How to use a recruitment checklist to improve your hiring process

​Having an unorganised hiring process can be a waste of time and money and cause you headaches down the track.

Imagine urgently and quickly recruiting a new employee, only to find out down the track that this person is ill-fitting for both the role and your company culture.

The time, effort, and resources you’ve spent to post job ads, conduct interviews, and train the new hire, has all been wasted as you are forced to let them go.

A thorough recruitment checklist will help you minimise complications and reduce risk.

Here are tips from Fuse Recruitment, a specialist recruitment agency , for a recruitment process checklist that will guarantee you hire the right talent for your business.

Establish an attraction strategy

Consider how your brand looks to the public. What do you want people to know? Why would someone want to work with your company? Remember, a relationship between an employee and employer should be mutually beneficial. It’s not as black and white as “you do work, and I pay you.”

Promote your company’s employee benefits both on your website and in your job ads.

This gives you an easy starting point when writing your job ad, but also gives you something to talk about when you introduce your company to candidates in an interview.

Bonus tip: Check out SEEK’s advice for writing a good job ad, here .

Define who you are looking for

Why is this role available? What will the new candidate do? What type of person will perform best in this role?

If you don’t have a targeted strategy, you may as well stand on the street and hire any person that walks by. You can imagine how much of a waste of time this would be!

Clearly think about the tasks this person will perform and what sort of experience they need to perform these tasks well; state these in bullet points in your job ads. You might also consider the types of testing you may conduct to ensure you can accurately assess the candidate’s capabilities.

Don’t forget to think about the type of culture your workplace holds. You want someone who will fit in with your team and not cause any friction or have a negative impact.

Carefully choose your advertising platforms

Defining your ideal employee makes it easier to decide where you should post your job ads to maximise the application rate and get the best ROI. Are your target candidates LinkedIn natives? Or will you have better luck posting a job ad on SEEK? If you are looking to hire a construction labourer, they may be less likely to be active on a platform such as LinkedIn, so it’s best to channel your spending elsewhere.

You’ll need to ensure you have a system in place to check every application. Your recruitment process is a representation of your brand , so you want to leave a good impression on your applicants, whether they are successful in employment or not.

It can be a bit challenging to figure out exactly where to put your efforts. By working with a recruiter, you can utilise their reach and screen all applicants on your behalf. Specialist recruiters will be experienced in engaging the most suitable candidates and even have their own networks they can reach out to.

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Prepare for the interviews

Choose the questions you’ll ask in an interview carefully. It’ll be a waste of time if you come out of the interview and realise later that you don’t have any useful information to help you consider the applicant’s suitability for the role. Having a list of questions will also help you evenly compare candidates.

If you don’t know where to start, here are 13 interview questions to get you started.

Also, consider how you’ll conduct the interview. Have you read the resume before going into the interview? Should you perform a phone screening first? How will you build rapport? Use our guide here to ensure you find the most suitable candidate for your business.

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Assessing the candidate

Are there any testing or checks you want to conduct before hiring the candidate? A recruitment agency can conduct any and all testing on your behalf; including cognitive testing, licenses, tickets, accreditations, and working rights.

Personality and skills tests can help you make informed decisions. Hiring can be very subjective and sometimes following your gut just isn’t enough.

Reference checks provide a second opinion from someone who has experience working with your potential hire. If you ask the right questions, it can help you gauge how the candidate builds relationships with their managers and colleagues.

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Download our reference check template here .

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Keep unsuccessful candidates in mind

Once you’ve offered the role to a candidate and they have accepted, it doesn’t mean that you must cut ties with the other suitable applicants. They progressed through your recruitment process for a reason and if they are still a good option, it’s best to keep them engaged. Sometimes, it simply comes down to choosing the best candidate for your business at that time, as your business may not be in the financial position to take on more than one employee at a time. Or, the candidate may have been a little light on experience, but you genuinely liked them and thought they would be a good cultural fit; one year later they may have developed the experience and/or skillset you need.

If you have a similar role that opens again in the future, you’ll have a list of suitable candidates to reach out to. Imagine the time and money you’ve just saved yourself if they accept the job offer.

If you don’t have unsuccessful candidates in mind, consider working with a recruiter who has a candidate pool of thousands of highly skilled and pre-screened talent ready for quick deployment.

Remain open-minded. Unsuccessful candidates aren’t always second best. There is a multitude of reasons why they may not have landed the job. They may want more flexible working arrangements, or the commute may have been too long to commit to.

Don’t forget about transferable skills! If you think a candidate would be a perfect cultural fit for your business, is there another role available?

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Don’t forget the onboarding process

A well-planned hiring process checklist should include the strategies to train and induct the recruit. You want to welcome new employees and ensure they start off on the right foot. Is their workspace set up with all login details/tools needed? Have you provided them with all the resources they need to perform well?

Do you have ongoing training and development opportunities for your employee? This is often a key benefit candidates look for when searching for a new job. An employee who has the opportunity to grow will be more likely to stay with your organisation than jump to another who can provide them with a prosperous career path.

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Gather feedback

After finally completing the process, it can be useful to ask candidates, both successful and unsuccessful, what they thought about the hiring process. A candidate who is happy about the recruitment process will talk about their experience to others and recommend you as an employer. On the other hand, a candidate who had a negative experience will spread the word about what they didn’t like. This can be damaging to your company brand. Utilising an onboarding survey a few weeks into the new recruits role can highlight areas of opportunity for you to work on.

Use feedback to carefully tweak your recruitment checklist and ensure you’re always finding the best possible talent.

If you’d rather have someone else do the recruiting for you, let us know who you’re looking for and we’ll connect you with the right people for your business needs.