrusted to a headhunter, literally a “headhunter”, who deals mainly with executive search, i.e. looking for high-level professionals who meet specific requirements.

The process starts with a scouting phase, which is a real “hunt” to find not only candidates more in line with the profile, but above all interested in changing job or company.

This will be tested by means of an interview, from which the head hunter will draw up a card with the strengths that the candidate has for the position, the distinctive traits and the motivation that drives him or her to change, which is fundamental for the company to present him or her with a proposal that meets his or her expectations.

In any case, it is crucial not to completely externalise the recruitment process for several reasons.

Among these, there is undoubtedly an economic reason: search and selection companies, as well as headhunters, have a considerable cost. Consequently, it is advisable to turn to them in cases where recruiters cannot find candidates in line with the means they have at their disposal in the company.

The other reason is that only the company can correctly convey its values and focus on employer branding, which, if strong, can greatly improve recruitment metrics and reduce time to hire.

Rather, it is better to consider a mixed approach in which a company’s recruiters, using ATS Recruiting software, can centralise all their internal recruitment processes and at the same time ask the recruitment and headhunting companies they work with to channel the candidates they identify into their centralised CV database, which in turn is created using their ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software.
This way the best of both approaches is achieved: processes are centralised and the costs of the search and selection company are limited.

How to choose the best recruitment companies

If you have been wondering which are the best recruitment companies, there is no one-size-fits-all answer (we will do a specific post in the future), but we can give you some advice on how to choose the best.
If you are looking for a specific position, you may want to choose a company that deals with certain profiles and therefore has in-depth knowledge about the role and the sector. We usually advise you to be wary of generalist companies, unless you have to hire very general profiles.
Some companies, for example, have Medical & Science divisions for the medical and scientific field or Industrial for the production and logistics field.
Clarify who you are looking for so that the company has the profile in mind and only apply to professionals.

Personnel search and selection techniques

What are the most effective recruitment techniques? Once the CVs have been received and the most interesting ones have been selected, based on the job analysis, it is important to define how the candidate should be assessed:

  • Individual interview: usually the most effective technique because it allows you to understand who you have in front of you, not only from what they say but also from their paraverbal and body language.
  • Practical tests: these are used to better understand the candidate’s knowledge in an immediate way, although obviously there is always the emotional part to consider.
  • Psychometric tests: i.e. administering tests to the candidate to understand his/her personality.
  • Assessment: many recruiters use them to understand how the person relates to others and how he/she behaves in situations where working in a team is crucial.

How to make the whole process run smoothly? Here are some tips.

Pay attention to the job analysis and job description

A request for new staff from a division of the company has arrived, but you know little about the sector or the role that the new person will be filling? Or have you already been given a ‘draft’ job advertisement, but want to understand more about it in order to draw up the job description?
You can do the following to outline the ideal profile:

  • Observe the type of job directly, perhaps by participating passively in a meeting of the team in which the resource will work.
  • Ask questions: ask people who already do the job what the job consists of, what the tasks are, what kind of commitment is required, what the critical aspects are, etc. You can also ask these questions by e-mail. You can also ask these questions by e-mail: the important thing is that you tell the people involved why you are doing this survey.
  • Try to understand what has gone wrong with the company’s recruitment process, perhaps by analysing KPIs and metrics using ATS software. Doing so will allow you to make data-driven decisions that will not only reduce time to hire, but also cost to hire.

Consider the candidate experience

Having said that, you should strongly consider the candidate experience and what is known as the “candidate journey“, i.e. the path of the candidate from the moment they join the company to the moment they are hired. This is a journey that, compared to the past, is no longer linear, but has become longer and more fragmented.

Therefore, before starting the selection process, identify your specific candidate (you may, for example, be looking for a figure with a hybrid qualification, but having a certain type of experience can be a plus).

After having done this and after having analysed the data in your possession thanks to an ATS, hypothesise all the steps that can bring a candidate to your company. Consequently, monitor all the points at which they will come into contact with the company (the so-called touch points) in order to understand how to offer them the best possible experience. This is done both during the self-application process via the ‘work with us’ section and in other so-called digital contexts (platforms where the ad is published, social media, etc.), but also in ‘physical’ contexts. Pay attention first of all to how you will be received within the company, so it is important to give the right instructions to those at the switchboard or reception desk. It is also important to create a comfortable waiting environment, with magazines, etc., and to make the candidate feel comfortable in every way (offering him/her coffee, water, etc.).

The choice of location for the interview or group tests should not be neglected. It is better that the recruiter avoids his/her office and reserves a room for the candidate and the interview that is quite impersonal, but with material that tells about the company. If it is not possible on that day, it is better to postpone the interview.
The room should also be quiet and possibly a place where you will not be interrupted.
This is because, regardless of the outcome of the interview, the idea a candidate has of the company is important.
It is also useful to have ATS software that can monitor the steps of the candidate throughout the process leading to the eventual employment, so that any bottlenecks can be identified and addressed.

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During the job interview

The moment of the job interview or interview is a very important step in the recruitment process. Here are some tips to optimise it.

Avoid starting the interview by reading the CV or other things you have printed out about the candidate. This is to avoid creating an immediate ‘I feel under scrutiny’ effect. It is better to start with a chat about who you are, what you do, why you are there and then go into detail.
Another important aspect in an interview is to try to understand what his future expectations are: letting him imagine a situation says a lot about his personality, his deepest motivations and how he handles events.
If there are questions that the candidate has not answered adequately, go back over the concepts, it is very important not to be left with grey areas that should be clarified later anyway.

Some advice also on the personal attitude that the recruiter should maintain: try not to get distracted while the candidate is telling his or her personal story and ask a few questions that denote interest, but also lead towards the conclusion of a certain speech.
Moreover, although the first impression is important, one should try not to be conditioned by clothing, first impression or even prejudice, based on what one has read on the CV or on social networks.

The recruiter must also consider the so-called biases (cognitive distortions) when coming into contact with the candidate. Biases that may concern, for example, the perception of an illusory correlation between candidate and recruiter, the fact of recognising similar aspects in each other, or the so-called “halo effect” whereby the positive opinion one has of a person in a certain field is extended to others, but without there being any concrete evidence of this. All biases that can affect the recruitment process and compromise the moment of the interview.

Search and selection software: Why to choose it

According to a Glassdoor survey, an advertisement published on one or more job boards results in at least 250 CVs being received by the company. Of these, only 4-6 will have the required characteristics and only one will potentially receive a job offer. If you think that it usually takes about 10-15 minutes to screen each CV, you will understand how this phase requires too much energy and too much wasted work.

This is why recruitment software, such as In-recruiting, plays an important, fundamental role.

They dispose of this phase quickly, select candidates and categorise them in the shortest possible time thanks to the data already present in the CV – city of residence, skills of the person, educational qualification, experience -, map the information and manage it according to each individual job advertisement.

This creates an organised CV database that is useful for the search in question, even at a later date.

Equally important for the software is the use of keywords, according to which the most suitable candidates are found, without excluding those who may be similar, even if they do not correspond 100% to the required profile.

Keywords are also important in the writing of the advertisement both for SEO purposes, i.e. to ensure that it is found on search engines, but also to ensure that the applicant is clear about the position sought. The ATS recruiting software also helps in writing a job advertisement that meets these criteria.

And last but not least, the software provides a response to those who have sent their CVs thanks to the automatic messaging functions to candidates, which is important in terms of both employer branding and candidate experience.

That’s all well and good, but would you rather try out a recruitment software? We invite you to test In-recruiting for 14 days free of charge.