Recruitment means acquiring the best talent for your organization. If you go by the book, you know modern recruiting consists of four stages of recruitment, i.e., Attract, Engage, Retain, Qualify. These levels concern the candidate.
However, what if I told you there are four different levels you might not have considered till now. This perspective is from the companies point of view or POV.
Bradford Wilkins, in an interview on Mocha Sips, opened this brand new dimension of stages of recruitment. They are as follows:
- Level 0 is when there is no communication between the 2 departments i.e. hiring department and recruiters. No candidates are hired, and all the positions are open for a long period of time.
- Level 1 is reactive. You get a requisition, and you fill it.
- Level 2 is somewhere between reactive and proactive.
‘We hired these people with this set of skills. Going ahead, we will need more such people. Let me start building on it.’
- Level 3 is the highest level of recruitment. At this level, the Talent Acquisition Department doesn’t take the recruitment requirements from the hiring manager. Instead, they understand the problem. Then they offer solutions.”
Since there is a stipulated time dedicated to the interview Brad and our interviewer couldn’t dig deeper into this topic.
Therefore, I thought of dissecting this topic and share my findings here.
4 Stages of Recruitment From The Companies POV!
1. Level 0
Communication is the key! However, due to the “alleged” friction between hiring managers and recruiters, there seems to be miscommunication.
Both parties don’t indulge much with each other and therefore when there’s a requirement of a new employee, not much heed is paid to the open position.
This becomes a failure on the part of the recruiter because the position doesn’t get filled for months and hence the company suffers.
If you are a recruiter and this is has happened with you, you know how not communicating can prove harmful and you need to work on the communication that takes place between the two departments.
Have more frequent conversations with the hiring manager. Ask them if they need any new members in the team or if there are any open positions in the team. As a recruiter, you do the needful.
2. Level 1
In level 1 even though the recruiter works, the ownership from their end is missing. They look out for candidates only when they are asked to, they become taskmasters.
Their focus lies just in the task assigned to them. For example, a recruiter knows they have open positions in the XYZ team, however, they won’t act upon it until the hiring manager asks them to find a suitable candidate.
This is a big problem because accountability is the root of recruitment. Recruiters should be driving the hiring process and be proactive enough to know when a position is open and to fill it ASAP!
They should not wait for a task being assigned to them. Pro-activeness is what is expected out of recruiters. They should know which team requires a new recruit and collaborate with the hiring manager about the job description.
3. Level 2
As mentioned above in level 2, the recruiter juggles between proactive recruitment and reactive recruitment.
Let’s understand how it works-
From the last 4 quarters, the hiring manager comes to the recruiter and asks them to fill the position for 2 iOS developers. The recruiter determines these patterns and decides to select 2 suitable candidates before the next quarter ends.
Searching for candidates in advance, keeping in mind the hiring manager’s previous requirements is very proactive. However, it is also reactive because the recruiter is following the same protocol for hiring, there can be a big possibility that the hiring manager requires android developers this time. If that’s the case then all the efforts taken by the recruiter fall in vain.
Therefore, it is always advisable to be in touch with the hiring manager before starting the hunts for the right job fit candidate.
4. Level 3
This is the ideal level of recruitment as per Bradford. As per him. This is the highest level of recruitment.
At level 3, the recruiter doesn’t just take requirements from the hiring manager, but they understand the problem and provide a solution for it.
Pretty vague, huh? Let me explain it to you with the use of an example-
The recruiter needs to be in touch with the hiring managers this is pretty obvious, however, they also need to know the team too. They should interact with each team and understand if they are falling short of the workforce.
Let’s say the recruiter interacts with the marketing team and realize they are falling short of three marketers in the team. The marketing team also has an intern in it. So? What solution does the recruiter come up with?
The recruiter up-skills the intern and has to hire only two marketers now. This is a brilliant move because this saves both the company and the recruiter a lot of resources, expense, and effort.
At level 3 the recruiter is accountable, proactive, and more focused. This brings out the problem-solving quotient in them more prominently.
Do you agree with Bradford Wilkins? As a recruiter, do you follow the same stages of recruitment or different ones? Write to us at marketing@imocha.io.
