What is Recruitment: The Comprehensive Guide
If you’ve never been involved in the recruitment process from a business perspective, you may not know what it entails. If that sounds like you, we’ve got you covered – we’ve explored all the different aspects of recruitment below!
What is Recruitment?
Everybody’s heard of recruitment, but what does it actually mean? Recruitment is essentially the process of attracting, interviewing, and hiring candidates. The onboarding process is often included in the term too! So recruitment involves everything from realising you need to hire a new employee to filling the role and onboarding the candidate.
In larger businesses, there will often be an entire recruitment team, whose job is dedicated to hiring more staff. Smaller companies, on the other hand, may ask any member of staff to look for candidates as needed, or work with an agency.
When it comes to the recruitment process, most businesses will post adverts on job boards and social media sites, and may ask their employees to refer friends. Some companies also use specialised recruiting software, which can allow them to more effectively source outstanding candidates.
The Steps of Recruitment
There are lots of steps involved in recruitment. First, you need to identify the role that needs to be filled, then create a job description. Next, you’d need to advertise the position, review the applications that come in, and hold interviews. You’d then conduct checks and make a hiring decision. That’s a long process! And that doesn’t even take into account the onboarding and training process!
If you’ve not had to recruit someone before, the process can seem a little overwhelming. But as long as you’re organised and stay on top of your tasks, you’re bound to succeed! And if you do want some help, you can hire recruitment agencies like Pineapple Recruitment. We’ll do all the hard work for you!
Types of Recruitment
Recruitment seems like a fairly straightforward process – you simply hire the best candidate, right? Pretty much, but there could be more types of recruitment than you might think! We’ve listed four common ways of recruiting candidates below:
Internal Recruitment
This option is generally the most simple – a business will find a candidate who is already working for the company to fill a role. This could allow an employee to progress, or just move to a preferred position.
Retained Recruitment
There are two main aspects to retained recruitment. Firstly, the agency hired to fill a vacancy will be paid an upfront fee, and continue to search until the position is filled. Secondly, the company who employed the agency can’t work with other recruitment firms – they agree to work exclusively with the one they contracted.
Agency Recruitment
With agency recruitment, there is no upfront fee, and no exclusivity clause. The recruitment agency will only get paid a fee should they fill the position advertised. Generally, there is also a rebate period – this means if a candidate is found unsuitable after hiring, part of the recruitment fee will be refunded.
Reverse Recruitment
This is far less common than the recruitment options above. With reverse recruitment, an employee is encouraged to leave their current role for a position that better suits their skillset. This can be a great opportunity for someone who feels undervalued in their present job.
How to Recruit the Right Candidates
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to hiring the perfect candidate, but there are a few things you can do to improve your chances of success! We’ve outlined our three main tips below:
Look Internally First
Before you start looking externally for someone to fill a role, it’s often a good idea to search within your own team. The ideal candidate may currently be working for your business! They’ll already know all your processes and procedures, as well as be well versed in the software your organisation uses. Not to mention the fact that you’ll know they mix well within the company culture.
This may additionally be an opportunity to show your staff that your business offers progression opportunities. And if someone has proven to be successful within the company, there’s a good chance that they’ll continue to excel within a new role.
Keep in Contact
People that are actively looking for a job are probably attending lots of interviews, and will be in contact with many organisations! It’s therefore important to keep in regular contact with them, providing updates when appropriate. You also need to keep things moving – if you wait too long to offer someone the job, they may have already found one elsewhere.
You should also bear in mind that many candidates on platforms like LinkedIn won’t be actively seeking a new role. You should therefore explore other means to reach out to people. This could include encouraging current employees to recommend their friends for a role, or networking at industry events.
Hire an Expert
If you’re struggling to find the right candidate, you may need to seek expert advice. This can be particularly useful if you’re looking to fill a highly specialised role, where the candidate pool is much smaller. You may also want to hire a recruitment specialist if you work in an industry with a high turnover rate.
If you’re interested in speaking to a recruitment consultant, Pineapple Recruitment would love to hear from you! Simply get in touch for a free, no obligation consultation.