Are you hiring? Do you have a Recruiting Checklist?

Job descriptions. Make sure you have a job description for each position in your company. Job descriptions should reflect careful thought as to the roles the individual will fill, the required skill sets, and other attributes that are important to completing their tasks.

1. Compile a “success profile.” In addition to creating job descriptions, it’s important to develop a “success profile” of the ideal employee for each position.
2. Draft the ads, describing the position and the key qualifications required. Be sure to post ads in the places most likely to be noticed by your target candidates.
3. Develop a series of phone-screening questions. Compile a list of suitable questions you can ask over the phone to help you quickly identify qualified candidates and eliminate everyone else. This will save you time compared to bringing every candidate into the office.
4. Review the resumes you receive and rank your best candidates. Once you start receiving resumes…you will have to go through them and eliminate those that are a poor fit.
5. Use the phone to screen candidates. Once you’ve narrowed your stack of resumes to a handful of potential applicants, call the candidates and use your phone-screening questions to further narrow the field. Using a consistent set of questions in both this step and your face-to-face interviews will help ensure you’re evaluating candidates equally.
6. Rank your candidates and schedule those that are the best fit for an in-person interview. Based on the responses to your phone interviews, select the candidates you feel are best qualified for the next step in the process.
7. Assess your potential candidates for their skills and attributes using a proven assessment tool. A resume and phone interview can only tell you so much about a job applicant, so you’ll need a dependable assessment tool to help you analyze the core behavioral traits and cognitive reasoning speed of your applicants. For example, a good test will provide insights as to whether the individual is conscientious or lackadaisical, introverted or extroverted, agreeable or uncompromising, open to new ideas or close-minded, and emotionally stable or anxious and insecure. The success profile you created for each position will help you determine which behavioral traits are important for that position. For example, you would expect a successful salesperson to be extroverted. On the other hand, someone filling a clerical position might be more introverted.These assessment tests can be administered in person or online. Online testing and submission of results can help you determine whether the applicant should be invited for a personal interview.
8. Schedule and conduct candidate interviews. Once you’ve selected candidates based on the previous steps, schedule and conduct the interviews. Use a consistent set of 10 or 12 questions to maintain a structured interview and offer a sound basis for comparing applicants.
9. Select the candidate. Make your selection by matching the best applicant to the profiled job description.
10. Make your offer to the candidate. The information you collected during the interview process will provide you with important insights as to starting compensation levels and training needs.
11. Order a report for employment screening purposes on the candidate to uncover any potential red flags.