Making the right decisions throughout the hiring process has a big impact on how long it takes to find talent, the resources you invest, and employee retention rates. To see optimal results, you need to constantly be improving. Many HR teams find it helpful to visualize the process, which involves using a hiring process flowchart.
The following tips will help you incorporate a hiring process flowchart into your workflow to see the best results.
What Is a Hiring Process Flowchart?
A hiring process flowchart shows each step the company needs to take to bring a new employee onto the team. It specifies who will carry out each activity (naming either the individual or the department), how long each step should take, and when you need to come to a decision.
It’s common to use design software to create a hiring process flowchart, but it’s also possible to draw one by hand. You’ll typically use different colors and box shapes to express the different types of information, with arrows linking the boxes.
Why Do You Need a Hiring Process Flowchart?
A hiring process flowchart should reduce how much you spend on hiring, keep you compliant with employment law, and prevent mistakes. It does this in a few ways.
First, it ensures that everyone involved in recruitment efforts are following the same steps. When the process is consistent, it becomes clearer where you need to make improvements, such as to eliminate bottlenecks. Second, specifying who is responsible for each step will prevent miscommunication, which could otherwise lead to delays or cause multiple people to waste time working on the same task. Lastly, it improves retention by improving the candidate experience and ensuring you adhere to regulations.
How to Create a Hiring Process Flowchart
A hiring process flowchart typically consists of the following steps.
Step 1: Identify What You Need in a Candidate
The start of the process is often a collaboration between HR and the hiring manager, as each will have different ideas about what characteristics and skills they need from an employee to fill the role. For instance, the hiring manager will be aware of what the department needs, whereas HR may know more about the long-term goals of the company and how to ensure the hiring is compliant.
In particular, you’ll need to determine what knowledge and experience applicants should have to be able to carry out the main duties of the role. Consider both what is essential and what would be helpful but not critical (such as skills the employee could learn on the job). It’s important to consider what expertise other team members possess and where there are gaps you need to fill. Use this information to create a persona of the ideal candidate that you can compare with the real applicants you receive.
Step 2: Write a Job Description
Put everything you determined in the first step into writing by crafting a job description. Make it clear what responsibilities the new hire will have, what skills and qualifications you expect the employee to bring to the table, and other key details, such as location, type of employment (full time or part time; onsite, hybrid, or remote), and the start date.
In addition, talk about what your company has to offer candidates. Ensuring the job sounds appealing is key to attracting top talent. Beyond compensation, mention benefits and other perks. If there are opportunities for advancement within the company or chances to up-skill, mention these as well. Lastly, it’s useful to tell candidates more about the company and its mission to ensure you attract applicants with the same values and who fit the company culture.
Step 3: Attract or Source Talent
It makes sense to search for applicants both passively and actively to maximize your chances of finding the talent you need. You should use several channels, such as:
- Job boards
- Social media like LinkedIn
- Campus job fairs and other recruitment events
- Traditional media
- Employee referrals
- The career page on your website
- An external recruiter
- The employees you already hire
Bear in mind, you don’t need to use all the channels every time you’re searching to hire someone. Think about the demographics of the kind of employee you’re likely to hire and consider where you’re most likely to find such talent.
For example, to fill an entry-level position with a recent grad, your best option may be to attend a college job fair. However, if you’re looking for someone for a leadership position, you’ll likely want to go through a recruitment agency.
Step 4: Assess Applicants
One of the most important steps in the hiring process is the evaluation of applicants to decide who should move to the next stage. It’s crucial to prevent wasted time on applicants who are unsuitable, but it’s equally critical to avoid dismissing an applicant who could be a perfect fit.
There are a few key things to assess:
- How closely they meet the requirements of the job description. Reject any resumes that lack qualifications and experience that are requirements for the job.
- Whether they share your company’s values. Things like posts on social media and volunteer work are good indicators.
- If their skills are up to par. Providing skills assessments is ideal for checking if applicants are being truthful about their abilities — this is important because more than half of all job seekers lie on resumes to some degree. Alternatively, you could ask for work samples or portfolios.
You may also decide to run background checks at this point to look at credit scores and criminal history.
Step 5: Interview Candidates
Take the shortlist of candidates to the next stage by inviting them to an interview — either in person or over video chat or a phone call if it’s for a remote position. For senior positions, you’ll need to conduct several rounds of interviews with different people at the company. It’s best to stick to a standardized set of questions to ensure the process is unbiased.
Interviews are a chance to dig deeper to find out applicants’ motivation for applying for the job, the extent of their skills, and their availability. It’s also useful to have someone interviewing the candidate ask questions to assess their skills and learn more about their thought process when presented with a problem to solve.
Remember that candidates are assessing you just as much as you are evaluating them — they’re making a decision about whether you’re the company they want to work for. Show candidates you appreciate them taking the time to talk with you, practice active listening by asking follow-up questions, and give candidates the chance to ask their own questions. It’s also important to review applications right before interviews to know basic facts about candidates and avoid them needing to repeat information in resumes.
Don’t expect to remember the fine details about candidates later, especially if you have many interviews. Take notes to compare candidates to each other to come to a final decision.
Step 7: Carry Out Any Remaining Checks
You may prefer to do background checks after interviewing rather than during the evaluation part of the hiring process. It’s also ideal to do reference checks after interviews, as this will mean you’re only requesting references from candidates who have a good chance at receiving a job offer. Reference checks will ensure candidates are who they say they are and reveal information about candidates that they may not have told you. Make sure to only search for information you’re legally allowed to access and gain any required consents from candidates.
Step 8: Provide a Job Offer
Once you’ve used all the above to determine who you want to offer the job to, you’ll need to entice the candidate to agree to work for the company by providing an appealing letter of offer. Include all the key information the candidate needs to come to a decision, but also express your excitement about having the new hire join your team and emphasize why you’ve chosen the particular person for the job. Provide the offer as soon as possible to avoid losing the perfect candidate to a competitor.
If a candidate is hesitant to accept an offer, try to find out why. There may be things you can do to make the offer more appealing for the individual. Even if there isn’t, any feedback you glean will be beneficial for improving the hiring process in the future.
Step 9: Onboard the Candidate
The hiring process finishes with onboarding, which turns a candidate into an employee. Provide all the documentation the candidate needs to formally accept the position and to give you the information you need to bring the person onto your team.
Remember that the candidate experience is still important at this stage. In fact, exceptional onboarding means employees are 2.6 times more likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace, which reduces turnover. Ensure new employees feel prepared to start working by introducing them to others on your team (including to their direct supervisors and a work buddy), giving them access to their accounts, and providing them with the equipment they need for the job. Schedule regular check-ins for the first few weeks to ensure the new hire is settling in well.
Types of Hiring Process Flowcharts
There are a few ways to approach putting the above steps into a hiring process flowchart:
Linear Flowcharts
The simplest (and most common) type of flowchart is linear. You progress through the steps sequentially — from identifying your needs to onboarding.
This is likely suitable if you always do the steps in the same order and want to ensure you stay organized.
The drawback is this doesn’t work if you need to circle back to repeat earlier steps in the hiring process.
Parallel Flowcharts
To take a linear flowchart to the next level, use a parallel flowchart. This splits the main activities into smaller tasks that may happen concurrently, such as if they’re the responsibility of different team members.
Starting tasks as soon as it becomes possible to do them rather than waiting just to follow a linear model may speed up the hiring process, which will improve efficiency.
However, you may find it makes coordination more difficult.
Collaborative Flowcharts
A good option if multiple people are involved in the hiring process is a collaborative flowchart.
You may decide to use this model if you want many team members to help choose new hires for reasons like reducing potential bias, improving candidate experiences, and bringing more perspectives into the decision-making process.
However, there’s a risk that involving too many people could make the process confusing or waste resources.
Department-Specific Flowcharts
If several departments at your company will be involved in the hiring process, you may like to use a department-specific flowchart. This shows what each department is working on at any given time by putting tasks in “swim lanes” next to each other.
Such an approach may be useful if you want to keep track of processes that are occurring simultaneously and consider how they interact.
However, it’s again important to keep your flowchart simple to avoid it becoming confusing.
Mistakes to Avoid When Creating a Hiring Process Flowchart
A hiring process flowchart will only improve your recruitment efforts if it is well designed. Avoid these common mistakes:
- Failing to make improvements over time — The point of a hiring process flowchart is to find out where you’re falling short and adapt the flowchart as necessary. It’s a good idea to have regular check-ins with your HR team, hiring managers, and anyone else involved in the hiring process and use their feedback to make changes.
- Making it overly complex — One thing you may realize you need to improve is the level of detail. Including too much detail will make your flowchart confusing and difficult to follow. Stick to the basics on the flowchart itself, providing additional documentation for supplementary information.
- Skipping steps — On the flip side, you may notice you’ve missed off steps in the hiring process. It doesn’t matter if a step seems obvious: it needs to be on the flowchart and in the right place.
- Neglecting compliance — You need to be specific about how the steps you take on your hiring process flowchart will be compliant with labor laws. This will ensure you avoid issues that cause a headache (and could be expensive) later.
- Using incompatible software — Some software may be unable to create the more complex types of hiring process flowcharts. A better option than to choose a different flowchart is to change software.
An Alternative Option: Outsourcing Your Hiring
If hiring is taking up too much of your time or you often find you make poor decisions — even with tools like a hiring flowchart at your disposal — consider outsourcing the activity to a professional. This is definitely worthwhile if you want to hire talent abroad, as the regulations are even more complex and often mean you need to set up a legal entity in the country where you want to hire.
With Remote People, you can hire talent in 150 countries in a matter of days. All talent is pre-vetted, meaning we’ve interviewed the candidates, checked their references, and evaluated their skills before we recommend them to you. All you need to do is let us know your hiring requirements and we’ll have a list of candidates for you within five days. Request a proposal to get started.
Author: Charlotte Evans
Charlotte is an Human Resources Information Systems and Martech expect, Charlotte has worked for major brands in the industry including FactorialHR and Tooltester. Originally from Manchester, UK, with a Bachelor's degree from the Manchester Metropolitan University, Charlotte currently lives in Barcelona, Spain.
