Ten Things You Must Do Before You Recruit

Ten Things You Must Do Before You Recruit

Here's what you must do before you jump into recruiting:

1. Learn Federal and State Laws and Regulations.
The hiring process is rife with lawsuit traps. If you don’t know the tricky anti-discrimination laws that apply to the hiring process, your most innocent comments—even if intended to put an applicant at ease—could form the basis for an expensive lawsuit.

2. Study Your Organization’s Rules and Policies.
If you act without reviewing company rules and policies, it’s easy to be inconsistent (always dangerous) or to overstep your bounds, making commitments that you can’t live up to (for example, flying a person 2,000 miles for an interview, only to learn that relocation isn’t authorized).

Familiarize yourself with the following areas:

1. Job posting and internal search requirements
2. Union agreements and rules
3. Application form and résumé management policies
4. Equal opportunity obligations and policies
6. Relocation policies
7. Salary, compensation, and benefits policies
8. Recruiting budget
9. Reference and background checks policy

3. Clarify Your Role.
Each employer has its own way of running the recruiting process. Some are highly centralized, with the HR department doing most of the work. Others, especially in this era of leaner management, have decentralized recruiting, putting the burden on the shoulders of the hiring manager.

Ask these questions:

1. Who places advertisements?
2. Whose budget pays recruiting costs?
3. Who contacts job boards, search firms, and employment agencies?
4. Who does résumé screening, phone screening, and testing?
5. Who arranges for and conducts interviews?
6. Who extends formal offers of employment?
7. Who makes and maintains records?

4. Verify the Job Opening.
Before investing time and money in interviews, make sure that the job opening is “real.” If your organization has a formal process for approving an opening for hire, make sure that all appropriate forms are signed and authorizations are obtained.

If your organization is less formal, at least send a confirming memo to involved parties, outlining your plan.

5. Identify Controls or Constraints.
There can be any number of constraints on your hiring. You’ll just waste time if you set off without knowing what they are. Ask these questions:

1. Who else needs to interview or meet with final candidates?
2. What authority do you have to set salary?
3. Who needs to approve your final choice for hire?
4. How much of a hurry are you in?
5. Do you have authority to relocate?
6. What is the budget for advertising?
7. What is the budget for job board, search firm, or employment agency fees?

6. Picture the Perfect Candidate.
It sounds silly, but the biggest mistake in hiring is starting the recruiting process before you know what you are looking for. When there's no clear picture of the ideal candidate, you don’t know what questions to ask, what answers to listen for, and how to evaluate candidates.

You're also not going to attract the best candidates because they'll sense your fuzzy thinking, and that's a turn-off. Further, vague requirements mean you won't get poor candidates to self-select out of the process.

Don't rely on a job description; do a little digging:

1. What characteristics have helped others excel at this job?
2. What aspects of this job have caused others to fail?
3. What aspects have caused the manager the most heartache?
4. What failure in performance would get the person in this job fired?
5. In what areas did past jobholders need the most improvement?

7. Clarify for Outsiders.
Now you know what you want, but you still have to translate it into language to share outside the company. How will you describe your opening on job boards, advertisements, and notices to others helping with recruiting?

Each job is different, but in general, consider specifying the following things:

1. Number of years’ experience at a specific job
2. Specific duties or types of duties candidates should have performed
3. Specific responsibilities candidates should have had (management, training, bottom line, etc.)
4. Key characteristics or abilities
5. Industry awareness and trends
6. Degrees required
7. Certification or special training required or desirable
8. Computer abilities or software familiarity

8. Gain Agreement.
When you are comfortable with your description of what you are looking for, share it with others involved in the process. Do they agree that you have captured the essential requirements?

9. Check Legalities.
If you are not careful in setting requirements, you may be guilty of inadvertent discrimination. For example, if you set requirements that aren’t really necessary (such as a college degree for a clerical position), then you may illegally exclude a disproportionate number of members of a particular protected group.

Focus on meaningful requirements based on the position’s essential functions. Avoid any mention of age, sex, race, religion, disability, or national origin, or any characteristic protected by your state law (for example, sexual preference, marital status, or public assistance status).

10. Get Real.
Finally, make a reality check. Managers get carried away in dreaming about the “perfect” candidate, and end up describing a superhero who is overqualified for the job.

So, ask one last question: Would the candidate you have described be attracted to—and succeed at—your job?

And that's it. Get these ten preliminaries out of the way, and you are set for a successful search.

Ref: hrdailyadvisor

What is Pre – Employment Background Screening?

Pre – Employment Background Screening is a Practice adapted & followed by Organizations, Enterprise, Companies (IT, ITes, and General), Financial or any kind of Institutions to refrain or Prevent Bad Hire or effects and casualties from Bad Hire.

What are the Risks of Bad Hire?

Workplace Violence
Employee Theft
Falsified Employment Applications & Resumes
Negligent Hiring Liability
Workplace Abuse
Employee Frauds
Toxic Workplace Environment

Why Screen?

Earlier In the trusting era the wise & the famous quoted much on trust and man to be trusted, and there were times when statements of a person could be trusted. But Times have changed! In today's environment the order of the day is "Due Diligence". This service provides the "Critical Information for Informed Decisions", the value of which will save the company from financial and Reputation damages and harm.

Past Employment Verification


This is the most commonly sought test by the employers, as this test is conducted to verify whether the employment details such as Designation / Position Held, Employment period, Salary Package, Reason to Quit the Job provided by the candidate about his past employment are accurate and true.

Professional Reference Verification

Professional Reference Verification often plays vital role within final hiring decisions. The modus operandi to conduct this test is to verify the professional credentials of the candidate, such as his performance, Knowledge, Punctuality, Responsibility, Skills (soft & hard) and eligibility for rehire.

Education Verification

The modus operandi to conduct this test is to verify & authenticate the data and documents provided by the candidate are Accurate and not forged or falsified, such as the degree / qualification earned by the candidate, year of graduation or Period attended in case of undergraduates, Percentage Marks obtained etc.

Criminal Record Lookup

The basic idea to conduct this test is to confirm and verify that the candidate in past or present is indulged or convicted or recorded for any kind of offence criminal or any activity Bad in Law. The records are searched within the state police department; search is conducted on the basis of the address provided.

Personal Address Verification

The primary intention to conduct this test is to confirm the identity of an individual, this is to analyze whether the Personal Data provided by the candidate relates to him and there is no case of identity theft.

Drug Test Programme

The basic intention to conduct this programme is to assure that the candidate is not involved in any activity of consumption of legally banned drugs which may affect the performance of the candidate, environment of the office or any damage to the company.

The Talent Acquisition Killer App

In the past, the candidate intake process consisted of collecting existing information (via applications and resumes), generating new information (via assessments and interviews) and confirming information (via reference and background checks). Each step of that process generated different documents (application forms and paper resumes, printed test scores and interview notes, and background reports). And this information was all centralized in that old standby, the paper file folder.

As the process evolved, the paper folder was replaced with a subdirectory on a computer’s hard disk. Paper applications were replaced by online forms, paper resumes by scanned images, printed test scores by database records, etc., yet each of these components still existed separately from one another. While some efficiencies were gained by “going paperless”, the move from paper documents in paper file folders to scanned images on a hard disk hardly represented a re-engineering of the hiring process.

The integration of online assessments and Internet-delivered applicant tracking systems (ATS) created the opportunity to transform, rather than simply automate, candidate screening and hiring. This is because an ATS system provides more than just a centralized database of candidate records. It provides candidates and recruiters with portals into a variety of data sources including application and resume data, job interests, references, etc. Recruiters can view this information by individual candidate or in aggregate, enabling recruiters to rank candidates before choosing whom to interview. Modern ATS systems can also manage all of the steps in the recruiting and hiring process, right through employee onboarding.

Assessment is one of the few talent acquisition tools employers can use to generate new, unique data about a candidate that is not available to every other employer. And when skills and behavioral testing is integrated into automated applicant tracking, applicant tracking moves from a tool for increasing efficiency and compliance, to a platform for strategic re-engineering of the hiring process.

To begin with, simple “knock out” assessments can be used to gate the entire process, removing candidates who would be disqualified due to inexperience, legal status or some other factor before anyone wastes any time on their application. When behavioral and skills assessments are integrated later in the ATS-driven application process, recruiters can consistently compare all candidates against a job-based set of standards. Resume formats and language can vary, interviews can be subjective, and reference checks can be generic. But assessment is the one element of the talent acquisition process that creates new information related to job fit in a consistent way, through testing instruments designed to be fair and free from bias or subjectivity.

In a single platform, modern applicant tracking systems can integrate assessments, background checks, requests for substance abuse screening, even a window into whether a company can obtain tax credits by hiring a particular candidate. These capabilities do not simply increase efficiency, they transform what were once discrete processes into the “Killer Application” of talent acquisition.

Pre Employment Reference Checks

In today’s competitive environment, it has become essential to find the ‘right fit’. Hence, HR today has become overtly cautious and is indulging in extensive background checks before bringing a prospective employee on board. It has become imperative to confirm and reconfirm a candidate’s credentials, his/her character and his/her proposed experience before it’s too late.

Organizations today have become highly alert and are ready to do anything to have the kind of employees on board. The market is booming and the IT industry has witnessed a phenomenal growth and hence, it has become important to ensure that best quality professionals were getting inducted into the organization. It was a customer centric initiative to establish credibility with respect to the caliber of the people they recruit in the organization. In a well known IT company the pre-employment check, more popularly referred to as the ‘Background Check Process’ is a very critical part of the recruitment procedure. Employees are not allocated to projects without the background check being cleared for the employee.

In another Training and Staffing Solutions company, hiring is done only on referral basis and hence it becomes imperative to have referral checks as the first step in the entire pre-employment procedure. Every necessary check is done before calling the candidate for the interview. This company gives more weight age to job performances, work ethics, attendance at work and attitude. Hence, pre-employment checks form the first step. In Xerox, it is mandatory to conduct such screening and it is an auditable process. They collect detailed information about his/her candidature, personal and professional history and analyze it well.

These checks are important because they allow better-informed and less subjective evaluations to be made about a person. Integrity and performance on the job are some of the important factors today. With the advent of new MNCs into India, it is getting rather important to do pre-employment checks as companies investing heavily in India cannot risk taking employees with dubious backgrounds. The above is practiced by an organization which is into recruitment for senior level positions it becomes all the more pivotal since these candidates are going to be in strategic/leadership positions and are accustomed to a lot of confidential information.

At Patni computers, pre-employment screening is outsourced to a third party with clear ‘Service Level Agreements’ (SLAs) defined. Their screening usually consists of educational qualifications check, previous experience check and database (criminal and credit) checks.

At Enhanzee, Employment Verification means ensuring that the selected candidate actually worked in the positions listed in the application resume, cover letter or otherwise cited by the candidate that quality him/her for the position sought. Background checks, employment verification documents, reference checks, character and personal reference checks are amongst the various checks that are performed in that organization before hiring. And all these procedures are done by their in-house HR team.

Organizations in India can benefit tremendously from an employee-screening program. Decreased turnover, reduced expenses and elimination of risks of theft and fraud are just some of the advantages. Being employers, it is up to them to provide their employees a safe and secure working environment. Hence, it is their job to reject those people who might have violent or criminal records. They must be sure about the quality of our software professionals and having clear cases on board makes it that much easier to practice integrity as a value in each of their actions. The only drawback of this practice is the delay in actual allotment that happens due to stringent SLAs. However, breaking up the process into parts is done so that essential checks are completed without delay.

This procedure saves a lot of time wasted in conducting too many interviews. Once all the necessary checks are done, only a few short listed candidates are called for, which saves time and energy. The most important virtues an employer looks for in any candidate are honesty and integrity because all the other traits can be acquired but these can be inherent traits.

Today, organizations are being more and more cautious because they do not want to bear the brunt of a faulty recruitment process and bring a misfit aboard and to these organizations, pre-employment screening is a boon as they are employing people almost everyday, every hour.

How to do Background Investigations?

When the Managing director of a small technology company, started looking at candidates to fill a key position in their company, the process was predictable and smooth, shortlist resumes, interview candidates and make an offer to the one they zero in on. That is, till the Organisation chanced upon the candidate’s Orkut profile. It turned out that he happened to be a close friend of their biggest competitor.

Often employers don’t take the time to check the candidates out. There are companies now that specialize in employee background checks and that despite the fact that one in six individuals have been found to fake some information on their resumes.

Hiring professional companies for background check is an option but even that comes at a price. So what option do smaller outfits have? Well fortunately, the internet has plenty of helpful information. In fact, the information on the web can also be used for background checks in personal life. For instance, one might want to look up information on his landlord or dig up facts on a potential suitor, one just needs to know where to look.

Start with search sites: The best place to start is on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Googling some ones name as it is more popularity called can bring up some really important details. Search using the individual’s names and their business names. If a person’s name is common, search will be more difficult. Try variations of the name and include an occupation or location. One can also look up for additional information from past employment history. For instance, the potential employer may uncover previous employers’ name and addresses. This will help the current employer in checking on potential hire’s ex co-employers which can throw up great perspectives.

Googling will also throw up personal criminal history if any. Because it will also rake up any news stories the person is mentioned in. Look for personal blogs too. Google offers a specialized search tool that works on blogs. Reading up a person’s blog musings can give a good perspective on their ethics, behavior and thought process.

Try social networking sites: many employers these days check on social net working sites such as Orkut or My Space to learn about potential hires. Here one can see what people have posted about the person on their website and how he / she have reacted. This should give a fair idea of their temperament and social skills. Professionals may not turn on MySpace, but they may use business networking sites. Linkedin.com and Ryze.com are two of the most popular sites in India. Try searching for the person’s name here and you will get a gist of his/her professional background and also names of professional relation. See what people claim about business affiliations, education and work history a potential employer may find inconsistencies here.

Alumni associations: Many colleges have groups and alumni websites. These are great places to check for the candidate’s education credentials. This is another area where people tend to fake on. Here you may be able to use the web to verify college degrees. Also visit the school’s alumni association. Many list their members and graduation dates. However, if people are not listed here, that doesn’t mean they lied. It could also be that they simply don’t belong to the alumni association. But if someone is listed, it directly proves that they graduated from the college. Also, college registrar offices normally will confirm degrees. But that takes a phone call.

Go for professional organization: Though the internet is a good place to start, if information is critical, one can turn to professional organizations like First Advantage. These companies have a thorough step-by-step process of background checking. That covers reference checking education, as well as credit check and criminal checks. Costs vary alone with the service, but the starting fee is about Rs 600 ($15) per person.