Recruitment is the process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs within an organization. It is the process of actively seeking out, finding, and hiring candidates for a specific position or job. The recruitment process includes everything from the identification of a staffing need to filling it. The recruitment process can be relatively straightforward, but advances in technology, a tight labor market, and a workforce pool that might span five generations can make the first step -- finding potential candidates -- particularly challenging.
Recruitment involves everything from attracting, identifying, and engaging candidates to ensuring they are successfully onboarded. The recruitment process varies from company to company, but there are some basic steps that any employer can take to make recruitment smoother and more successful, such as comparing different types of job recruitment software to find the ideal fit, establishing clearly defined standards and expectations for the ideal job applicant, taking proactive steps to integrate new employees with comprehensive “on-boarding,” and staying ahead of the latest trends and best practices in recruiting.
Recruiting typically follows this process: sourcing, recruiter screen, hiring team assessment, and finally, the offer stage. Sourcing begins the process of recruiting and can be classified as either passive or active. Generally, recruiters will utilize both ways of sourcing. Passive sourcing is when a recruiter sources by posting open positions on the company’s career site and various job sites in order to attract candidates who are actively looking for a job. Active sourcing is when a recruiter sources by reaching out to candidates who are not actively looking for a job.
Recruitment is a key part of human resource (HR) management and is supported by the hiring manager and others involved in the hiring process. Successful recruitment efforts will make a company stand out and be more attractive to potential employees, a strategy that can directly impact a companys bottom line.
