What is the difference between recruitment and selection?
What is recruitment? Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, attracting, and hiring candidates for job openings within an organization while selection is the process of choosing the best candidate to hire. Effective recruitment methods exist for hiring individuals.
The selection process is the stage where the most qualified person for the role is chosen. It is the recruiter who assesses each performer against the job role’s requirements. This process is a vital act of choosing a candidate who not only fits the role but also determining who will create a long-lasting impact on organizational success.
Most successful methods for recruitment process
A well-thought-out plan for hiring new people will attract suitable candidates and will determine the success of an organization. In general, internships allow organizations to access skills directly, promotions help retain internal talent, job fairs provide direct interactions with potential candidates, social media helps expands the reach while employee referrals tap into trusted networks. Incorporating these types of methods into the recruitment process not only attracts a well-talented pool of candidates but also contributes to an effective recruitment strategy.
Internships
It not only serves as training ground but also holds a significant place in the landscape of recruitment and selection. This means it is not just a learning experience but is a contributing factor for finding, evaluating and choosing individuals who can make a positive contribution to the organizations in the future. Internships can be a starting point to train individuals to fill roles in the company. During the internship, employers assess the abilities work ethic of individuals. This would lead to permanent employment depending upon the performance of individuals. It can be considered as an effective recruitment method of attracting candidates. Companies can use various channels to recruit interns such as partnering with the universities, posting on online platforms (Linkedin, Indeed, Glassdoor,) company career websites.
Job fairs
Job fairs are basically events where employers set up stalls to connect with job seekers. This provides direct interaction with the candidates. From a recruitment and selection standpoint, job fairs help in building the brand while also attracting candidates. While there may be a cost associated with these fairs, it is an effective method to build up the employer brand.
Passive recruiting
Tapping into passive candidates means finding individuals who are not actively seeking jobs but might be open to new positions. It is revealed that more than 75 % of the employees say that they have been reached by another employer while they were already employed. By using AIpowered features in platforms like Linkedin, companies can have access to a number of individuals who are not actively seeking jobs.
Talent pool databases
The task of manually searching for qualified candidates can be a challenging task for recruiters. This would result in utilization of AI for recruitment as a better solution. Various AI recruiting tools, including Linkedin, can help in sourcing potential candidates. These tools can look through job websites, and social media profiles to discover potential job candidates. It looks for individuals who match certain criteria related to the job. This way they can find the candidates who have not applied directly and suggest candidates who are more suitable for positions. Finally, recruiters can initiate contact with them to discuss further details about open positions.
Referrals
Companies can also find new employees through the recommendations they get from present employees. This makes the hiring process faster and saves costs. This type of method often brings candidates who are not only qualified on paper but also who would align with company culture. In the context of recruitment and selection, employee referrals stand out as a successful method.
Social Media
It is revealed that around 39% of individuals use social media to find the next job using social media platforms like Linkedin and Facebook. Recruiters can share their job ads to attract applicants. But, for this, you will have to create a wider audience and continuously post engaging content, So, as soon as a vacancy pops up, the company already has a crowd familiar with your products and services. It is one of the popular methods used in the recruitment process.
Promotions
They can be considered a turning point for employees. Once employees get promoted, they often get additional benefits. At the same time, from the organization’s perspective, it is one way of hiring individuals to fill open vacancies. In the broader context of recruitment and selection, this recruitment method stands out as a prominent one because it is simple and fast.
Most successful methods for selection process
Most successful methods for selection processIn staff recruitment, staff selection consists of two main phases. They are shortlisting and assessing. Shortlisting means the initial phase in which the recruiter goes through all the received applications to choose candidates who meet the basic requirements for the role whereas assessing means evaluating the shortlisted candidates thoroughly to determine their suitability for the role. It is vital that in both these stages, the selection methods should maintain consistency, transperancy and be unbiased. To add, consistency means each candidate should be evaluated using the same criteria specified to ensure that everyone is equally treated. Secondly, transperancy enhances the candidate’s experience. Clear communication between the employer and the candidate during the staff recruitment process is crucial to reduce misunderstandings. Thirdly, it is necessary to ensure that no discriminatory practices are used in the hiring process and that all candidates are treated the same way regardless of their background.
The following methods focus on the assessment stage of the selection process.
Skill Testing
Skill testing is just one step within the process of recruitment and selection. Skill-based tests play a crucial role by evaluating specific abilities required for the role. For instance, a graphic designing position might involve a task like creating a logo or promotional material for the company. This allows candidates to show their proficiency in tools like Adobe Creative Suite or Canva. This method is not just theoretical but also demonstrates the practical skills needed for the role. In other words, this allows recruiters to get a more accurate assessment of their skills. It is revealed that skill-based testing could be predictive for future job performance. So, candidates who perform well in skill tests are more likely to succeed in their respective roles. In general, this method can be considered as an effective selection method, allowing recruiters to take better decisions based on candidate’s practical knowledge rather than getting confined to the paper qualifications and interview performance.
Real world projects
This would allow the candidates to showcase their skills in a real-world context, providing an accurate assessment of their abilities. For example, in an assignment for a project management role, the task would be to develop a project plan that includes timelines and resource allocation. This type of exercise would evaluate planning skills and organizational skills. The candidates have enough time to work on the assignment which would allow them to showcase their abilities to plan and organize well. This ensures that they’re putting the best effort into the tasks.
Phone Interviews
Phone interviews can also be considered as a successful selection method used among many employers. They can be considered as the next step after narrowing down the applicants. This would further evaluate whether the candidate would proceed to a physical interview or not. Before allocating time for interviews, it would help understand whether the candidate aligns with the company culture and requirements of the job. This saves time for both the recruiters and candidates because it ensures that the best ones move to the next stage of the hiring process.
Group Interviews
In a group interview, the panel gets the chance to interview more than one candidate at once. This allows the recruiters to assess candidates’ interaction with others in a professional setting. There can be activities like group discussions, collaborative work. Recruiters can assess teamwork abilities and communication skills by allowing them to engage in group activities and collaborative tasks. Also, evaluating candidates simultaneously could help recruiters understand their strengths and weaknesses. By comparing individuals with one another, recruiters can determine easilywho is the best fit and who lack skills. This method can be useful when hiring positions where teamwork is essential such as for project management roles and when there are many candidates to be evaluated within a limited period.
Panel Interviews
When the whole recruitment and selection process is taken into consideration, panel interviews are one way that can assess a candidate’s suitability for the role. In a panel interview, a single candidate is interviewed by a panel of interviewers. Each member of the panel could ask questions and evaluate responses. Panel interviews are structured to provide a detailed evaluation of the candidate through different perspectives. With the advanced recruitment management software, holding and scheduling interviews have now become convenient for employers. It could help manage interview schedules by using automated notifications and calendar events. Automated emails can be sent to hiring managers and candidates to remind them of the upcoming interviews.
Cognitive Ability Test
These types of tests can assess a candidate’s problem solving and critical thinking skills. For example, a numerical reasoning test could be conducted to test whether the candidate can analyze numerical data as financial analysis is essential for roles such as accountant and business analyst. Therefore, these tests help employers understand if the candidate has the right cognitive skills for the specific tasks that the job requires
References
Employers check references as part of the hiring process. This means contacting previous employers and universities to learn more about the candidate in terms of behavior and performance. This includes confirming details such as employment history, job responsibilities and educational qualifications. This ensures whether the candidate has mentioned true information in their application. Employers can get a detailed understanding of how they would behave in the future positions based on past behavior and achievements. This includes their cultural fit, their interaction with colleagues, and the organization in general. This could help find candidates who possess a bad character or history of bad conduct. Such people may pose a threat to the work environment of the company and even could tarnish the reputation of the company. Employers can reduce the risk of getting the wrong people onboard through references.
Summary
Recruitment and selection go hand in hand. Having an applicant tracking system could be a key to a better hiring process. An ATS like Hiretrace could improve the overall efficiency of the hiring process.
In the entire process, avoid solely depending on a single method for the decision making. Instead, try to construct a blend of multiple employee recruitment and selection methods. This approach ensures that the company finds the most suitable individuals for the relevant positions.
