Recruitment FAQ/Methods/Terms: A Complete Guide

A well-optimized hiring process results in getting productive employees on board to achieve paramount success. We have come up with frequently asked questions about various recruitment methods, terms, etc. This comprehensive guide will help to level up or improve your hiring process! Let us move ahead to learn more about them.

A. Common Recruiting Terms and Methods

What is a recruitment cycle?

A whole schedule of covering a recruiting process is a recruitment cycle. It involves identifying the new employee requirements, sourcing candidates, selecting them, and onboarding them as per their SOPs.

What is full-cycle recruiting?

In this cycle, one person or team handles the entire recruitment process from start to end. It includes 6 main steps: preparing vacancies, sourcing candidates, screening, selecting, hiring, and onboarding. It is also called ‘end-to-end recruiting’ or ‘full-life recruiting cycle’. 

What are the steps of the recruitment process?

A common recruitment process includes steps like:

Step 1: Job posting

Step 2: CV/ Resume screening

Step 3: Conducting screening calls 

Step 4: Conducting Interviews

Step 5: Extending a job offer

Step 6: Onboarding a new employee

Some employers also prefer to check the applicant’s background, which may involve background verification agencies, offer negotiation, etc., for finer selection.

What are recruiting metrics?

Recruiting metrics or recruitment analytics help improve the hiring process. These recruitment KPIs track the effectiveness of the recruiting process. It includes statistics, ratios, proportions, and predictive analytics resulting in the hiring process ranging from sourcing to final onboarding.

What recruiting metrics should we track?

We, at CVVIZ, have shared a quick list of recruiting metrics that one should look for while hiring:

1. Time to fill: It is a metric that measures how long it requires to fill a job opening from the position posted on job boards to the time at which the candidate accepts the job.

2. Candidate Net Promoter Score-NPS: It is the metric measuring how much a candidate likes the application and recruitment process in the company.

3. Recruitment ROI: It determines whether your efforts generate more productive value than the invested cost in the recruitment.

4. Cost per hire: This is the total amount invested in the qualified candidate used till he gets the job. It includes fees for the recruitment process, equipment, travel, administration, and benefits.

5. Offer acceptance rate: This is the percentage of qualified candidates accepting the offer. It is directly proportional to your talent acquisition funnel.

Why is recruitment so important for new companies or startups?

New companies need qualified and skilled people to increase their quality of work and reputation. They say investing in potential employees is like building assets to make a big empire! New companies need to make more efforts in the recruitment process than old and established companies for these reasons:

1. They do not have proper SOPs developed: New companies and startups do not have proven or effective processes to follow in the initial phase. Their decisions and work mainly depend on their employee’s innovative thinking, rational approach to solving things, and judgment to complete tasks. That’s why the recruitment process of hiring the right candidates is important for these companies.

2. They need to hire potentially: These companies need to match the progress and speed of their growth and profits with established companies to sustain the business. For this, they need more manpower, more support, and the right employees. The recruitment process helps them hunt worthy candidates who can work productively and attract profits. 

What is e-recruitment?

It is an online recruitment process where the job offering organization uses an online job portal, software, etc., to find qualified and deserving candidates. 

E-recruitment is a replacement and modern approach to traditional offline recruitment. It involves steps like:

1. Posting job offers on social media platforms or job boards like LinkedIn to source candidates.
2. Some companies use Resume Parser to extract data from gathered resumes. The resumes are analyzed with the help of the applicant tracking system (ATS). 
3. Administering online pre-interview tests or forms for interested candidates.
4. Reviewing the candidate’s Github, LinkedIn profile, etc., for a background check.
5. Connecting to candidates online for video interviews.

What is the role of the hiring manager?

The person who supervises the hiring process for new employees and fulfills the available positions with the right candidates is the ‘Hiring Manager’. He performs the following roles: 

1. HR manager coordinates with the HR team to manage interviews, tests, and selections.
2. He recognizes recruitment for open job positions
3. He plans the strategies and roadmaps for hiring new and skillful people for the company.
4. He allocates roles and responsibilities to his team.
5. He defines the details of job descriptions (JDs) and properly frames them. 
6. He defines interview-related expectations.
7. He also writes job offers for the candidates to read.
8. He discusses contract details with the employee for the respective job position.
9. He schedules interviews on appropriate dates.
10. He also evaluates the candidates according to their skillsets post-interview.
11. He informs the recruiter/ recruiting company if the job position is filled.

What is Generation Y recruitment?

It is specialized recruitment for people born between 1981 and 1996, i.e. millennials.

B. Recruiting Budget

What is a ‘budget’ for recruitment?

It is the amount of money the companies or organizations spend for finding and onboarding a qualified candidate during recruitment. Usually, the Human Resources (HR) department drafts this budget.

What should be included in a recruiting budget?

Any company or organization should keep a detailed list of expenses that can happen during the whole hiring procedure for new talent. This gives them an overall idea of how much recruiting budget they need. Here is  a list of common expenses that are included in any kind of recruitment process, as follows:

1. Candidate assessment costs:

Organizations/ companies offer pre-employment tests or challenges. The expenses to cover these tests are included in the career assessment costs.

2. Job board fees: 

This is the amount paid to job boards for displaying your company’s job vacancies. LinkedIn, Indeed, CareerBuilder, FoundIt, Beyond, SimplyHired, etc., are the most commonly preferred job boards for posting jobs.

3. Branding cost:

These costs include the amount spent on the company’s hiring events such as career fairs, campus recruitments, job promotions on social media pages, job campaigns, recruitment drives, etc. 

4. External recruiter expenses:

It is the funds spent on recruiting agencies, staffing companies, hiring firms, etc., for getting ideal candidates for the available position.

5. Internal recruiter expenses:

This involves the funds to pay recruiters’ salaries, company benefits, food and travel expenses, etc. 

6. Career page fees:

This is the total cost of setting up, maintaining, and properly designing your career pages on the website. 

7. Other expenses:

This includes multiple smaller expenses like referral program bonuses to employees, travel expenses, food bills, hotel stay expenses, ATS costs, flight ticket expenses, etc.

How to calculate the total recruiting cost?

It is the total amount of percentage of expenses divided by the compensation given to the new hires in their first year of employment. In corporate terms, it is calculated as RCR,

RCR=  (addition of internal and external hiring costs) / total annual compensation of the new hires in the 1st year multiplied by 100.

What is a staffing plan in recruitment?

A staffing plan is an all-in-one document that helps the company study the requirements of the number and types of employees it needs to reach its yearly goals. This plan helps employers with talent acquisition costs, budget management, retention, and hiring optimization.

How can I build a case for a higher recruiting budget?

These factors would help you to build a hiring recruitment budget for your organization:

1. Recruitment metrics:

Keep an eye on the changing data and metrics during recruitment drives. Analyzing recruitment KPIs like the quality of hire, cost per hire, rejection rate, interviews per hire, Offer acceptance rate, unfinished application rate, number of inbound and outbound applications, etc., gives you better clarity for building a larger case recruiting budget.

You can utilize this data to examine where you should spend for productive outcomes. 

2. Resolving business problems:

Identify top challenges in your recruitment and try to solve them with innovative methods. For example,  if you observe that your hiring managers have insufficient time to examine and screen applicants’ resumes, you get a chance to improve that situation. You can use an automatic resume screening tool to accelerate the rate of analyzing them.

In another case, if your hiring team is facing a load to send bulk emails, take notes, manage documents, or manage new leads, you can try recruitment CRM to accelerate these processes.

3. Software:

You can use many effective recruitment software like Taleo, Jobvite, Greenhouse software, etc., that can help to address hiring challenges.

How should you manage a hiring budget?

There are a few things that you must consider while managing the hiring budget for the whole year, such as:

1. Develop an annual recruitment plan for new hires.
2. Segregate your expenses for the recruitment process.
3. Be strict about maintaining fixed costs.
4. Get a record of your time and expenditure invested in the hiring process.
5. Get the required budget approved by your superiors.

C. External Recruiting

What is the role of external recruitment agencies?

These agencies find talented candidates who meet the hiring manager’s requirements for open job offers. These agencies can also help companies to optimize their hiring process. 

They also store a large database of candidates at their end and provide them to the companies whenever required. These agencies may ask for Contingency fees which you have to pay them when you hire a potential candidate after the hiring process. Or, they have a model of retainer subscription where you have to pay them upfront monthly, or yearly for sourcing and hiring candidates.

What are the advantages of external recruiting?

These agencies are useful in short-term recruiting, time-saving hiring processes, getting a large pool of candidates in one shot, and enhancing the quality of applicants via discreet segregation.

Who is a Headhunter?

Headhunters look for talented and skillful candidates who meet the requirements of hiring managers. They have the following responsibilities::

1. They search for these potential candidates in online and offline modes.
2. They connect with hiring managers to understand their requirements for talented candidates
3. They forward recruitment emails to potential candidates.
4. Connect professional communities, social media groups, networks, etc., to meet and interact with ideal candidates. 

What kind of things do external recruiting agencies perform?

These agencies play an important role in hiring the best candidates. They follow certain recruiting procedures like:

1. Job fairs:

These agencies arrange job fairs to gather all potential and interested candidates who qualify for the available job vacancies. As an employer, you get to meet such talented candidates in person. You can know their skills and potential. These fairs offer to meet and network with like-minded people and fresh talent.

2. Campus recruitment:

These recruitment drives are arranged at the college level. You can find fresh talent in those grad-year students or masters degree level students. Hence they are also called ‘academic institution recruitment’.

3. Advertisement:

This is the most common method of recruitment where these agencies give ads regarding job vacancies in newspapers, radio, television, and magazines. You can look into available job roles, their requirements, and offers from various companies. This helps candidates to find new jobs on a large scale.

4. Social media campaigns:

Some recruitment agencies are moving forward with social media advertising for posting new jobs and vacancies. They use their official Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages for posting new jobs. 

They also create an online community on portals for spreading the news and updates about new opportunities to all interested candidates. These agencies may also run paid or free email newsletters to give weekly or daily updates about job roles. 

5. Job Posting Sites:

Some external recruiting agencies have well-optimized websites. They post daily job updates, roles, descriptions, etc. These websites can have subscription models or free access. Job seekers scroll through such sites and learn about the job offering company’s information, culture, and policies.

Candidates can fill out the basic information form for individual jobs, and create their online resume on these sites. They can also sign up for regular newsletters and emails regarding new job positions.

6. Professional meetups:

Some professional associations keep data on talented and best candidates. The recruiters and employers connect these associations to find extremely skilled candidates for important job roles. 

These associations run newsletters or magazines in which they write about new job roles, updates about recruiting drives, seminars, and meet-ups. 

What is a virtual recruiter?

Virtual recruiters (VRs) work online all over the internet instead of in an offline setup. They connect interested candidates on Skype, Zoom, Google Meet, etc. They conduct online interviews and tests to examine the potential of the applicants.

Why should you hire a virtual recruiter?

Virtual recruiters provide a seamless hiring experience for companies, optimize the hiring process, manage communication with candidates, etc. There are some special advantages of VRs, such as:

1. They are more flexible than offline office-based recruiting agencies. You can connect with them anytime on online calls even if you have different time zones or locations.
2. They save you time and money for hiring potential talent. They have an exquisite network of productive candidates and employers that 
3. They use well-versed software to find ideal candidates remotely anywhere in the world!