Selection Process: Importance of a strong recruitment strategy

A robust selection process is crucial for identifying talent, boosting performance, and ensuring a positive candidate experience. This article delves into best practices for developing an effective selection process to secure top candidates.

By Douglas Wade, Attorney

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Table of Contents

1. Why is it important to have a good selection process?

2. The seven steps of the selection process

3. Metrics applied throughout the selection process

4. One last thing

Why is it important to have a good selection process?

Effective performance management is built on a strong selection process. Having a good selection process is essential for identifying talent. This article will examine the selection process in more detail and provide best practices for creating a process that will assist you in finding the best candidates and provide a positive candidate experience.

Finding and employing the finest applicants for available positions is the aim of an organization’s recruiting and selection process. There is a funnel structure to the selection process. Let’s say you need to fill a position with a new hire because your present employee has chosen to go after another opportunity. You must locate a replacement. You have 50 applications for one position. After interviewing five of them, you ultimately extend a job offer to one of them.

There is always a job opportunity before the candidate selection process begins at your company. Every job opportunity should have a well-defined function profile. This should specify requirements such as the number of years of work experience (if any), educational background, and skill expertise, all based on the job description.

The moment you post and publicize your job opportunity, hopefully, applications come in! The selection process funnel begins at this point. In HRM, candidates go through a series of procedures to be selected. Typically, a funnel has seven phases. Naturally, not every applicant advances to the next level. Let’s review each of these phases individually.

The seven steps of the selection process

Application

Once created, a job ad is prepared for posting and thoroughly reviewed for faults. Candidates can now apply, yet there is a wide range in the quantity, caliber, and diversity of individuals who do so.

Certain factors, like the Covid-19 pandemic, are social factors outside your HR control. The number of applicants may be less than before the pandemic, depending on the infection rates in your area and the laws governing immigration, health care, and employment that the government has implemented. Your HR department’s field of work will also be impacted.

Your HR department’s task will be more difficult if you’re attempting to hire nurses for a public hospital during a severe burnout than if you’re a video game firm looking for remote-work graduate developers.

Thousands of people may apply, depending mainly on the organization’s size, the nature of the position, the sector, and the effectiveness of your employer’s branding and sourcing tactics. Internal elements also greatly influence the number of applications. These include wage rates, career advancement possibilities, and benefits like health insurance. For instance, Google gets over 3 million applications annually. This indicates that for every job opening, over 400 persons apply on average.

However, the quality and quantity of applications also depend on your job posting. The people you attract are directly impacted by the quality of your job advertisement, specifically by how inclusive, interesting, and educational it is. Gender-neutral wording should be included in all job advertisements, and you should consider whether or not applicants must have a college degree.

The Spectator, a popular weekly magazine in Britain, is one example. The publication doesn’t demand a university degree for editorial posts and has a no-CV policy. Consider establishing a “blind review” policy if your employer does require a CV; all personal information, including name, age, gender, and sexual orientation, is eliminated. This is an attempt to combat implicit bias.

How is the actual application process going? Is it fast, and is it mobile-friendly? Conversely, do you insist that applicants manually enter all the data from their resumes into your system? To find out where your candidates might have trouble, test your application process yourself as often as possible. In this manner, you can guarantee that it is seamless.

Tools and Channels

It matters where you advertise and submit your job adverts. It is insufficient just to put it on your business’s website. Practical web design aspects like requiring candidates to create an account on your career website and not adapting the site for mobile devices could make it more difficult for HR to choose candidates successfully. The top websites used by job seekers are as follows:

Jobs posted on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn and online job boards like Indeed.
Websites for businesses. Many people will visit your website directly if you work in human resources for a large organization like the NHS in Britain or Walmart in the US. This isn’t as true if you oversee human resources for a modest family law practice.
Job seekers can register with one or more recruitment firms or look for sites tailored to a certain field.
College and university career offices. Think of hosting recruitment and promotion events at regional, national, or worldwide universities. Such events are frequently held by the British Civil Service and armed services, which tour campuses with more diverse populations in terms of social and ethical backgrounds to promote diversity.
Word-of-mouth. Many people will ask their friends and relatives for recommendations on job openings and tips on where to apply.

Using data and AI machine learning, Textio helps businesses optimize their job advertisements. The tool ensures that the job advertisement accurately conveys your company’s culture, values, and what your HR department is looking for in a candidate.

Siemens’ SVP and Head of the Global Talent Acquisition Ecosystem, Michaela Schütt, claims that Textio has improved their attempts to acquire talent. During the Rethink HR Tech 2022 event, Schütt shared that the company received 23% more eligible applicants and 11 days faster hiring times from job advertising with high Textio scores. This indicates that the ads follow inclusive language criteria.

Why is inclusion important? You must take proactive measures to promote inclusivity if you want to see growth in your staff’s diversity. Diversity is important for optimum success and profit, not merely from an idealistic or moral standpoint. According to a McKinsey & Company analysis, businesses with a diverse workforce had a 36% higher chance of outperforming rivals.

Pre-selection and screening

The preliminary screening of candidates is the second step in the recruiting and selection process. This second step aims to reduce the vast candidate pool to a manageable group of three to ten individuals who can be interviewed. This can occur in several ways.

Resume evaluation

The most widely used method is CV or resume screening. The process of screening resumes aids in determining whether applicants meet the requirements of the position. You can quickly rule out someone who applied if you demand five or more years of job experience, and you notice that they are a college graduate.

Examining resumes might take a lot of time if you work in a major company’s human resources department. Managing this difficulty effectively and economically can be achieved by using software. Options include resume screeners that employ artificial intelligence to estimate the quality of hire and resume screening tools integrated into applicant tracking systems. However, be cautious not to abuse this kind of technology. Make sure that it is routinely examined for bias.

Chatbots and phone screening

Usually, a phone (or video) screening follows the resume screening. This facilitates the candidate and employer’s expectations of being in line. After the resumes are reviewed, the recruiter can ask any questions the prospects may have. The recruiter may review a checklist containing possible deal-breakers such as starting date, flexible work schedule, compensation expectations, and full- or part-time hours. It is also possible to have a chatbot ask these questions, as it is a common routine.

As indicated, technology today allows us to perform these checks automatically. Chatbots interview candidates and add an interactive component to the hiring process. One illustration would be a sizable engineering firm introducing a chatbot to streamline the hiring procedure and maintain applicant interest. The statistics demonstrated that completion rates increased from 74% to 96% following the implementation of the chatbot.

Assessments conducted before hiring or selecting

One effective screening technique that aids in eliminating possible mismatches is pre-selection. Assessments that can involve a job simulation, cognitive testing, or additional tests that help anticipate the quality of the new hiring are provided by dedicated pre-selection tools. These techniques occasionally involve resume screening. A job simulation gives a realistic job preview. This produces an authentic insight by highlighting a profession’s most fascinating and enjoyable parts and its more difficult components. This results in hiring who are a better fit by helping the employer and employee’s expectations align. Pre-selection tools provide an additional facet of AI technology’s growing influence in recruitment.

Pre-selection exams like these are often used for high-volume hiring (positions that receive a lot of applications). An illustration of one of these tests would be evaluating a sales representative’s customer service abilities. These screening systems preserve the most qualified applicants by removing the glaring inconsistencies. Again, pick your vendor carefully because not all pre-selection methods and screens are perfect.

Interview

The job interview is the most well-known and conspicuous step in the applicant selection process funnel. In a job interview, the candidate is evaluated for fit by either the recruiter, their direct manager, or both.

An individual’s friendliness and linguistic fluency can be inferred from the interview. It offers the chance to pitch the job to the applicant and gives you the chance to ask them questions about the position.

Interviews can take place in person or electronically over the Internet. To complete the assessment process, many organizations now conduct a first round of remote interviews and a final in-person interview. Reduced expenses and improved time management benefit both the organization and the candidates. Many organizations have been forced to conduct all interviews remotely due to COVID and shelter-in-place directives, and this trend is expected to continue well into the future.

Interview formats

Unstructured and structured interviews are the two primary forms of interviews. Standardized interview questions are employed in organized interviews, giving the interviewer a standardized way to consistently record data and rate the applicant’s qualifications.

Peer or panel interviews are among the alternative interview formats for candidates. These interviews aim to learn more about a candidate’s demeanor, mannerisms, and approachability with coworkers or other individuals they will be working with daily.

The structured interview has been demonstrated in scientific literature to be nearly twice as dependable as the informal interview (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). The interviewer can precisely compare applicants thanks to the standardized format, and they can base their selection entirely on data.

Assessing interviews

In addition to using standardized questions, the STAR method is frequently employed in interviews. This approach provides an organized means of obtaining data from the applicant:

Circumstances: Ask the candidate to explain the circumstances that led to the scenario.
Assignment: What objective did the applicant set out to accomplish?
Performance: Ask the candidate to thoroughly explain the steps they followed to finish the work and make the most of the circumstances.
Outcome: Ask the candidate to explain how the action turned out and what they learned.

The STAR approach evaluates a candidate’s experience in various work-related scenarios. If a candidate is required to have expertise managing various shareholders, a good question would be: Describe an instance where you were required to manage various shareholders. The candidate’s experience in these circumstances can be readily tested using the STAR technique.

It is strongly advised to use this approach to test for the essential work competencies. You can quickly assess different applicants’ expertise in these critical abilities from their prior positions by asking them the same question.

Using interview guides is regarded as best practice since it improves the fairness and consistency of the hiring and selection procedures.

Evaluation

In the second step of the selection process, assessments were briefly covered. The whole evaluation is typically more accurate when pre-selection, or screening, is used to roughly clear out the least qualified candidates.

A Five-Factor Model of Personality test and a General Mental Ability (GMA) exam, sometimes referred to as an IQ test, are common evaluations. Faster learning and greater peak performance are linked to higher IQs. Accordingly, applicants with high IQs will likely do better and have a shorter Time to Optimal Productivity. Although these tests can be used as part of your pre-selection process, many companies prefer to use them later in employment.

Candidates with more conscientious personalities do better at their jobs. Candidates with high conscientiousness scores are frequently characterized as diligent, loyal, goal-oriented, and detail-oriented. According to research, this is the best noncognitive predictor of work performance.

Tests of honesty, job knowledge, and work samples are examples of additional evaluations. Work sample exams, as one type of evaluation, are among the most effective ways to predict job performance, according to scientific literature. It’s best practice to have interviewees do a case study or work through a real-world issue. The caliber of a candidate’s work can be contrasted with that of the other applicants and the ideal or expected performance.

Not every job has a task-style simulation built into it. However, not every position or candidate benefits from this strategy. For example, if you’re hiring somebody for a mid-career position, their resume and references will offer a wealth of information. In their field, the candidate has already made significant progress and perhaps attained a certain level of proficiency. Recent grads with little to no professional or personal experience are the best candidates for complete assessments.

Background research and references

You have now whittled down the enormous list of applicants to a shortlist of one to three names. Verifying references is a crucial phase in the candidate selection procedure.

You can verify the veracity of a candidate’s statements and your perceptions of them by doing reference checks on them. Request references from the candidate and follow up with them. The reference check is a great approach to getting additional information from a different angle if you are unsure about a certain skill or talent during the interview.

Background checks are frequently performed for government agencies and other positions that require access to extremely private data, such as those in the medical field. For example, the US does more reference checks than most European countries.

The background check may be required before the application and used in the pre-selection process. A criminal background check or an affirmation of good behavior are two requirements for teaching jobs and other occupations involving a great deal of responsibility for others. These checks aid in removing those who have violated or may violate their duty of care to those who are vulnerable. However, you should wait until the end of the selection process to perform background checks unless necessary.

Employers in the US usually contract with private businesses to perform background checks. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) govern background checks conducted during recruiting. Choosing a provider who complies with FCRA regulations is necessary for them to perform background checks on your behalf.

Selection

The next stage in the hiring and selection process is making the decision to select the applicant who has the most potential for the company. This may occasionally entail choosing a candidate who is currently less competent but who is dedicated to developing and staying with the company longer.

You should base your employment decisions on statistics to provide the fairest selection process possible. This refers to predetermined standards that each applicant is evaluated against throughout the selection procedure. After that, the top applicant is selected and made an offer. The recruiting manager typically has the last say. It might also include suggestions from coworkers and other managers.

Contract and job offer

Your company’s choosing process doesn’t end after a decision is made. The offer still needs to be accepted by the (perfect) candidate!

By now, the organization should possess all the information necessary to increase the candidate’s likelihood of saying yes. Hopefully, the different screenings (if any) and employment interviews will provide you with this information.

The candidate is then presented with the offer. You draft a contract and have both parties sign it if they accept the offer. The hiring procedure isn’t finished until every party signs the employment contract.

Metrics applied throughout the selection process

You must monitor multiple significant metrics related to the applicant selection process. These are signs of how well your HR division performs during hiring.

Time to fill: The period between approving a job request and the candidate accepting your offer—the time it takes to identify and hire a candidate. A lengthy fill-time indicates an ineffective selection process.

Ninety-day attrition period: One obvious sign of a poor hire is departure within the first three months, which is your organization’s mistake. Although estimates of the expense of a poor hire vary, they generally range from 50% to 200% of the employee’s yearly compensation. Every instance of 90-day attrition should be handled as a serious HR incident that needs to be examined closely and avoided by improving onboarding, management, communication, and selection.

First-year turnover: Like the 90-day attrition period.

Experience of the candidate: How did the applicants evaluate their involvement in this hiring process? This is a crucial sign since applicants typically want to work for you because they are fans and customers of your business! Content candidates may become clients or recommend clients to you in the future.

Effectiveness of the selection process funnel: Selection is a multi-step process that involves a funnel. Therefore, understanding the funnel’s effectiveness is helpful. If fifty percent of your one hundred applications are selected, you must conduct interviews for the entire year! The yield ratio is a useful metric to assess the efficacy of your candidate selection procedure. A recruiting indicator called the yield ratio shows the proportion of candidates advancing to the process’s next stage.

Hire quality: After a year on the job, this score evaluates the performance of a recent hire. Typically, their manager grades this in the yearly performance review. Continually high hire quality is a sign that the selection procedure is effective.

One last thing

For any firm to be viable over the long run, employing and selecting the best personnel is essential. A robust hiring and selection process contributes to the organization’s competitive edge. Because of this, it is one of the most important things HR can do for the company.

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