The Hiring Process

What are the Steps in the Recruiting Process?

1. Deciding to hire a new employee.

The goal of this stage in the hiring process is to determine if it makes economic sense to fill the position. Sometimes it's pretty clear that an employee needs to be hired. For instance, when a key employee leaves a position. Before hiring, you may want to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the employee will produce enough revenue to cover the costs of recruiting and employing them, or you may be better off using a freelancer.

At larger companies, you may be submitting a job requisition at this point.

2. Creating a job description.

You'll need to describe the job duties, responsibilities, skills, and level of experience your ideal candidate will have in a fairly dry job description that will be used internally. You can use one of our pre-written job description templates that cover most of the popular roles.

3. Recruiting candidates.

First, you want to create a pool of applicants from which you can draw great candidates by putting the word out via job boards, your company career page, and employee referral program, etc. Writing a great job post is critical, and so is a well-crafted referral email for recruiting from within. If the traditional recruiting methods do not work, you should look at other ways of finding employees and modifying your overall recruiting strategy.

4. Initial screening of applicants.

Try responding to each application with an email that asks a series of around 5 questions pertinent to the position. The questions should take about 20 minutes to answer and should require the level of experience you'd expect for the job. Average candidates will not respond and great ones will, so it is an easy and efficient screening step.

5. Interviewing candidates.

Start off with a 15-minute phone interview. This will allow you to quickly determine if they really meet your qualifications and if your expectations and goals line up. We've got a full guide to phone interviews, with sample questions. For some roles you may need more specific interview questions.

For more practical tips, read our article on how to create an interview process.

6. Making your job offer.

As you go through the hiring process, be sure to check in several times with candidates on what their expected salary is. This can change, depending on other offers they're looking at. When it comes time to make your offer, send a great job offer letter template that explains everything that you're offering, including paid time off and any perks or allowances for equipment, etc.

7. Onboarding and new employee orientation.

Once your offer has been accepted, it's time to bring the new employee on board. There will be new employee paperwork you'll need to take care of, and you'll need to introduce them to your team, their workspace, and the company culture. You'll also want to go over projects and expectations for the coming months as part of a complete new employee orientation.

8. Training your new hire.

Once new employees have been shown the basics through your orientation and onboarding process, it's time to train them on any new job-related tasks they'll be responsible for.