Creating or editing a hiring process

Your hiring process takes the heavy lifting out of hiring and leads you, step by step, from needing to make a hire to making the hire. It provides you with a consistent structure to help you efficiently manage and correspond with your applicants, soothe hiring headaches, avoid common recruiting pitfalls, and — most importantly — confidently hire the right people.

Different jobs may have different hiring processes, depending on the level of evaluation needed for each position. For those who are new to recruiting or who would like extra guidance, your CareerPlug account includes a prebuilt hiring process. However, if your company already has an effective hiring process in place, you can customize your hiring process to meet your needs.

In this article:

• What's a hiring process?
• Editing an existing hiring process
• Creating a new hiring process
• Tips for improving your hiring process
• The default CareerPlug hiring process

What's a hiring process?

A hiring process is the set of steps that all applicants who apply for a job must go through before they are hired. Each new applicant is assigned a step-by-step hiring process, complete with prewritten email templates to help you efficiently correspond with applicants, as well as prebuilt interview scorecards to help you evaluate applicants.

For example, CareerPlug's default hiring process includes the following steps:

• Review/New Application
• Phone Interview
• Assessment
• In Person Interview
• References
• Offer
• Background Check
• Hire

Editing a hiring process

You can easily edit, add, and remove hiring steps from your hiring process.

1. Navigate to Settings > Hiring Tools > Hiring Process to view your existing hiring process(es).

2. Click the Edit button to the right of the hiring process you would like to update.

3. Click the pencil icon to edit an existing step in your hiring process.

4. When you edit (or add) a hiring step, you can adjust the following settings:

• Require admin completion - Turn this toggle on if you only want administrators in your account to be able to complete this hiring step.
  • For example, some companies only want Admin users to be able to complete the Hire step.
• Select Hiring Tools - Select any scorecards, invitation message templates, scheduling message templates, and CareerPlug-provided assessments you want to use for this hiring step.
  • Message templates include both email and text message templates.
• Add External Link - Add hyperlinks to important external resources or articles.
• Add Assessment Link - Add hyperlinks to external applicant assessments.

5. When you are done configuring the hiring step, click the Save Changes button.

6. When you are done updating your hiring process, click the Save and Exit button in the top-right corner.

Creating a new hiring process

When you want to create a new hiring process, you can either clone an existing hiring process in your account or start with a blank hiring process.

1. Navigate to Settings > Hiring Tools > Hiring Process.

2. Click the plus icon (+) to create a new hiring process.

3. Choose whether to Clone from Hiring Process or Create Blank Hiring Process from the drop-down menu.

4. Click the plus icon (+) on any tile on the right side of the page to add a new step to your hiring process.

5. When you add a hiring step, you can adjust the following settings:

• Require admin completion - Turn this toggle on if you only want administrators in your account to be able to complete this hiring step.
  • For example, some companies only want Admin users to be able to complete the Hire step.
• Select Hiring Tools - Select any scorecards, invitation message templates, scheduling message templates, and CareerPlug-provided assessments you want to use for this hiring step.
  • Message templates include both email and text message templates.
• Add External Link - Add hyperlinks to important external resources or articles.
• Add Assessment Link - Add hyperlinks to external applicant assessments.

6. Click Save Changes when you're finished configuring the hiring step.

7. Use the blue up-and-down arrows to re-order your hiring steps according to your needs.

8. Enter a title for your new hiring process.

9. When you are done configuring your new hiring process, click the Save and Exit button in the top-right corner of the page.

Tips for improving your hiring process

It's important to continually evaluate your hiring process before any surge in hiring. Here are some recommendations to improve your hiring process:

Optimize your job descriptions to attract the right applicants	Take inventory of your job descriptions and update the language to better sell your opportunities to job seekers. Learn more about writing effective job descriptions.
Create interview scorecards with sample questions to increase consistency in your interview process	Interview scorecards are structured lists of questions that you can include in your hiring process to increase consistency in applicant interviews. Scorecards ensure interviewers have the tools to consistently evaluate whether a candidate has the right skills and experience to succeed in a new role.
Create job templates with your customized hiring process to streamline job posting	Set up job templates to allow yourself to post new openings when you're ready with just a few clicks.
Design and implement experiential interviews to better evaluate candidates' skill sets	Have candidates role-play a scenario or complete a task they would normally encounter on the job. Customer service reps diffuse a hypothetical situation involving an angry client Sales reps make a hypothetical sales call Programmers write sample code Marketers create marketing collateral samples or edit marketing copy Experiential interviews help you evaluate whether candidates have the skills necessary to succeed in the position. More appropriate for second interviews rather than first interviews or phone screens.
Determine who will conduct interviews in advance	Decide in advance who will manage each step in your hiring process. Who conducts first interviews, second interviews, reference checks, etc. Ensure everyone who should be involved with your hiring process has access to CareerPlug. Share resources with anyone involved with your hiring process: Getting Started Guide - Account Administrators Getting Started Guide - Full Access Users Getting Started Guide - Limited Access Users
Optimize your applicant experience to stand out from the competition and reduce applicant drop-off rates	The job market is — and will continue to be — candidate-driven. Top candidates have options — ensure your hiring process is efficient, thoughtful, and attractive to job seekers. Streamline your application process to move applicants through it more quickly. This might include removing a formal application form, connecting your calendar to CareerPlug to reduce email back-and-forth, or enabling Autopilot automatic interview scheduling for your account*.
Use your careers page to market your company to job seekers	Your applicant-facing company description should be different than your client-facing company description. Your applicant-facing company description should emphasize the benefits of working for your company. Learn more about configuring your careers page.
Use text messaging and Autopilot* to improve communication with applicants and speed up your hiring process	Text messaging is designed to help you contact applicants faster and beat the competition to the punch. Send text message interview reminders to help prevent no-shows. Upgrade to CareerPlug Hire and use Autopilot to cut interview scheduling time by up to 91% and get up to 8x more interviews scheduled. Autopilot handles communication with applicants to contact and convert them to interviews faster, helping you eliminate the back-and-forth nightmare of manually scheduling interviews.
Follow CareerPlug's effective job posting recommendations to attract better applicants and hire faster	Post jobs that meet CareerPlug's effective job posting criteria to expand your talent pool with higher-quality and motivated candidates, accelerate your hiring process to save on recruitment costs, and foster a positive employer brand. On average, jobs that meet CareerPlug's effective job posting criteria receive 6x as many applicants.

_{*Autopilot is only available with a CareerPlug Hire subscription}

The default CareerPlug hiring process

The default hiring process in CareerPlug includes the following steps and hiring tools. If your account uses a custom hiring process, these steps and hiring tools may differ.

Review/New Application

Review/New Application is the first step in any hiring process. You need to decide whether or not to move applicants forward in your hiring process or remove them from consideration.

• You can view the applicant's resume and evaluate their prescreen question responses during this step.
• No configuration is required.
• You cannot add any hiring tools or templates to the Review/New Application step.

Phone Interview

The Phone Interview (or first interview) is your chance to vet candidates based on basic qualifications for the role, get a sense of their ideal job/company/manager (and check it against what you're offering to make sure it's a good fit), and validate any assumptions based on reading their resumes. Don't forget to give candidates time to ask questions at this stage — they are vetting the role too.

The Phone Screen step includes the following hiring tools:

• Email and text templates for interview invitation messages and interview scheduling messages.
• Interview scheduling messages also include a calendar invite for the agreed-upon interview date and time.
• Interview scorecard with sample questions to ask during interviews and fields you can use to document interview notes.

Assessment

The Assessment step allows you to send math/verbal and/or personality assessments to applicants to evaluate whether they possess the necessary skills and personality traits to perform the job effectively.

The Assessment step includes the following hiring tools:

• Email and text message templates for assessment invitations.
• Math/Verbal and Personality Assessments.

In Person Interview

The In Person Interview (or second interview) is where you can dive deep into your candidate's experience, potential, and culture fit. The Second Interview is at the core of a hiring process, helping you to make the decision on whether or not to offer someone a job.

The Interview step includes the following hiring tools:

• Email and text templates for interview invitation messages and interview scheduling messages.
• Interview scheduling messages also include a calendar invite for the agreed-upon interview date and time.
• Interview scorecard with sample questions to ask during interviews and fields you can use to document interview notes.

References

The References step help to validate what you’ve learned about a candidate, giving you the confidence to make the right decision. They can also provide insight on how to effectively manage a candidate once hired. It’s important to remember that you’re not conducting reference checks in an attempt to discredit a candidate. At CareerPlug, we like to assume the best in people, so our stance when it comes to reference checks is “trust, but verify.”

The References step includes the following hiring tools:

• Email template for reference check invitations (to request the names and contact information for 3 professional references).
• Reference check scorecard with guidelines for questions to ask an applicant's references.

Offer

Once you've vetted your candidate, it's time to make them a compelling offer. Don't neglect this step —the delivery of your offer is just as important as the offer itself.

The Offer step includes the following hiring tools:

• Email and text message templates for offer letter invitations.

Background Check

The Background Check step is solely for your own records as CareerPlug does not conduct background checks.

The Background Check step does not include any hiring tools. No configuration is required.

Hire

When a candidate advances to this step, it's time to complete the hiring process.

• After clicking Hire and Send to ADP, you have the option to enter new hire information, which will be imported into ADP. This will also trigger a confirmation email to your new hire.
• No configuration is required.
• You cannot add any hiring tools or templates to the Hire step.

Adding hiring tools to steps in your hiring process

When you edit a hiring step, you'll have the option to add a combination of the following hiring tools:

Invitation and Scheduling Message Templates	Message templates provide a quick, prepopulated way to contact an applicant. For example, you may send an email to invite an applicant to an interview or schedule them for one. More info.
Assessments	Assessments are completed by the applicant and help you screen and evaluate qualified candidates faster. If you add an assessment to a step, you will not be able to add a scorecard. More info.
External Link	If you have a different assessment or additional resources for this step, include the link(s) here.
Scorecards	Interview scorecards provide sample questions to help interviewers consistently evaluate applicant's responses, as well as strengths and weaknesses, during an interview. If you add an interview scorecard to a step, you will not be able to select an assessment. More info.