Learn how to find the best candidate for a job and use the template for it.

Critical Steps in the Recruitment
and Hiring Process

Taking the right steps in the recruitment and hiring process is essential – skipping or missing some of the critical ones can result in a bad hiring decision. This mistake can cost you up to 30% of the employee's first-year salary.

Bad hires negatively impact the project workflow, the company's reputation, and the business as a whole. Depending on the position and company's procedures, every new employee goes through a number of steps before an offer is made.

Most companies have their own hiring process. Specifics of the hiring process across industries may vary significantly, yet there are common steps to follow.

The hiring process

The hiring process begins the moment there's a need for a new hire in a company. It is crucial to identify the hiring need as early as possible – whether it is a project expansion, employee substitution, or the need for a new capability in the company. Next, depending on the position, a recruiter has to devise a thorough recruitment plan. This plan should include precise information on the number of interviews that have to be conducted, test tasks, assessment criteria, and other essential points.

To build such a plan, to compose the list of skills, and seek the candidates with suitable experience, the recruiter should identify the job description or specification. Once the required skillset and responsibilities are mapped out, a detailed job description has to be composed and advertised via social networks or recruitment websites. From this moment on, candidates will begin sending their applications. In many cases, this process is complemented by an active candidate search from the recruitment side, as well.

Candidate selection

The candidate selection starts with a careful application screening – applicants with the most fitting profiles are contacted via phone or e-mail. Phone interviews significantly save recruitment teams' time and energy by eliminating unsuitable candidates early on. A correctly conducted phone interview can determine the applicant's attitude towards the advertised position, company, and proposed responsibilities. During the phone interview, standard information about the job and project can be provided, without going too deep into details.

Those candidates, who meet the requirements and successfully pass the phone interview, are invited for their first in-person interview. It is usually scheduled and conducted by an HR representative. If it's not possible/feasible meeting fate to face, a video call can be organized instead.

In-person interview

Candidate assessment

After the first interview, candidates are assessed and either rejected or moved to the next step of the hiring process. Rejected candidates often ask for the feedback, so the HR representative has to be prepared for that and explain in a polite way the reasons behind the decision.

The next steps might be different per company/project/position. For some companies, one interview is enough. Others might send out test tasks, conduct second-round interviews, and/or project interviews to make a full assessment.

Second interview

Some positions (e.g., technical, engineering, finance, medical) require precise knowledge, which has to be checked very accurately, under the supervision of a subject matter expert. Usually, there is an informal competition where only the best candidate is offered the job. In most cases, during the second interview, the direct manager and potential colleagues are meeting the candidate to check his/her competence and knowledge level and assess personal qualities.

Background and reference check

When the best candidate is selected, there are still several steps to take before sending a job offer – background and reference check. Make sure you check candidate's educational credentials, employment history, and criminal background. A good source would be a reference from the past workplace – have a conversation with the candidate's previous direct manager and ask the necessary questions.

Final decision and job offer

When the chosen candidate's background is checked, and the reference from his/her previous manager is positive, it is time to make the final hiring decision and send the job offer.

The offer letter should include the salary, benefits, paid time off, work policy, company equipment, and other terms and conditions. This process can take some time – usually, candidates take some time for consideration. Although many candidates will accept the first offer straight away – this isn't always the case. The higher the position, the more likely the candidate will negotiate the compensation, benefits, company equipment, remote work, and other matters. Sometimes these negotiations lead to the second reevaluated job offer, but it can end in outright cancellation of the offer.

If the candidate accepts all the conditions, then the hiring process ends successfully. An approved offer letter begins an employment paperwork process. Therefore, a checklist with all the required paperwork to be completed by new employees should be prepared. The onboarding process starts right after that.

A detailed hiring process benefits every organization, as it helps to optimize the ability of the HR team to identify the strongest candidate. Having a consistent hiring plan will create a clear understanding of what needs to be changed or improved in the future. The hiring process doesn't end with the signed agreement – it slowly transitions to the onboarding process, and directly affects it. Both processes are tightly connected with each other.

Keep track of the candidate's hiring

with our Candidate hiring template.

It shows how you can arrange and set up your hiring process, so you don't have to start from scratch.

How to use this template?

Create a new project and choose the Candidate hiring template to start. All Infolio templates include some demo content. Feel free to remove it once you've familiarized yourself with the concept.

Create a task for each new candidate and group them by Lists – their potential departments, e.g., "Development," "Sales," "Marketing." Don't hesitate to remove the examples and add your lists with just a few clicks.

Switch to the Status view to track the candidate positions in the recruitment process, e.g., "Inviting", "HR interview scheduled", "Technical interview scheduled", "Awaiting feedback", "Offer made", "Offer accepted" etc. In this view, you can easily add new statuses to your workflow or rearrange existing ones. Update the status of any task by dragging and dropping it to the corresponding column.

Switch to the Table view, to add any additional information as custom fields, e.g., candidate phone number, email, test task results, final decision. Add what is crucial to your hiring process. Don't forget to use colors to help you visually.

To see how responsibilities are distributed within your recruitment team, group the project by Assignee. In this view, you can reassign tasks quickly by dragging and dropping them between columns.