What You Should Know Before Recruiting A New Employee

Before recruiting a new employee you should be preparing yourself by doing your homework.

Most people will employ only for the sake of recruiting and filling an empty space without considering the new employee and their needs.

• How important is recruitment planning?
• How big is your need for recruitment?
• What is the company's role in the recruitment process?
• What are the recruitment resources you will use?
• Recruiting a new employee - Summary

How important is recruitment planning?

Most organizations dive into recruiting employees without giving the process much thought.

To ensure a successful and productive employee it is necessary to lay out the route map that will bring you there.

Stepping into this process without a proper plan can be very costly at the end of the day and great care must be taken in the type of recruitment process you follow.

These days there is applicant tracking software on the market that allows businesses to automate the process of recruitment from the job posting to the final interview. Because you end up with the filtered results it saves you time and therefore money.

How big is your need for recruitment?

First of all, you have to be sure that recruitment is the only option. So often haste makes us overlook alternative options.

Temporary replacements, process elimination, and other options must first be considered before the recruitment process comes into effect.

Just ask yourself some practical questions about the task at hand.

• What is it that we need to do?
• Is it a task that will always be there?
• Who else can do this?
• Is the task actually essential to the process?
• Does the task contribute to the turnover of the company?
• Can the person add value to processes in the company?
• Will the employee always have enough to do to be productive?
• If not, what other value-adding tasks can be added?

What is the company's role in the recruitment process?

Remember recruiting and employing new employees also brings more responsibility to the employer. You should always also ask questions about the company's role in the process of recruitment and selection.

• Can we provide job security for another employee?
• How do we need this role to fit into the organizational structure?
• Do we have the resources to coach and develop an employee in this role?
• With what we are offering can we retain the employee's services?
• What kind of personality does the company need to ensure growth in a particular position?
• Does the company have to apply other new resources to support the job function and is it affordable? 

Failing to recognize the basic need for ethical liability will definitely lead to the failure of the process or the employee.

The most important role from the company's perspective is to ensure employee engagement right from the beginning. Don't blame an employee for disengaging in the first 6 weeks.

What are the recruitment resources you will use?

Before you put the recruitment and selection process in motion it is important to know that you have the right resources in place to make a successful employee selection.

Your resources will greatly depend on the size of your company and the recruitment policy they have put in place.

The ideal resources will cover the three main areas of the recruitment and selection process which are:

• Pre recruiting
• Active recruiting process
• Induction and Training

The pre-recruiting process will involve mainly a collaboration between human resource departments and the responsible department head.

This is where the need for recruitment and the criteria for the vacancy will be analyzed in order to identify the preliminary profile of a job spec.

In most cases, the Human Resource Department will be responsible for overseeing the complete recruitment process and making sure that the company procedures are maintained.

This will include the sourcing, final selection, interview, job offer, and eventually the appointment.

Together with the Head of the Department, the Human Resource Department will be responsible for the Induction and Training of the new employee.

Human Resources will monitor the transition between the Recruitment Process and the Induction process.

Pre-Recruiting

Typical resources you will use when initiating your recruitment process are:

• Company Human Resource Policy on Recruitment
• Job profiling to establish job specification
• Cost analysis of getting a new employee
• Approved Job advertising specs
• Induction Policy
• Appointment of responsible parties to oversee the induction process
• Interview questions relevant to the position

Active Recruiting Process

All the resources you have collected at the pre-recruiting stage will also play a major role in this process with the addition of the following resources.

• Candidate lists
• Pre-employment screening methods
• Compatibility testing
• Employment contract

Induction and Training

Now that you have done the appointment it is time to introduce the new employee to the workplace. This is done through the induction process that will put the emphasis on engagement. Active resources now will play a major role in order to be successful.

• Induction timetable
• Coaching guidelines
• Training Schedule
• Key Performance guidelines
• Standard Operating Procedures
• Company Policy and Procedures
• Human Resource Policies

Recruiting a new employee - Summary

To make sure the newly appointed recruit will be productive and beneficial to the company it is important to have an approved recruitment and selection policy in place.