Stages in Recruitment Process and Their Importance

Employee recruitment can be explained as a process of finding and attracting job candidates that are suitable for the position to be filled. Once a number of candidates are short listed by the end of recruitment, the most suitable candidate(s) will be selected to be hired by the company.

Employee recruitment process may comprise the following stages:

Stage 1: Recruitment planning

Recruitment process starts with recruitment planning with the analysis of the numbers and sufficiency of employees in order to achieve long-terms aims and objectives of the company.

Importance of recruitment planning can be explained in a way that failure to deal with it appropriately can compromise long-term growth prospects for the company.

Once the recruitment planning has identified the number of positions to be added in the company, job description and person specification for the position needs to be formulated in a clear and unambiguous manner.

Stage 2: Identifying recruitment sources

Recruitment sources can be divided into two groups: internal and external. To put it simply, internal recruitment involves recruiting candidates within the company, whereas external recruitment is recruitment of candidates not currently employed by the company.

External sources of recruitment include educational institutions, data in job centres, job agencies, and even competitors. Internal sources of recruitment, on the other hand, include employee files and databases.  Identifying a suitable recruitment source is important because the level of suitability of candidates for the job depends on the type of the recruitment source selected.

Stage 3: Generating candidates

Once a suitable recruitment source has been identified an adequate pool of candidates need to be generated. Candidates from external recruitment source can be generated through advertisements in the media, campus recruitment or with the assistance of relevant agencies.

Generating candidates from internal recruitment source, on the other hand, can be facilitated by internal announcements and newsletters.

Stage 4: Filtering Application Forms

After required numbers of candidates are attracted in the previous stages, application forms need to be filtered on the basis of their compliance with the basic requirements for the job. These basic requirements may include previous work experience, academic credentials, knowledge of specific software programs etc.

Stage 5: Conducting tests and evaluations

By this stage of the recruitment process only candidates meeting basic job requirements will remain for further considerations. In this stage the remaining candidates are subjected to a range of tests and evaluations such as interviews, role playing, job simulation, focus groups etc. in order to select candidates the most suitable for the position to be filled.

Factors affecting employee recruitment can be divided into two categories: external and internal. External factors affecting employee recruitment include the rate of unemployment, supply and demand for the position in the industry and overall macroeconomic situation within the country.

Internal factors impacting employee recruitment, on the other hand, include size of the company, the nature of employee recruitment policy and the size of the budget allocated for recruitment.

There are increasing numbers of companies that have introduced internet only recruitment programs. For example, one of the leading UK supermarkets, Sansbury’s does not receive offline job applications, and this approach to employee recruitment offers a range of advantages for the company such as cost-saving and effectively analysing application data against job requirements in an electronic manner.

Recommendations offered to managers in relation to employee recruitment and selection may include approaching each stage of the recruitment process with a due level of importance, and to be assessing the suitability of candidates from various angles.