Career Resources
Understand the Recruitment Process
The companies typically follow a well-defined recruitment process, which has multiple stages. At each stage, the company looks for specific attributes in the candidates and keeps on short-listing the list of candidates for the next round. Here, we describe a typical recruitment process and what are the things a candidate should be ready for at each stage. This is meant to serve as a guideline for the prospective candidates.
The recruitment process gets kicked off with the company placing ads for their open positions. Various means used to place ads could be – job sites, media (newspapers, business magazines), web sites for the company (typically all companies these days have career options placed on their web sites).
The recruiters’ source resumes from various sources like job sites and shortlist the resumes based on their criteria, which could include:
- Educational qualification of the candidate.
- Experience of the candidate.
- The companies the candidate is working in.
- The roles the candidate has played earlier.
- What the candidate is looking for? Etc..
The overall quality of the resume, how it is presented plays a very important role in getting thru the screening round. It’s critical that the resume includes all the information and is presented amicably. A professional resume can go a long way in fulfilling this need. Once the candidate clears the screening round, the interview process actually kicks in. This is why it is important to have professionally build resume.
Telephonic interview is usually the next logical step for any short listed candidate. A candidate might need to go thru a couple of rounds of telephonic interview before being invited for a personal interview. Telephonic interviews allow the recruiter to judge the technical knowledge of the candidate without incurring heavy expenses, which are involved in personal interviews. A few guidelines, which could be helpful for the candidates during telephonic interview, are provided below:
- Ensure that you are not involved in anything else at the time of giving interview and that there are no background noises to disturb the interview process.
- Sit with a copy of your resume -- for reference
- It’s important that you are available on time for the interview. Where possible, schedule the interview for the time you know you would be available and comfortable to take the interview.
- Be confident – not over-confident. There is no substitute for confidence. Its noticed at every level.
- Don’t reschedule the interview multiple times.
- Be thorough with your subject. It leaves a very bad impression to say that you could not prepare for the interview and would like to reschedule because of this.
- Try to respond to questions within 60 seconds. You don't want to be monosyllabic, but lengthy responses will make the employer lose interest and you might lose your own focus.
- Listen and respond to answers directly. If you are unclear about a question, ask for clarification.
- Be prepared to discuss how what you've done in the past will affect how you'll perform in your future position. Give examples that show your value to the company and job.
- Prepare yourself by understanding the business of the company you are applying in, what skill set they are looking for, what do you want to achieve, what you are looking for from the company.
- It’s generally not a good idea to be stiff with your salary expectations. However, its reasonable to let your salary expectations known when asked for.
- Ensure that you have all details of all your earlier projects with you. Its not good to say ‘Sorry, I can’t recollect what I did on that project.
- Don’t take help of anyone during the interview.
- Thank the interviewer for his valuable time and considering you for the opening.
Depending on the telephonic interview/s, you could be invited for a personal interview. It’s important here that you are flexible to attend the personal interview, when you are invited. It leaves a bad impression if you change the schedule a number of times. A couple of guidelines, which could help in personal interview:
- Dress smartly. The dress code depends on the type of job you are applying for – you might want to dress formally for sales, marketing related jobs whereas casual formals will work for technical jobs.
- Ensure that you reach the venue on time. In case you are not sure of the location, ask for directions. In case you are getting delayed, inform the contact person.
- Be clear in your response – don’t stretch your answers. Be brief and to the point. It helps if you are a good listener and have good communication skills.
- Don’t argue with the interviewer – explain your answer in enough details and think twice before you are answer to any point raised by the interviewer.
- The focus during personal interview is on your overall personality and how you approach the problem, your analytic and problem solving skills.
- Take your time in providing solution. In case you are making any assumption, ensure that you note them and also explain.
- Understand the problem clearly and completely.
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