Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mohan Kannegal
With Karthik Vijayaraghavan
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Karthik Vijayaraghavan has over 14 years of experience in the field of Talent Acquisition & Management, Recruitment Process Outsourcing and HR Outsourcing. He has spent the last five years planning, implementing & managing Recruitment Process Outsourcing projects for large MNC software companies. In his current role, he shoulders the responsibility to build strong recruitment models and design unique sourcing strategies and tools. A graduate in Computer Science, his interests are a unique ability to build and enhance a motivated team of professionals in his pursuit for excellence.
Copyright Mohan Kannegal & Karthik Vijayaraghavan 2008 Photographs Usha Krishnan The authors thank Richa Mehta for her assistance in editing this book. All Rights Reserved.
This book is self-published by the authors, has been released only in an electronic format and is available for downloads at www.tractalent.com and www.amazon.com. The authors have allowed readers to freely distribute the book provided no modifications are made to the book in the distribution and the authors are acknowledged in all distributions. Please write to book@tractalent.com for more information regarding distribution of this book.
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Objective ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Scope.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 1: REQUISITIONING PEOPLE ............................................................................................................................................... 6 The Requisition Form ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Case: Verbal Communication of Requirements .................................................................................................................................................... 7 Form: Sample Requisition Form ............................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Guidelines on Using a Requisition Form................................................................................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2: JOB OPENING COMMUNICATION ................................................................................................................................. 10 Job Opening Communication (JOC) ....................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Guidelines for Writing a JOC ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 3: RECEIVING CVS ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 Receiving CVs by Email............................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Checks for Receiving CVs by Email ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14 Message: Sample Auto Reply Email...................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Receiving CVs on an Online Form (URL)............................................................................................................................................................... 15 Message: Sample Confirmation Online Message & Email ............................................................................................................................... 17 Receiving CVs as Hard Copy ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 4: CV SCREENING................................................................................................................................................................ 18 Identifying & Training CV Screeners....................................................................................................................................................................... 18 CV Screening Specification Form ............................................................................................................................................................................ 19 Form: Sample CV Screening Specification Form................................................................................................................................................ 19 Organizing CVs for Screening Email ................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Folder Structure: Sample Inbox Folder Structure................................................................................................................................................ 21 Table: Fields in the CV Information Form ............................................................................................................................................................. 22 Duplicate CV Checking ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 23 CV Screening................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Updating Sources .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24 Metrics for CV Screening ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 24 CHAPTER 5: INTERVIEW SCHEDULING & COORDINATION ............................................................................................................ 25 Identifying & Training Interview Schedulers ........................................................................................................................................................ 25
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Interview Scheduling .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Flowchart: Interview Scheduling ............................................................................................................................................................................. 26 Metrics of Interview Scheduling................................................................................................................................................................................ 28 Interview Coordination................................................................................................................................................................................................. 28 CHAPTER 7: OFFER MAKING & ON-BOARDING................................................................................................................................ 30 Flowchart: Offer Making & On-boarding................................................................................................................................................................ 30 Good Practices in Offer Making & On-boarding.................................................................................................................................................. 31 CHAPTER 8: MANAGING RECRUITMENT ........................................................................................................................................... 32 Knowing Your Recruitment Funnel.......................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Table: Sample Recruitment Funnel........................................................................................................................................................................ 32 Hiring Plan ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 33 Table: Sample Hiring Plan........................................................................................................................................................................................ 33 Planning Recruitment Team Size ............................................................................................................................................................................. 33 Table: Sample Recruitment Team Size................................................................................................................................................................. 33 Tracking & Monitoring Activity.................................................................................................................................................................................. 34 Table: Sample Daily Tracker.................................................................................................................................................................................... 34 END NOTE: PRE-RECRUITMENT TESTS ............................................................................................................................................. 35 How to Buy Tests ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 35 NEW IDEA: A COMMON APPLICATION FORM ................................................................................................................................... 37 NEW IDEA: A COMMON APPLICATION FORM ................................................................................................................................... 37 The Challenge of Individualized CVs ...................................................................................................................................................................... 37 The Software Developer Application Form ........................................................................................................................................................... 37 Table: Software Developer Application Form....................................................................................................................................................... 38 NEW IDEA: AC BUSES TO RETAIN EMPLOYEES .............................................................................................................................. 40 NEW IDEA: SMS IN RECRUITMENT...................................................................................................................................................... 41 How SMS Can Help........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 41 The Future......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 42
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Introduction
Objective
The success of companies hinges on the ability to recruit talent. Correspondingly, there is a need for the recruitment process to be run efficiently and productively. This book is intended to address this need by serving as a ready reference guide for Recruiters to enable them to hire better and for students interested in joining the recruitment function. The book explains the steps of the recruitment process that a Recruiter is involved in and suggests good practices for each step. In the chapters that follow, we have examined each step of the recruitment process in detail and have illustrated points with forms, tables and case studies where applicable. This book is intended for reading by Recruiters and students who want to pursue a career in recruitment.
Scope
This book focuses on the set of recruitment activities in which Recruiters are involved. The start point of the recruitment process for a Recruiter is requisitioning people and the finish point is rolling out offer letters to selected candidates. In line with this, the book has a chapter each on 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Requisitioning People Job Opening Communication Receiving CVs CV Screening Interview Scheduling & Coordination Offer Making & On-boarding Managing Recruitment
The recruitment process in companies also includes other aspects of recruitment such as manpower planning on the basis of business forecasts, managing different sources of CVs, using a variety of interviewing techniques and so on. This book does not cover these additional aspects of recruitment since these aspects of recruitment are usually handled by recruitment managers. A chapter on using pre-recruitment tests is included since companies in India are increasingly using pre-recruitment tests and Recruiters are involved in the buying and day-today use of pre-recruitment tests. There are also a few new ideas on recruitment towards the end of book.
Notes
The examples used in the book to illustrate points are from the software industry. However, most of the points made in the book are equally applicable across industries. Bluewater Technologies is a fictitious software company that is used for illustrations and examples in this book. In the interest of simplicity the terms CV and CVs are used throughout this book to refer to CVs, resumes, bio-data and application forms as the case may be. The phrases CV Screening, Interview Scheduling, Interview Coordination, Offer Making, and On-boarding are capitalized since the book describes these specific recruitment activities. This is done in the interest of readability and do not reflect actual practice in industry. Where references to Word, Excel and Outlook are made in this book, they refer to software applications from the Microsoft Corporation. In the context of this book, these references can be interpreted as references to generic word processing, spreadsheet and email client software applications.
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Clearly, in this case, an unambiguously written Requisition Form could have made the entire exercise more productive. We have provided a sample Requisition Form to illustrate how this document should be structured and what information it should contain. While companies may be using a software application for their recruitment process where people requisitions are made on an online form, it would still be a good idea to check if the software application has all the fields listed in the sample Requisition Form provided here.
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The Recruiter should double-check the list of No Hire Companies provided in the Requisition Form against the recruitment team database of No Hire companies. Many times, a Recruiter may be working with an outdated list of No Hire Companies with whom No Hire agreements may have lapsed. It is also important to check the details of No Hire Companies. No Hire clauses could be for specific departments within a company and not with the company as a whole. Bear in mind that each addition to the No Hire Companies list adds substantially to the lead-time required to source and hire people. Also, sometimes the addition of just one company to the list can make it close to impossible to hire for a specific skill. As a result, checking and clarifying the list of No Hire Companies is important. Reading and accepting the Requisition Form with the above guidelines in mind will significantly improve the speed and accuracy of the recruitment process. The Requisition Form is also used to track metrics for the process. Like all processes, recruitment processes have a set of metrics such as average time to close a position from the date of requisition and average days of variance from date by which offer has to be made. These metrics cannot be tracked without the date of requisition and date by which offer has to be made being known. A documented Requisition Form ensures that these dates are established and accepted by Recruiters and business teams. A documented Requisition Form can substantially reduce rework by ensuring that everyone involved in the Recruitment process business teams to Recruiters to placement consultants to candidates has a very clear understanding of the role and the kind of people who can fit into the role. This can improve the efficiency of the hiring process dramatically. Also, the Requisition Form is referred to again and again throughout the recruitment process as we shall see in the following chapters. Hence, it is important to have an accurately documented Requisition Form. The next step in the recruitment process is the Job Opening Communication to the various CV Sources. This is discussed in the next chapter.
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An accurate and well-written JOC ensures clear handover of information from Recruiters to CV sources, reduces rework, and improves productivity within the recruitment process. If the guidelines provided in this chapter are followed, it will help in the creation of good JOCs. The next step in the recruitment process is Receiving CVs which is discussed in the following chapter.
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Chapter 4: CV Screening
CV Screening is the process of matching CVs received against a Job Opening, and selecting CVs for the next step in the recruitment process or rejecting the CV. This chapter will discuss the CV Screening process and cover the different aspects of CV Screening.
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Once CV Screeners are hired, they have to be trained to ensure that they screen accurately. Some of the things that CV Screeners should be trained on are The structure of the IT Industry software products companies (Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle etc.), software services companies (Accenture, Cap Gemini, Infosys, Wipro etc.), hardware companies (Dell, HP etc.), Embedded Systems companies (Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Sasken etc.), chip manufacturers (Intel, AMD etc.) and so on The different roles in the IT Industry Software Developer, Software tester, System Administrator, Database Administrator (DBA), Team Lead, Business Architect, Project Lead, Project Manager etc. and a description of what each role does The different types of Technologies Operating Systems, Programming Languages, Databases, Business Applications, Enterprise Applications with popular examples for each type of Technology. For instance, Oracle and SQL Server as examples of databases with a brief description of what each Technology does. Reading and understanding a CV Screening Specification Form Resume Screening training with hands on assignments with a set of CVs Monthly monitoring of conversions (CV screener select to business team select) and discussions with business teams to ensure alignment of CV Screening with business team requirement On completing the hiring and training of CV screeners, the next step is to assign CVs along with a Specification Document. The details of the CV Screening Specification Form are explained in the next section.
Job Role
Job Code
Restricted Companies
JD01
BE, MCA
JCP
MeritTrac
Bluewater, Northwind
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It is a good practice for Recruiters to obtain agreement on the CV Screening Specification Form from business teams before starting CV Screening, especially where large volumes of CVs have to be screened. Also, since CV Screening is a continual process, it is a good idea to periodically review the CV Screening Specification Form with business teams to ensure that business teams and Recruitment teams are aligned in their understanding of the requirement. Of special significance is the Screening Parameter (Descriptive) column. This contains the description of the ideal candidate. This column is very important since it contains the nuances of the kind of person being considered for the role. These nuances may not come across clearly from reading up on the remaining fields.
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Also, it is a good idea to tabulate some of the information on a CV onto an Excel sheet or an online application, rename the CV and then insert a link to the renamed CV back into the Excel sheet or online application. The reason for doing this is that in any recruitment process there is a need to refer to the original CV sent for different reasons. Tabulating the information and linking the CV document to the tabulated information ensures easy and fast access. Since large sums of money are spent on advertising and attracting CVs, companies would like to maximize the number of hires from a given Ad by considering the CVs that do not fit into a specific role for other roles within the organization. The table below, titled CV Information Form Fields, lists a set of fields that should be captured to make the process of searching for CVs more efficient.
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The CV Screeners should enter information available on the CV into the fields listed in the CV Information Form. They should then copy the CV attachments in the emails, paste them into a folder in Windows Explorer, and rename the CV file to a meaningful name based on a naming convention. An example of the naming convention could be
<<Candidate Name>> + <<location>> + <<Skill>> + <<Years of experience>>, For example, KarthikV-Bangalore-Java-4yrs.doc.
This step can also be done automatically by using any of several software utilities that are available on the Net. The reason to do this is that several of the emails received have CVs attached whose file name are repeated, for instance most CVs are named CV.doc or CV1.doc. This makes it impossible to uniquely trace a CV back to a person and does not allow the CV Screener to save the file on Windows as well. Renaming the CVs ensures unique identification of CVs.
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Duplicate CV Checking
Some sources of CVs Placement Consultants, Employee Referrals are rewarded for sending a CV that eventually converts into a job offer. Owing to this fact, it is important to know which source sent a CV first. It is quite possible that two different sources have sent the same CV and is hence critical that we know which source sent it first to ensure that the reward reaches the right person. Also, processing a CV from receipt to offer is a time consuming and expensive process. As a result, the CV screener has to ensure that CVs already processed are not resubmitted. Owing to these factors, checking for duplicate CVs is a key requirement. Hence, checking for duplicate CVs has to be carried out as a part of the CV Screening process. Checking for duplicate CVs requires checking for a combination of data points which could serve as pointers to duplication for instance, checking for fields such as Last Name, Date of Birth, email Id, Phone number, Company currently employed in etc. The key challenge in checking for duplicate CVs is the fact that two people can have the same last name and Date of Birth but still be two different people. So duplicate CV checks require a two stage process Identify possible duplicates through a check on different field combinations such as Last Name + Date of Birth or Phone Number + Email ID + First Name. These checks can be built into Excel in the CV Information Form, which can automatically alert CV Screeners for possible duplicate CVs. A more detailed comparison of the two CVs, which have been identified as possible duplicates, can be carried out. CV Screeners can pull out these possible duplicate CVs, match them and see if they are actually duplicates.
With these checks in place, it is possible to identify duplicate CVs and avoid the challenges that duplicate CVs pose.
CV Screening
The actual activity of screening CVs is done by CV Screeners. The CV screener refers to the CV Screening Specification Form and screens CVs based on the specification. If this is done for CVs received by email, then the emails are opened, the attachment containing the CV is opened and the CV is scanned. Each of the criteria that are listed in the CV Screening Specification Form is searched for in the CV. For instance, if Educational Background specification says MCA then the CV screener checks the document to see if the candidate is an MCA. This exercise is repeated for each of the parameters. If the CV does not fill any criteria, it is rejected at that stage itself. If the CV meets all the criteria listed in the CV Screening Specification Form, then the CV is put into one of the select folders. There may be a single select folder or multiple folders depending on other parameters like city of current residence, or specific technology skill or role applied for. While screening CVs it is important that CV screeners look for the aspect that causes maximum rejection first. For instance, if 70% marks in Engineering is a prerequisite and if this mark in Engineering is rare, it is important to look for this first while screening CVs. The parameter that is easiest to check and causes maximum rejections should be looked at first. This increases the efficiency of CV Screening substantially. In case there is an online application form, then screening is simpler since an online application form would have a search interface. The CV Screener would be required to enter information from the CV Screening Specification Form into
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the search interface and search for CVs that meet the selection criteria. Some of the specifications may be not be possible to search through the search interface. For these cases, it may be required to use the search interface to narrow down the set of CVs, and then pull out the relevant ones.
Updating Sources
One of the critical roles of the CV Screener is keeping the various CV sources informed about the status of the CV. The updates provided to each source are different and are dependent on different factors. The update provided to each CV Source is discussed below For CVs obtained in response to an ad, response emails are sent to each of the candidates. Short-listed candidates are congratulated and the details of the next steps of the selection process are communicated to them. Rejected candidates are thanked for their interest in the job and explained that unfortunately they do not match the requirements of the job at that point in time. For CVs obtained from placement consultants, emails are sent to the placement consultants. The placement consultant is given the details of the next steps of the selection process for the short listed candidates. The placement consultant is also requested to thank the rejected applicants and explain that they do not match the requirement at that point in time. Informing placement consultants quickly and regularly is very important since it gives the placement consultants time to source more CVs if the candidates have been rejected. For CVs referred by employees, the employees are kept informed of the status of the application. To ensure that more candidates are referred, it is important to give quick updates to employees and also explain why their referrals were rejected. For selected candidates it is important to keep the employee posted so they know they will get the employee referral reward. These updates to each of the CV sources will ensure that all CV sources actively participate in sourcing more CVs.
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The areas that should be covered while training Interview Schedulers are The company, the businesses it operates in and the locations the company is present in a broad understanding of the company is essential. The business unit that is currently hiring the size of the business unit, the locations, the roles, the hierarchy, the projects the business unit works on. A good understanding of the Business Unit is required. The specific role that candidates are being interviewed for this would mean the ability to explain the role to candidates, clarify queries candidates might have on the role and sell the role to candidates. A very good understanding of the specific role is the objective. Mock Interview Scheduling calls using a script the trainees make the calls and the trainer acts as a candidate and puts the trainees through different scenarios during Interview Scheduling. On completing hiring and training of Interview Schedulers, the next step is to assign a list of candidates to the Interview Scheduler along with an Interview Scheduling script. The details of the Interview Scheduling process are explained in the next section.
Interview Scheduling
We have a sequence of steps that outline the activity involved in scheduling interviews. The steps are illustrated in the flow chart.
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The list of candidates who are to be interviewed should be drawn out from the CV Information Form. This ensures that all information regarding the candidate is available to the Interview Scheduler while making the phone call. Obtain confirmed time slots from business teams which are interviewing. Also obtain a signoff from business teams on the duration of each interview and make a table of interviewers and time slots that they are available for Work with the list of candidates to be scheduled and the table of interview time slots available. Match candidates to the interview time slots. Then call up a candidate, introduce yourself, set the context, communicate the time slot for the interview to the candidate, obtain candidates confirmation, send a confirmation email to the candidate and complete the call. Since Interview Scheduling is essentially about bringing two sets of people interviewer and interviewees together at a given time, the key skill required is the schedulers ability to convince candidates and interviewers to agree to time slots. This requires the Interview Scheduler to convince candidates to agree to a time slot. For the actual call with the candidate, it is a good practice to work from a script. An Interview Scheduling script should contain sections on basic rules of scheduling interviews, how to introduce yourself, a description of your company, description of the role being hired for, interview details (these will vary from candidate to candidate) and closing the call. The sections of the Interview Scheduling script are Basic rules for scheduling interviews includes choosing a time of day to make the call when candidates would be open to discussing a job change, speaking slowly and clearly and sounding enthusiastic on the phone. Greet and introduce yourself and your company ensuring that the company name is said slowly and clearly. During the conversation, mention the company name a few times so that it registers with the candidate. During the call, tell the candidate the purpose of your call, about the job as given in the JD and that his/her resume meets the requirement. Check the availability of the job candidate for an interview and confirm the time, date, venue, and interviewer name to the candidate. Check alternate time slots if the candidate does not find the specified time slot possible.
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Provide accurate information regarding the venue for the interview and provide directions to reach the venue. Confirm the email address of the job candidate so that an email with the details of the interview is also sent. Include a route map to the address in the email sent out. If there are documents that job candidates are required to bring along to the interview, highlight this to the candidate over the phone and reiterate by email. Close the call by requesting the candidate to tell you back all the details of the interview to ensure he or she has understood it correctly. These guidelines help in ensuring that a large number of candidates who have applied appear for the interviews.
Interview Coordination
Interview Coordination is the next step in the recruitment process. This is the process of coordination from when the candidate arrives at a venue for an interview to when a candidate completes the interview and leaves the interview venue. Since interview coordination requires interaction with candidates, it is a good idea to have Interview Schedulers managing the process of interview coordination also. This ensures that the candidate has a familiar person as the point of contact during the interview process. During interview coordination, the candidate meets a representative of the company for the first time. It is a great opportunity to create a positive impression on candidates and on business team representatives who will conduct the interviews. Since Interview Coordination is about extensive communication with the candidate, the focus is on being courteous and friendly. It is also important that in case a candidate does not make it through the interview, this information should be communicated tactfully to the candidate and the word rejected never used during any conversation.
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Interview Coordination involves interaction with the candidate and interaction with the interviewer. The steps and the guidelines for the steps are Interaction with the candidate Welcome the candidate with a smile and be polite and courteous. Introduce yourself and share your mobile number/ desk number so that the candidate can contact you in case he/she requires assistance. Tell the candidate the name of the interviewer he/she will be meeting. Reconfirm the role that the candidate is being considered for. Take the candidate in to the interview room and introduce the candidate to the interviewer. Introduce the interviewer to the candidate. In case the candidate has to wait, make sure the candidate is seated comfortably; magazines or newspapers are provided to the candidate and candidate kept informed about the expected wait time. Once the interview is complete, indicate the date and time by which the candidate will receive a response and thank the candidate for coming. In cases where the result of the interview is available, communicate it to the candidate. In case the candidate has not made it through the interviews, communicate this tactfully. Interaction with the Interviewer Provide the interviewer with a schedule of interviews at the beginning of the day In case, there are candidates who confirm attendance but do not turn up, call and check with the candidate. Also, inform the interviewer that some candidates have not turned up and there may be a delay in their coming for the interview. At the end of the interviews, thank the interviewer and tell him/her that you look forward to their participation going forward as well. The guidelines provided here will help in making a good impression on candidates and business teams. The next step in the recruitment process is Offer Making and On-boarding.
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Once the offer has been rolled out to the candidate, the follow up process through to the Onboarding of the candidate is an extremely important stage in the recruitment process. It is also the final stage in the entire process.
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Hiring Plan
All recruitment plans center around an Onboard Target - the number of people who have to join the company by a certain date. Hiring numbers are always Onboard Targets. When the Onboard Target is known, it can be fed into the recruitment funnel which can then calculate backwards to arrive at the number of transactions that will need to be done at each stage of the recruitment process. For instance, if the Onboard Target is a 100 hires, the recruitment funnel tells us that to be able to Onboard 100 candidates we need 125 HR Interview Pass & Offers (100 divided by 80%). Further to get a 125 HR Interview Pass & Offers we need 156 Business Interview Pass and so on. This is illustrated in the table titled Sample Hiring Plan. By looking at the Sample Hiring Plan, we realize that for this specific recruitment funnel, it needs 1484 CVs to be sourced to be able to achieve the Onboard Target of 100 people.
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In the sample daily tracker shown, the number of CVs that have been passed by Business Interviewers is 42 though the expected number is 10. This shows that there is a pile up of CVs at the Business Interview stage. This alludes to the fact that while Business Interviewers are interviewing and passing candidates, they are not being subsequently interviewed by HR teams which is leading to the pile up. The resolution in this case could be adding more people to do HR interviews to remove the pile up. These are the guidelines for managing the recruitment process. By adhering to these guidelines and the other set of best practices and guidelines mentioned in the previous chapters, we believe the recruitment process can be made more productive. Happy hiring!
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Ask for historical scoring patterns on the Test. The historical scoring patterns known as Norms are required to make an interpretation of a score. For instance, if a job applicant scores 34% on a C Programming Test it is hard to draw any conclusion from this information alone. But if you knew that 90% of all Test takers have scored 33% or less on the Test it tells us that this job applicant is probably good at C Programming. A better indicator would be if we said 90% of all software programmers from some of the best software companies scored less than 33% on this Test, it would tell us that the Test taker is certainly a very good C Programmer. The Norms can be used to interpret scores of Test takers. Ask for a recommended selection criteria. A Test publisher is required to study the competencies required for a job and the degree to which each competence is required and then recommend a selection criteria (a minimum score) on the Test. This demonstrates the Test publishing companys experience in selling this Test. Discuss and understand the details of administering the Test. A Test works correctly only when it is administered as per the recommendations made by the Test Publisher. Tests have to be usually administered under supervision to ensure there is no copying, Test instructions should be unambiguous and unbiased, the Test should be presented in an easily readable format, and there should be no typographical errors in the Test, Test administrators should be trained on handling test taker questions etc. A poorly administered Test returns unreliable scores. Ask the Test publisher to provide several sets of Question Papers. It is important to have multiple sets of question papers to ensure that the Tests do not become public domain information. It is also important to check if the Test publisher has the bandwidth to create further sets of question papers since a Test publisher should be able to provide several sets of question papers over many years. In addition, the Test publisher should have a process and the expertise to create multiple sets of question papers which have equivalent difficulty levels. These guidelines will go a long way in identifying a good Test publisher from whom Tests can be purchased and used.
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form or sending an email attachment have found that less than twenty percent of applicants fill out web forms while everyone else opts to send CVs by email. A solution that can provide the advantages of a web application form with the convenience of email could be for companies to agree on a standard Application Form, which is acceptable to all companies within an industry. Our own experience, screening over a million CVs for different companies has shown that most companies within an industry look for the same information on a CV. Moreover, some information is common across industries, for instance, years of experience, projects worked on, current employer and education. Given this, it is possible to adopt an Application Form that is acceptable to across an industry. We have created a sample Application Form for the Software Development industry which is shown in the table below. Similar field lists can be put up for an industry body with participants across companies discussing and agreeing on a common format.
Some rules for using the common Application Form could be Applicants should not change field names Applicants should demarcate field names with an agreed separator like :, Application Forms should be submitted only in plain text format (so that it can be opened on any Operating System) Application Form files should be named as Name+Role+DateOfBirth+ DayPhone so that they are uniquely identifiable With a standard Application Form, the process of CV Screening can be made more accurate since information is available in specific fields. Further, it would possible to break up CV Screening into two activities the first part would be screening applicants on the basis of hard facts age, educational background, willing to relocate etc which can be done by almost anyone. The second part would be to present the short-listed applicants information in a tabular format to business teams and business teams would choose applicants based on projects executed. This way, business teams can participate in the CV Screening process.
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For applicants, the big benefit is write once, apply several times. A Job applicant would create a standard Application Form at the beginning of their career. As he or she goes along, they add or edit information on the Application Form. Each time they apply for a job, they open the standard Application Form, double check information, attach it and email it. And everyone employers, placement companies and job sites - accept the Application Form since its an industry standard. Finally, it is easy to write software to read the Application Form since the format is known and field delimiters clearly demarcate information. Software can be written to read and upload information on application forms into a database from where it is easy to search and retrieve information. And since all sources of CVs use the Application Form as an interchangeable format, it is possible to put CVs from different sources into a single database a big challenge currently. Acceptance of such an Application Form has to be driven by the top companies in each industry. Companies will have to agree on a standard Application Form and insist that everyone applying to them use it. With time the industry could move towards an only standard Application Forms accepted model. To popularize the Application Form and to educate job applicants the Form could be made available on websites of employers, assessment companies, placement companies, HR portals, and emailed across to college campuses.
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The Future
One of the emerging areas where SMS can be used is in Ad responses. Candidates read a Job Ad in the newspaper in the morning and note down the email address or URL they have to apply to. They login to the Internet in the evening and apply to the job. Many candidates may forget to apply or may never get around to applying. Response to Job Ads is rarely instantaneous, but using SMS it can be made instantaneous. It would work as follows. A Job Ad in the newspaper has a five-digit SMS code for each of the job sites. On sending an SMS to the five-digit code with a candidates job site CV number and the email id of the company, the job site forwards the CV to the companys email id. For instance, Mohan is a candidate who sees a Job Ad for Bluewater Technologies in the newspaper. The code for Naukri.com is 58484 on the Job Ad. Mohan sends an SMS to 58484 where the message reads 1244478 javajobs@bluewater.com. The CV number 1244478 is picked up by naukri.com and forwarded to javajobs@bluewater.com. This can make responding to Job Ads instantaneous.