Refining your recruitment process

Every organization wants great people — and your recruitment process can make all the difference in attracting game-changing hires. Consider your current approach to finding, evaluating, and hiring employees. Is it attracting the right people to your organization?

There are two types of recruitment: internal and external. Internal recruitment processes involve existing employees who are transferred or promoted within the company. External recruitment processes, on the other hand, bring in new employees.

Whether recruiting internally or externally, your process should meet candidates where they are — and reel them in with the right strategy and timing. After all, 86% of recruiters and 62% of employers believe that today’s job market is candidate-driven.

Recruitment processes vary by organization and role, but in general, a well-structured approach should include the following key elements.

Get clear alignment on your internal needs.
Consider the gaps your organization is looking to fill. Does your recruitment process address short- and long-term needs across the organization?

Communicate and be transparent.
Keep your candidates in the loop from start to finish, being as transparent as possible when it comes to compensation and benefits, role expectations, and the hiring process. Your organization’s reputation matters — to current and future candidates.

Foster relationships and source proactively.
Did you know that passive talent, or people who aren’t actively job seeking, make up 70% of the global workforce? Proactive sourcing can bring in people your team might otherwise overlook.

A strategic recruitment process begins with evaluating and optimizing each stage of the journey. From start to finish, your journey might look like this.

Assess your needs.
Whether you’re replacing a former employee or expanding, start by breaking down the role. List the responsibilities, budget, expected start date, and necessary qualifications. This info will come in handy in a job requisition to fill or create a role.

Assign a hiring team.
Generally, each role requires its own recruitment team. If you’re filling a marketing role, your hiring team should include your current marketing lead. On the other hand, a software engineering role would have more technical team members involved.

Write a job description.
Grab applicant attention with a clear and comprehensive job description. List responsibilities, minimum and preferred qualifications, compensation, benefits, type of role (full-time, part-time, or contract), and whether the job is in-person, remote, or hybrid.

Source candidates.
Build a candidate pool through professional networks like LinkedIn and other social platforms, referrals, job fairs, job boards, proactive outreach, and more.

Screen and evaluate candidates.
Narrow down your list with strategic filtering. Check for minimum qualifications before looking at experiences and skill sets. The hiring team should continue refining this list until they identify candidates they’d like to interview.

Conduct interviews.
The number of interviews will depend on your organization and the open role. Once you’ve created role- and candidate-specific questions, your hiring team can kick off the interview process and keep narrowing down the pool.

Extend an offer.
Give your desired candidate reasonable time to accept or decline your offer and prepare for any potential negotiations.

Onboard your new employee.
You’re almost done! Once the paperwork is complete, welcome your new hire with smooth onboarding and training.

Looking for ways to improve your recruitment process? Start with a recruitment process improvement plan. Strategies include:

Streamlining tracking and communications.
Keep your candidates informed and boost visibility by automating communications throughout the recruitment process with an applicant tracking system (ATS). Also, consider crafting templates for email, like interview invites and rejections. A warm, well-written template leaves a great impression and saves time.

Leveraging and incentivizing your existing employees.
Internal transfers and promotions aren’t just efficient — they also boost morale by showing employees you’re committed to their career development.

Optimizing your interviewing process.
Build a more efficient process by outlining your ideal candidate and tailoring questions to both the applicant and the role. That way, your hiring team has the information they need before each interview.

As your organization scales and the job market fluctuates, continually assess and optimize your recruitment process. A strong approach changes with the times, so stay up to date to attract the best people possible at every stage.

Whether you’re interested in overhauling your approach or just want to make a few tweaks, here are a few ways how your recruitment process can benefit from continual updates.

A faster process.
By regularly re-evaluating your recruitment strategies and tools — how you track and communicate with applicants, your onboarding workflow, proactive sourcing efforts, and more — you can build a far more efficient process.

More effective hiring.
The strongest recruitment processes open doors to people who can enhance your culture and drive organizational success.

Better internal alignment.
When assessing internal needs, communication goes a long way — welcome feedback for both department-specific and organization-wide improvements to build a recruitment process that works for everyone.

Higher morale and productivity.
When you consistently reward your employees — by regularly promoting high performers and granting transfer requests — you end up with a happier and more productive team.

A stronger reputation.
Over time, providing a positive candidate experience — even for those you don’t end up hiring — can do wonders for your talent pipeline. Additionally, a recruitment process that regularly yields top hires sets your organization apart.

Improve your hiring strategy with a streamlined recruitment process.

Explore the key elements of an effective recruitment process.

Discover the steps of a successful process.

Implement a recruitment process improvement plan.

The benefits of refining your recruitment process

Learn how LinkedIn can improve your recruitment process.