When asked to define an ideal recruitment process, what would your answer be? Would the perfect process be one that was performance-managed? Where through lean efficiency and the ability to refine practices based on data analytics, hiring managers were able to deliver candidates more cost-effectively, in less time, with reduced reliance on agencies?
Perhaps your aspirations are less idealised, and you would settle for a process that enabled recruitment to become less reactive, one where upcoming workforce gaps were identified and a pipeline of talent was in place to fill vacancies before they arose?
If you would like to have such a process, or have one already and are satisfied with it, the chances are you work within an HR generalist model. This model can overlook the added benefits that recruitment can deliver, something that as recruitment specialists, we are all too aware of. We believe that the recruitment process can, and should, deliver more. Focusing on time to hire, cost per hire, and ratio of direct hires is of course a necessity in the world of recruitment and all are essential tools in continually improving an operation's recruitment function. But the perfect recruitment process can do something much, much more; it can underpin a recruitment function that acts as strategic enabler, supporting key business objectives.
It can be a challenge to implement this type of process, and we'd advise that it be done in stages (unless you are buying into a ready-made, world-class example through partnering with a recruitment process outsourcer). However, typically this type of ideal process isn't even an end goal. In a large number of cases, the reason for this can be attributed to a single fact – the role of 'process owner' is taken by a stakeholder from an HR background. Their concern will be in getting metrics like CPH and TTH to a target level, probably with a view of removing it as a negative item on the boardroom agenda, rather than utilising it as a positive resource.
It seems that there can be a fundamental misalignment between the objectives of HR departments and the value-add capabilities of recruitment, which is why we have created a free eBook outlining the steps required to develop a world-class recruitment process. Not only does this describe how to achieve what HR generalists might view as a perfect process (one that is tuned to deliver increased numbers of direct hires, at lower costs and more quickly), but it also explains how, once this has been achieved, to make the next step towards a more strategic process.
