A Beginner's Guide To Recruitment: Mohan Kannegal

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A Beginner’s Guide to Recruitment
Mohan Kannegal
With Karthik Vijayaraghavan
A Beginner’s Guide To Recruitment Copyright 2008 Mohan Kannegal & Karthik Vijayaraghavan
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About The Authors
Mohan Kannegal is Co-Founder, Director and Head of Delivery at

MeritTrac, India's largest pre-recruitment assessment company. He
manages Recruitment Process Outsourcing and Assessments at MeritTrac.
He is responsible for processing and assessing 2 million job applicants each
year for MeritTrac’s 400+ customers.
Mohan is a Production Engineer from the National Institute of Technology,

Surat and has an MBA from the S.P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai.
Before MeritTrac, he has worked in the IT industry. His interests are
technology in recruitment, creative writing and yoga. Mohan blogs at
tractalent.com.
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.
You can write to the authors at book@tractalent.com.
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. Requisitioning People
2. Job Opening Communication
3. Receiving CVs
4. CV Screening
5. Interview Scheduling & Coordination
6. Offer Making & On-boarding
7. 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-to-
day 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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Chapter 1: Requisitioning People

For the purposes of this book, the first step in the
recruitment process is the stage where business teams
make a hiring request to the recruitment team. We term
this step as requisitioning people. There are several
activities that precede requisitioning people such as
business growth projection by business teams, people
requirement planning against business requirement and so
on. These activities are not considered within the scope of
this book.
Requisitioning People is the step where business teams make a hiring request to the
recruitment team. In several companies, business teams make the request through a form
usually, called the Requisition Form. In some cases, such requests are also made by email or
telephone.
The Requisition Form

It is a good practice to ensure that hiring requests are made through a well-designed Requisition
Form. A Requisition Form serves the purpose of accurately describing and documenting an
open position, which makes handover of information between business teams and recruitment
teams unambiguous. The recruitment team then uses the Requisition Form as the starting point
for the entire recruitment activity. At every stage of the recruitment process the Recruiter should
refer to this document to ensure that people sourcing is in line with people requirement. For
instance, during a first level telephonic screen of a candidate, the Recruiter would use the
Requisition Form to describe the job to the candidate on the phone.
The minimum information required on a Requisition Form is
Job Description
Candidate Description
Number of open positions
Date by which the open positions have to be filled
The Requisition Form should be created by business teams and then discussed with the
recruitment team. In cases where business teams don’t have the time or the inclination to create
a Requisition Form, the Recruiter can talk to the business team, fill out the Requisition Form and
obtain an approval on the Requisition Form from the relevant business team before
commencing work. It is in the organization’s best interest to ensure all people requisitions have
a filled out Requisition Form. This avoids rework and increases Recruiter productivity. In several
cases, people requisitions are made and accepted verbally or by email. While this appears to be
a faster way of making a requisition, it almost always ends up in rework since the exact
requirements of the business team are not understood by the Recruiter. In our own experience
we have noticed that most companies have Requisition Forms but do not always use them. This
leads to rework and business teams saying, “Recruiters don’t understand what we need”. This is
illustrated in the case below.
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Case: Verbal Communication of Requirements

One of the largest teams at Bluewater Technologies recently received approval for adding to their
current team size. The team decided that they wanted to hire candidates with two years experience in
Java Programming and they would prefer Engineers. The business team manager spoke to his team’s
Recruiter and conveyed his requirement. He also said he wanted the positions to be closed in two week’s
time. Based on this discussion the Recruiter sourced CVs and interviews were scheduled. In all, fifteen
interviews were scheduled in order to close these open positions.
After the business team interviewed the fifteen candidates, they got back to the Recruiter with feedback
that the profiles sourced were a complete mismatch to the kind of people they were looking for. They said
they needed people who were experienced in Java Programming and had strong Database skills. The
Recruiter responded saying “You never said anything about strong Database skills”. To which the
business team manager said “Didn’t you know that all our projects use Databases and strong Database
skills is a prerequisite. I thought that was obvious.”
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.
Form: Sample Requisition Form
# DEPARTMENT Details
Department Name
Description
JOB DESCRIPTION
Name of the position
Role & Responsibilities
Position Reports to Position
Salary Band
Location
CANDIDATE DESCRIPTION
Necessary Skills (This can be more elaborate with options to tick
from a list of technology skills)
Desirable Skills
Relevant Work Experience (Years/Months)
Total Work Experience (Years/Months)
Essential Qualification /Certification
Desirable Qualification/Certification
Target Companies – names of companies from which it would be
ideal to hire from
No Hire Companies – names of companies from which hiring is not
allowed
OPEN POSITIONS & TIMELINE
Number of Open Positions
Date of Requisition
Date by which Offer has to be made
Any other information
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Guidelines on Using a Requisition Form

On receiving a Requisition Form, Recruiters should read it and ensure that the requirement of
business teams is realistic. Below is a set of guidelines to Recruiters on things to do after
receiving a filled out Requisition Form.
It is important that the Recruiter reconfirm with business teams on different aspects
of the “Role & Responsibilities” section of the Requisition Form. This is to ensure that
the Recruiter accurately communicates the role to the candidate at different stages of
the recruitment process. A gap in the understanding of the role between a Recruiter
and business teams can cause slippages in position closure times and result in
unsatisfied candidates. For instance, business teams might submit a requisition for a
Team Lead position, which could have “Team Management” as a part of the role. A
candidate may later discover during the course of interviews with business teams
that “Team Management” is restricted to allocating work on a daily basis whereas all
other team management functions are handled by the Project Manager. This could
cause a candidate to drop out of the selection process at a later stage.
The Recruiter should ensure that the name of the role translates into a name that is
understood in the Job market. For instance, what one software company calls
“Usability Engineer” may be known widely in the job market as “UI Designer”. Thus, if
a Recruiter were to get a Requisition Form that lists the role name as “Usability
Engineer”, it is important that the Recruiter translates this into “UI Designer” so that
candidates understand the role. Also, in case the role name is not translatable, it
may point to the fact that business teams have aggregated two roles available in the
job market into a single role or vice versa. This needs correction even before any
sourcing activity starts.
The Recruiter should ensure that business teams have not included “desirable skills”
under “essential skills”. This usually happens when a business team writes a
Requisition Form from a “what the job requires” perspective alone rather than
balancing it with “what is available in the job market” perspective. This can be
clarified by having a round of discussion with business teams to ensure that they
have been accurate in presenting what is essential for the job and that they have
factored for the training that they impart to new hires.
The Recruiter should check if the essential skills listed are actually available in the
market. Sometimes, what is written in the Requisition Form may be unavailable in
the job market. An example of this is “7 years experience in administering Microsoft
Exchange with 5 years of strong C Programming skills” – a rare combination in the
job market. Where the essential skills are difficult to find in the job market, Recruiters
should ask business teams for alternate skill sets. For instance if SQL Server DBA is
an essential skill, it makes sense to check if Oracle DBA is an alternative considering
the fact that there are more Oracle DBAs than SQL Server DBAs. This also
highlights the fact that Recruiters are required to be familiar with the availability of
skills in the job market and the relative ease of sourcing people with specific skills.
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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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Chapter 2: Job Opening Communication
The second step in candidate processing is communicating job openings to different sources of
CVs – employees who are referring candidates, placement consultants etc. This chapter will
discuss the best practices in communicating job openings to different sources of CVs. The
process of identifying and managing the different sources of CVs and the relative merits of
sourcing from each of the sources are not considered within the scope of this book.
The different sources for CVs are
Job Advertisements in Newspapers

Job Advertisements on Job Sites
Employees Referrals
Placement Consultants
Jobsite searches
Careers Section in company websites
Campus Recruitment
A Job Opening Communication form helps in communicating a

job opening to all these different sources of CVs.
Job Opening Communication (JOC)

Communicating the job opening to all sources of CVs in an easily understandable format that is
approved by business teams ensures effective communication and improves productivity. For
convenience, we will call this format the Job Opening Communication (JOC). For the purpose of
our discussion, a JOC includes a range of job opening communications – a predefined format
describing the job and job details to placement consultants, a job ad for a newspaper, an
internal memo to employees regarding employee referral programs etc.
While the process of communicating job openings is well organized in the case of Newspaper
and Jobsite Advertisements, this step is not carried out very effectively for other CV sources.
For instance, companies rarely send a document describing job openings to placement
consultants. The communication to placement consultants is often done on the telephone or by
“on-the-fly” drafted emails, which may not cover all aspects of the job opening.
A subset of the information available on the Requisition Form should be used to create a JOC.
There should be a different JOC for different CV sources. For instance, the JOC for a job ad
does not contain salary information but a JOC for a placement consultant will have this
information. Furthermore, the JOC should contain only those portions of the Requisition Form
that are public domain information. For instance, in a job ad, “Target Company” information is
not present though the Requisition Form will have this information.
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Guidelines for Writing a JOC

A well-written JOC can significantly improve the turnaround time for sourcing CVs. A set of
guidelines for writing JOCs is provided below. A JOC should
Contain the nature of the work the company does. This reduces the receipt of CVs
that are not relevant to the company as a whole. For instance, if a company works on
embedded systems, most business application developer CVs are not relevant.
Contain the job openings for which applications are being sought. This could include
highlighting the job opening and having different sections within the JOC for each
opening. Ensure that job opening descriptions are in keeping with job market
definitions of the jobs.
Mention essential skills and desirable skills separately. Mention essential educational
qualifications and certifications if any. This information can be pulled out from the
Requisition Form.
Have job codes against each Job opening. There should also be a request made to
the candidate/placement consultant/employee to mention the job code in the subject
line of the email that is sent in response to the JOC.
Mention the cities where openings are available and request the
candidate/placement consultant/employee to mention the city in the subject line in
case there are multi-city openings. In some cases, it may be a good idea to mention
cities where openings are not available. For instance, in a JOC for positions only in
Delhi from a company that is known across the country to be Bangalore based, it is a
good idea to say “This position is open only in Delhi”.
Mention the mode for applying. In case CVs are to be emailed, the email id to which
the response has to be sent must be specifically mentioned. Having different email
ids for each role, in case there are not too many roles, is a good idea. Things to
check regarding email ids and URLs are:
Ensure that the email id or the web page address (URL) where the candidate is
expected to apply is short and easily memorized. For instance,
Softwaretester@bluewater.com is a good email id. STSTrBW@bluewater.com is
not a good email id.
Ensure that the email or the web page address (URL) where the candidate is
expected to apply is accurate. The worst Recruiter nightmare is to see your ad in
the job supplement of the morning paper and discover that the email id printed on
the ad is wrong.
Mention the format in which CVs are accepted. For instance, if a company does not
use Microsoft Office, this has to be mentioned in the JOC that CVs will be accepted
only in certain formats.
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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 3: Receiving CVs
Receiving CVs involves creating email ids or online forms

and checking these email ids and online forms for their
ability to received thousands of candidate applications and
ensuring that failover systems are built into the email ids and
online forms.
We are discussing this in a separate chapter to highlight its

importance to the recruitment process. Often this is a step
overlooked by the recruitment team since it involves IT
infrastructure and Recruiters may assume that the IT
infrastructure team will attend to this. The usual Recruiter nightmares happen at this stage. For
instance, an email id that does not have sufficient server space to save all emails received on
the day a job ad is released, or an online application form that may not be able to handle the
load of several candidates filling out their application forms at the same time, can result in lost
CVs and a lot of irate phone calls to Recruiters. Further, applicants would form a poor opinion
about the company they are applying to if this happens. With this background, it is important
that Recruiters are knowledgeable about managing the receipt of a large volume of CVs.
Recruiters also need to ensure that the IT infrastructure teams have put adequate processes
and systems in place to ensure there are no unexpected incidents.
We will discuss the important checks in the area of IT infrastructure for email and online form
modes of receiving CVs. We will also discuss some of the checks when receiving paper CVs in
which happens in some hiring situations.
Receiving CVs by Email
CVs from most CV sources are usually received by email. There are some cases where
companies also accept paper CVs, for instance while hiring on Campus. Receiving CVs by
email invariably means that a very large number of emails are received every day. For instance,
the responses to job ads in national newspapers usually run into several thousands of CVs.
Given this, it is important to check the IT infrastructure that hosts the email id setup to receive
CVs. The IT infrastructure team in your organization should be able to do the following checks
to ensure that your email id is able to handle the volume of responses that will be received.
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Checks for Receiving CVs by Email

We have listed a set of checks that Recruiters should ensure the IT infrastructure team
conducts and confirms with the Recruiters. These checks ensure that the IT infrastructure is up
and running and ready to manage the load of receiving a very large number of CVs. The set of
checks that IT infrastructure teams have to do are
Ensure that the email id is set up two days before the job ad is released. Send a
1000 test emails to this email id every two hours to check the email server’s ability to
handle large volume of incoming email. Send around 5000 emails over an entire day.
A 1000 test emails can be sent at once by using the “Mail Merge” feature in Microsoft
Word. Check if all the 5000 emails sent during the day are received correctly.
Monitor the email system and report any error messages that may come up. Errors
that come up may indicate that the IT infrastructure provided is not adequate for the
volume of emails. Each error message should be investigated and the issue has to
be fixed to ensure that the large volume email in flow can be handled. These tests
should be conducted even if the email id has been used several times in the past.
This is because IT infrastructure setups change periodically and it is a good practice
to recheck. On completing these tests remember to delete the test emails.
Ensure adequate storage space has been allocated for storing emails all along the
email conduit. An email sent to an email id is usually received on a central corporate
email server, which is then forwarded to a local email server which in turn may be
downloaded to a local desktop computer. It is important to have 100 MB or more of
storage space for the email box at all points in the email conduit to ensure that at no
point does the sender receive an error that indicates that the receiving email box is
full.
On an average, an email with a CV is usually 100 – 200 KB in size. This means that
a storage space of 100 MB is required for every 1000 emails at the final repository of
these emails.
Ensure that in case there are any problems faced with the email id, the time to setup
a mirror email id and get it going should not be more than 5 – 10 minutes. This
ensures that there is a failover option available in case the email id fails or stops
working.
It is important that all emails received and downloaded to one location are also
backed up to ensure that hard disk failure or any other technological glitch does not
mean that all the CVs received are lost.
After the ad comes out, it is important that someone monitor the email box every 30
minutes to ensure that the email id is working correctly. If no emails are received
over 30 minutes it usually indicates that something is wrong with the email id. Also,
the person monitoring the email id can send emails from his/her own email id
periodically to check if any error messages are received.
It is a good idea to send an Auto Reply to candidates and placement consultants
who send their email to a designated email id. This gives them instant feedback that
their CV has been received. A sample email could read as given below
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Message: Sample Auto Reply Email

“Thank you for your interest in <Company Name>. We have received your CV and
will get back to you on this in <number of days> days.
We would like to take this opportunity to tell you more about us and the job role for
which you have applied.
<Job Role Description here>
In case you have friends who would be interested in this opportunity, please ask
them to email us at <email id>
Best Regards
Team HR”
In case you have activated the Auto Reply feature, please note that it is essential to
carry out a load test on your email server to ensure that it is capable of handling the
volumes of email responses. For instance, a job ad in one of the leading newspapers
usually receives anything between 1000 and 5000 CVs on the day the ad comes out.
Hence, you will need to ensure that this many emails can be sent out from the email
id during the 8 to 12 hour time span. Bear in mind that most corporate email boxes
have a restriction on the number of emails received and sent out on single day
These checks can help in ensuring a fail safe IT infrastructure for receiving CVs on email.
Receiving CVs on an Online Form (URL)

Receiving CVs on a web form (URL) is the most convenient way of receiving CVs. It can speed
up the CV Screening process dramatically, it can provide easy search facilities to Recruiters to
pull up specific CVs and it can make the application process more interactive for the candidate.
Despite its advantages it is still not the most popular mode of receiving CVs among companies.
Email remains the most popular form of accepting CVs since it is the most convenient mode of
applying for candidates.
The number of CVs received in response to a job ad in a national newspaper usually runs into
several thousands. Given this it is important to check the IT infrastructure, which hosts the
online form provided to candidates to apply. The IT infrastructure team in your organization will
be able to do the following checks to ensure that your online form is able to handle the volume
of CVs that will be received. The online form IT infrastructure has to be setup and configured to
ensure that the large volume of responses is handled correctly.
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Checks for Receiving CVs on an Online Form (URL)

We have listed a set of checks that Recruiters can ask the IT infrastructure team to do to and
confirm with Recruiters. These checks ensure that the IT infrastructure is ready to use. The set
of checks that the IT infrastructure team has to do are:
Ensure that the online form is setup and ready at least two days before the ad comes
out. It is nearly impossible to get a thousand people within your company to apply
simultaneously to see how the online form will respond when all of them apply.
Hence, it is important that a load test on the online form be conducted to ensure that
it can handle up to a 1000 concurrent users. There are tools available to do such
tests and a report of the load test done can be submitted to the Recruitment team for
their reference. These load test reports have to be studied and any findings should
be implemented by the IT infrastructure team to ensure everything is in order. A load
test should be conducted even if the online form has been used several times in the
past. This is owing to the fact that IT setups change periodically and it is necessary
to check and confirm.
Ensure that adequate storage space has been allocated for storing the information
collected by the online form. On an average, an online form filled out with CV
information may take up about 10 KB. The data is usually stored in a database,
which is on a server. This would mean that a storage space of 10 MB is required for
every 1000 emails received.
Ensure that in case the online form is not working for any reason, the time to get a
mirror online form up and running should not be more than 5 – 10 minutes. This
ensures that there is a failover option available in case the online form fails or stops
working.
It is important that the database containing the data of the candidate is downloaded
onto an Excel sheet or backed up to another database periodically to ensure that
hard disk failure or any other form of failure does not translate to any loss of
candidate data already received.
After the ad comes out, it is important that someone monitor the online form every 30
minutes to ensure that the online form is working correctly. If no candidate data is
received over 30 minutes it indicates that something is wrong with the online form.
Also the person monitoring it can apply on the online form every 30 minutes to
ensure no error messages are received.
It is a good idea to display a message to a candidate on completion of data upload

on an online form. An email response can also be triggered off on completion of the
upload of data. This gives them instant feedback that their data has been has been
received. A sample message that can be displayed and sent by email as well is
provided below
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Message: Sample Confirmation Online Message & Email

“Thank you for your interest in <Company Name>. We have received your CV and
will get back to you on this in <number of days> days.
We would like to take this opportunity to tell you more about us and the job role for
which you have applied.
<Job Role Description here>
In case you have friends who would be interested in this opportunity, please ask
them to email us at <email id>
Best Regards
Team HR”
In case you are sending an email to candidates please note that it is essential to do a
load test on your email server to ensure that it is capable of handling the volumes of
email responses. For instance, a job ad in one of the leading newspapers will result
in between 1000 to 5000 applicants applying on the day the ad comes out. Hence
you will need to ensure that this many emails can be sent out from the email id
during the 8 – 12 hour time span. Bear in mind that most corporate email boxes have
a restriction on the number of emails received and sent out on single day
These checks can help in ensuring failsafe IT infrastructure for receiving CVs on an online form.
Receiving CVs as Hard Copy

CVs are received in a hard copy format in Walk In recruitment processes and on campus. In
situations where a hard copy CV is accepted, it is a good idea to have a predefined candidate
application form that candidates can fill out on reaching the venue for the Walk In. This makes it
easier to screen CVs quickly since information is available in a predefined format and only
information required to screen-in or screen-out CVs is in the form. This also gives candidates
something to do while they wait for their turn at the registration desk.
It is important that all hard copy CVs are brought back and the information is tabulated in an
Excel sheet or other software application. A database of CVs can be searched each time a new
people requisition is made. This helps in improving the number of hires made from a given ad.
Receiving CVs is a critical step of the Recruitment process. Since CVs are expensive to source,
a lot of care and effort has to be spent on making sure every candidates CV is received and
processed. These checks have been covered in this chapter.
The next step of the recruitment process is CV Screening, which is one of the most critical steps
of the recruitment process.
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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.
Identifying & Training CV Screeners

Good quality CV Screeners are critical to the
recruitment process. CV Screening can significantly
affect the efficiency of a recruitment process. If a
large number of CVs that are not suitable for a job
opening are screened out at this stage, it reduces the
volume of work downstream of the recruitment
process. At the same time, if a large number of CVs
that are suitable to the job are screened out it can
adversely affect the cost and time of the recruitment
process. A good CV screener screens-in and
screens-out accurately and minimizes CV wastage. It
is important that good quality CV Screeners are
deployed for CV Screening.
An important decision to be made while setting up a recruitment process would be to either

have dedicated CV Screeners or allocate the role of CV Screening to Recruiters who carry out
all the steps of the recruitment process including CV Screening. Assigning dedicated CV
Screeners has the advantage that it is easier to source and train a person to do CV Screening
alone as against sourcing and hiring a person to be a Recruiter since a Recruiter needs to have
a wider range of skills compared to a CV Screener. Also having dedicated CV Screeners has
the advantage of speed since a person doing the same role for several days becomes very
efficient at the task over time. Having dedicated CV Screeners also ensures that CVs that do
not fit into one role are allocated to another role where there may be a fit. This improves CV
utilization. For the purpose of this book, we have assumed that there are dedicated CV
Screeners deployed. However, the steps discussed here are equally applicable in a situation
where a Recruiter is doing the CV Screening.
Some of the pre-requisites for CV Screeners are
Should have excellent skills in using Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook
Should have very high attention to detail
Should be able to understand simple rules and apply them repetitively
Should understand technology at a very basic level – should understand that there
are different aspects to IT - Hardware, OS, Programming Languages, Business
Applications, and Enterprise Applications. A simple test can be used to evaluate a
potential CV Screener’s knowledge of technology. A course in IT (GNIIT or similar
courses) would be an advantage
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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.
CV Screening Specification Form

The CV Screening Specification Form is a document that lists the Job Role and the criteria for
selecting a CV. CV screeners should be trained on CV Screening by walking them through the
CV Screening Specification Form in detail and then handing them a copy of the document for
their use. They should be trained to refer to the document when they are screening CVs to
understand the criteria for selecting or rejecting CVs.
The CV Screening Specification Form contains a subset of the information provided in the
Requisition Form. It contains only the section on Candidate Description in the Requisition Form.
A sample CV Screening Specification Form is shown below with an entry for the role of a Java
Developer.
Form: Sample CV Screening Specification Form
Relevant Experien Designat Most

Screening Education Skill Certifica
Job Job Experien ce ion Favored Restricted
Parameter Backgroun Keyword tion Key
Role Code ce Keyword Keyword Compan Companies
(Descriptive) d s Word
(Years) s s ies
Core
Hands on
Java Java,
project BE, Software Bluewater,
Devel JD01 2 Oracle, JCP MeritTrac
experience on MCA Engineer Northwind
oper SQL
Core Java
Server
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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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Organizing CVs for Screening – Email

In cases where CVs are being received by email it is important that the email inbox is organized
to enable CV Screening.
For instance, an ad in a national newspaper usually attracts thousands of CVs. The emails with
CVs in them continue for 10 to 12 days from the date of the Ad and the maximum numbers of
emails are received during the first 4 – 5 days after the Ad is released. With this in mind, it is
important to be able to effectively track the CVs that are coming in on a daily basis by
organizing the email inbox. Creating a folder structure in your email client (Microsoft Outlook or
other email client) to classify the emails as they come in will ensure easy tracking of CVs. We
recommend that the email Inbox structure mirror the structure of the CV Screening
Specification. In addition to this the email inbox should have separate folders for emails where a
job code is not mentioned, emails which say “please find attached” but without an attachment
etc. A sample Inbox folder structure that can be used is shown below.
Folder Structure: Sample Inbox Folder Structure
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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Table: Fields in the CV Information Form

Fields
Candidate Number (Unique number to identify candidate)
Source Type(PC/ER/Ad/Direct/Campus/Off Campus)
Source Name
Candidate Name
Date Of Birth
Certifications
City of Current Residence
Experience (years)
Mobile No.
Phone No
email ID
Current Employer
Primary Skill set
Secondary Skill set
Applied For Role
Applied For Project
CV Received Date
Path To CV (File path where soft copy of CV is stored)
CV Screened By
CV Status
CV Screened On
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.
Metrics for CV Screening

The key metrics that have to be monitored while screening CVs are
CV Screener Efficiency – Number of CVs screened by the screening team and

individual screeners per day, per week, per month, and lead time required to turn
around a CV from receipt
CV Screener Accuracy – Percentage of total CVs selected by CV Screeners which
business teams also agree should be selected
Source Management – Frequency and accuracy of CV Screening reports sent to CV
Sources – placement consultants, employee referees, ad candidates etc.
Tracking and managing these metrics regularly ensures that CV Screening is run well. CV
Screening is one of the critical steps in the recruitment process. The focus of CV Screening is to
pull out CVs of candidates who fit the role and rejecting CVs of candidates who do not fit the
role. It is important that this step be carried out efficiently and accurately. The next step in the
recruitment process is Interview Scheduling.
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Chapter 5: Interview Scheduling & Coordination

Interview scheduling is the process of scheduling interviews based on the availability and
convenience of interviewers and interviewees. In this chapter we will discuss the Interview
Scheduling process.
Identifying & Training Interview Schedulers

Interview Schedulers are critical to ensure candidates
whose CVs are selected are brought to the interview
table. Interview Scheduling affects the number of offers
made. If a large number of candidates are not reached
by an Interview Scheduler, it will be difficult to achieve
recruitment targets. A good Interview Scheduler is able
to bring more candidates to the table by actively looking
for alternatives in case a candidate does not find a time
suitable for his or her interview. At the same time, a good
Interview Scheduler has a good rapport with business
teams and is able to convince business teams to alter
their schedules to adjust to candidate schedules if
required.
Similar to the point mentioned earlier in the section on CV Screening, an important decision to
be made while setting up a recruitment process would be to either have dedicated Interview
Schedulers or to allocate the role of Interview Scheduling to Recruiters who do all the steps of
the recruitment process including Interview Scheduling. Assigning dedicated Interview
Schedulers has the advantage that it is easier to source and train a person to do only Interview
Scheduling as against sourcing and hiring a person to be a Recruiter since a Recruiter needs to
have a wider range of skills compared to an Interview Scheduler. Also having dedicated
Interview Schedulers has the advantage of speed since a person doing the same role for
several days becomes very efficient at the task over time. For the purpose of this book, we have
assumed that the recruitment process has dedicated Interview Schedulers. However, the steps
discussed here are equally applicable in a situation where a Recruiter is handling all aspects of
recruitment including Interview Scheduling.
Some of the pre-requisites for Interview Schedulers are
Should have excellent spoken and written English communication skills

Should have very high attention to detail
Should be persistent, pushy and find alternatives without sounding rude
Should be able to use Word, Excel and Outlook
Once Interview Schedulers are hired, they have to be trained on Interview Scheduling. Since an
Interview Scheduler is most likely the first person the candidate speaks to from the company,
the Interview Scheduler creates an impression about the company in the candidate’s mind. That
is why it is critical that a company have well-trained Interview Schedulers.
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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.
Flowchart: Interview Scheduling
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Guidelines for Interview Scheduling
The steps of the process of Interview Scheduling are simple. However, each step involves finer
points which impact the success of Interview Scheduling. Some of the guidelines on the finer
points of Interview Scheduling are
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 scheduler’s 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.
Metrics of Interview Scheduling

The key success measures for Interview Scheduling are
Number of phone calls made to contact candidates per day, per week, per month
Percentage of the total list of candidates that were successfully reached
Percentage of the total candidates reached who confirmed participation in the
interview
Percentage of those who confirmed participation who actually attended the interview
For the metric, “Percentage of those who confirmed participation who attended the interview”,
note that all the factors affecting this metric are not in the control of the Interview Scheduler.
However, it is a good metric to track the overall success of Interview Scheduling.
These are the guidelines and best practices for Interview Scheduling. The next step in the
recruitment process is interview coordination, which is explained in the same chapter, since it is
an activity that is carried out by Interview Schedulers themselves and completes the Interview
Scheduling activity.
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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Chapter 7: Offer Making & On-boarding

Offer Making and On-boarding are the final steps in the
recruitment process. These steps are critical to the
recruitment process since losing a candidate at the On-
boarding stage has a very adverse effect on
recruitment productivity. Since the recruitment process
is essentially like a funnel – where a large number of
CVs translate to a small number of offers - losing a
candidate at the On-boarding stage requires the whole
exercise to be done again from sourcing CVs right up
to On-boarding to make up for the loss of a candidate
at the On-boarding stage. Despite this, several
companies lose a large number of candidates at this stage. While there are several reasons for
losing candidates at the On-boarding stage, one of the reasons can be the lack of a strong Offer
Making and On-boarding process. This chapter addresses some of the good practices in Offer
Making and On-boarding candidates.
The process of Offer Making includes salary negotiations with candidates. This aspect of Offer
Making is not covered in this book since salary negotiations is a specialized activity that extends
into negotiating skills which is beyond the scope of this book. The Offer Making and On-
boarding processes are described in the flow chart below.
Flowchart: Offer Making & On-boarding
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Once the offer has been rolled out to the candidate, the follow up process through to the On-
boarding of the candidate is an extremely important stage in the recruitment process. It is also
the final stage in the entire process.
Good Practices in Offer Making & On-boarding

Recruiters make offers and work on ensuring that candidates are on-boarded as employees.
Some of the check points for Recruiters for Offer Making and On-boarding are
Once business and recruitment teams decide to make an offer to a candidate, an

offer email and hard copy letter are sent to the candidate. It is important that the
Recruiter confirm with the candidate that the letter has been received. The Recruiter
should also follow up to ensure the candidate sends an acceptance to the offer letter
by email or as a hard copy.
In case a candidate does not send an acceptance, the Recruiter should follow up
with the candidate and understand the reasons for not sending the acceptance
email. If it is a simple matter of the candidate not having got around to sending the
acceptance email then persistent follow-up by the Recruiter can resolve the issue.
However, if the candidate has expressed concerns about joining the company, it is
required that the concerns be understood and then communicated to the right team
within the organization to ensure that the candidate’s concerns are addressed. Some
of the usual reasons for not accepting an offer letter are that a candidate has a better
salary offer from another company, or the candidate has second thoughts about
relocating to another city or the job role is not challenging enough. In these cases, it
is important the Recruiter get accurate information from relevant departments and
conveys it to the candidate to ensure that the candidate is not making a decision
based on incorrect information. Also, the Recruiter can rope in business teams or
senior people in their own team to speak to the candidate and see if the candidate
can still be convinced to join.
In case the candidate accepts the offer, reconfirm the date of joining. In case the
candidate is relocating, ensure that the arrangement of accommodation is made.
These guidelines and processes can help in Offer Making and On-boarding. The next chapter
deals with managing the recruitment process.
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Chapter 8: Managing Recruitment
This chapter focuses on the metrics and systems to manage large volume candidate processing
in a recruitment team. Since candidate processing is a transaction intensive process, there is a
need for an information system for planning, monitoring, reporting, analysis and course
correction of all the steps.
In a typical recruitment process, the information system is

accessed on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to ensure that
the recruitment process is on track. The information system
can be an Excel sheet or a high-end enterprise-wide software
application. We will not discuss the relative merits of different
software applications in this book since this is extensively
addressed in books on enterprise software applications. This
chapter focuses on the data elements that should be captured,
the reports that should be looked at and metrics that have to
be tracked to manage the recruitment process well. The key
aspects of planning, monitoring, reporting, analysis and course
correction of the recruitment process are also discussed.
Knowing Your Recruitment Funnel
To plan a recruitment process, the start point is the recruitment funnel. A recruitment funnel
essentially lists the stages of the recruitment process and the pass through rates at each stage.
For instance, for a company, it may be known that 30% of all CVs received are selected at the
CV Screening stage, 25% clear the Interview and 80% of all offered candidates eventually join
the company. If a company has a large amount of historical data this can be used to calculate
the recruitment funnel for the company. In several situations such data is either not available or
not available in an easily usable format in which case the recruitment funnel can start with
estimates and then fine-tune the estimates with actual numbers fed back from the actual
recruitment process. The recruitment funnel is required to review the recruitment process. It
serves as an indicator dipstick of eventual hiring success.
A recruitment funnel is illustrated in the table below. The table shows that 65% of all CVs
screened are selected, 90% of all CVs selected are scheduled to take a Business Interview and
only 45% of those who are scheduled for a Business Interview actually pass the Business
Interview.
Table: Sample Recruitment Funnel
From To % to next step Reason For Loss
HR Interview Pass & Joined 80% Do not join after accepting the offer
Offer
Business Interview Pass HR Interview Pass & 90% Rejected in HR interview
Offer
Business Interview Business Interview 45% Rejected in Business Interview
Scheduled Pass
CV Selected Business Interview 90% Wrong number, not reachable
Scheduled
CV Screened CV Selected 65% Does not meet CV Screening criteria
Page 33
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.
Table: Sample Hiring Plan
Recruitment Process Step Target Recruitment Funnel

On Board Target 100
HR Interview Pass & Offer 125 80% Calculated by dividing On-board Target by
Business Interview Pass 156 80% Conversion Funnel (100 divided by 80%)
Business Interview Scheduled 868 17%
CV Selected 965 90%
CV Screened 1484 65%
Planning Recruitment Team Size

We can then plan the size of the recruitment team based on the hiring plan. The number of
people in the recruitment team is calculated by dividing the total number of transactions by the
number of transactions a person can do each day, each month etc. For instance, let us assume
that a company has a joiner target of 100 people. Given this, we need a team that can screen
1484 CVs in 20 days (assuming 20 working days a month). This means that we have to screen
about 75 CVs every day. We then need to know how many CVs one person can screen on a
single day. Let us assume that one person can screen only 25 CVs a day. So to screen 75 CVs
everyday we need 3 CV screeners. This calculation is repeated for Interview Scheduler,
Interview coordinators etc to arrive at the team size. (Note that 25 CVs a day per CV Screener
is an example to illustrate the point. A CV Screener usually can screen many more CVs in a
day).
Table: Sample Recruitment Team Size

Activity To Be Done Monthly Target Number One Person Team Size
Can Do Per Month
Joinees 100 NA NA
Rollout Offer Letters 125 400 0.3
Coordinate HR Interview 156 400 0.4
Coordinate Business Interview 868 400 2
Schedule Candidates 965 600 1.6
Screen CVs 1484 1400 1.1
Page 34
Tracking & Monitoring Activity
Tracking and monitoring involves the periodic review of performance metrics of the recruitment
process and taking corrective steps based on the performance metrics. The source data for
deriving all the performance metrics is the CV Information Form. This sheet discussed in
Chapter 3, contains information about every CV received. The performance metric that is critical
for a recruitment process and which needs tracking is the number of CVs in different stages of
the recruitment process. This count is obtained by pulling out information from the CV
Information Form. At the end of a day, the count of CVs at any stage in the recruitment process
should be less than the number of CVs that flow into that step each day. For instance, if the
number of CVs received on a single day is 20, then at the end of the day, a count of number of
CVs in the CV Screening stage should not be more than 20. If it is more than 20 it points to a
pile up in the CV Screening step of the recruitment process which will eventually lead to a delay
in hiring. This pile up could be because there are not enough CV Screeners or because the CV
Screeners are not screening as fast as they should. The corrective steps could be to add more
CV Screeners or to increase training for the CV Screeners.
Table: Sample Daily Tracker

Recruitment Process Expected Number Today’s Number
Step
HR Interview Pass & Offer 5 2
Business Interview Pass 10 42
Business Interview 20 18
Scheduled
CV Selected 40 45
CV Screened 300 310
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 Interviewer’s 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!
Page 35
End Note: Pre-Recruitment Tests
We have noticed an increasing use of Tests in pre-

recruitment screening in recent years. Pre-recruitment
Tests are used to assess technology skills of candidates
with zero to six years of work experience. In addition, Tests
are used to assess abilities such as analytical ability and
verbal ability, and to assess personality traits. Public sector
companies have been using pre-recruitment Tests for
several years now. Owing to the specialized nature of pre-
recruitment Tests, companies usually buy Tests from Test
publishers. Recruiters are involved in making the buying
decision for pre-recruitment Tests and as a consequence
need to be aware of evaluating a Test publisher and
buying pre-recruitment Tests. This chapter provides some guidelines for Recruiters on buying
pre-recruitment Tests.
.
How to Buy Tests
A set of guidelines for buying pre-recruitment Tests are provided below which can be used by
Recruiters while making a Test buying decision.
Establish that the Test measures a skill or ability required for the job. This is done by
identifying the competencies the job requires and matching these competencies with
the competency that the Test or set of Tests measure. For instance, if a job requires
knowledge of databases as one of the competencies, choosing an Oracle RDBMS
Test would be inappropriate since the job requires generic knowledge of databases
and not specific knowledge of Oracle RDBMS. Further the level at which the
competence is required should match the level of the Test. For instance, if a job
requires a beginner’s knowledge of C Programming, administering an advanced C
Programming Test would be inappropriate. Competencies refer to knowledge, skills,
abilities and personality traits that are required in an applicant to do a job. While
“competence” refers to a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities and personality
traits it is loosely referred to as “skills” in the industry which is why competence is
listed under the heading “skills” in the People Requisition Form.
Reconfirm that the Test creation process adopted by the Test publisher adheres to
internationally accepted practices for Test publishing. Some of the good practices to
look for in the Test publisher are – the Test publisher should create Tests against
defined competencies, should use subject matter experts with relevant work
experience to create questions, should use questions in Tests which reflect the work
environment, should run trials before releasing the Test and should provide
measures of Test characteristics such as Mean Score, Standard Deviation,
Reliability, Validity and Scoring Norms. Asking for this information from the Test
publisher ensures that you are choosing a Test from a good Test publisher.
Page 36
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 company’s 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.
Page 37
New Idea: A Common Application Form

The most popular mode of applying for a job is by typing out a CV
in a format which the applicant finds appealing, saving it as a
Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF or Text file and then emailing this
CV to an employer. We refer to this format of CVs as
“individualized” format CVs. While individualized format CVs are
convenient for applicants, it is not convenient for employers since
multiple CV formats makes CV Screening cumbersome and
complicated. In this chapter, we discuss a solution for the
challenge of individualized format CVs.
The Challenge of Individualized CVs

The challenge with individualized CVs is that each CV presents information in different ways
and in different orders. For instance, some CVs start with contact information followed by
education followed by employment history while other CVs have information in chronological
order while others may have it in reverse chronological order. Information which is critical for
some companies may be missed out completely in many CVs – for instance a company might
have a rule that says only people who have an Engineering degree may apply for a job, but all
applicants’ CVs may not contain this information which makes it difficult to screen CVs. Owing
to this, screening individualized CVs is tedious and error prone. For instance, if a company’s
selection criterion says, “should have a total of 2 years of experience on Java”, the CV Screener
has to add up time spent on each individual project in which Java was used and check if it adds
up to 2 years. Moreover, since it is a manual process and requires searching for information,
making calculations and drawing inferences, CV Screeners tend to make mistakes.
Also, since screening individualized CVs is a time consuming process, business teams do not
do CV Screening themselves. Instead, they explain what is required to recruitment teams who
screen on behalf of business teams. Since recruitment teams would not have a firsthand feel of
what the job requires, it leads to wasted CVs. For instance, a recruitment team sourcing Oracle
DBAs might reject all SQL Server DBAs. Whereas a business team may look at SQL Server
DBAs as the second option in case sufficient Oracle DBA CVs are not available.
Finally, considering the number of CVs screened each month across different companies, the
process needs automation. While several CV parsers are available, even the most “intelligent”
parser is not completely accurate.
Given these issues– multiple CV formats, incomplete information, business teams not screening
CVs and automation unfriendly CVs – there is a need for a solution which can make CV
screening more accurate and convenient.
The Software Developer Application Form

One solution is a web application form, which an applicant fills. The advantage here is that all
CVs are in the same format making it easy to search and shortlist. The disadvantage is that it
requires the candidate to fill out an application form each time he or she applies to a company.
Moreover, filling out web forms is tiresome for the applicant. But sending a CV by email is very
convenient for applicants. Companies who have offered applicants the option of filling out a web
Page 38
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.
Table: Software Developer Application Form

:Source :Job Ad
:ApplyingFor:Java Developer
:Name:Ashish Ram
:Email:ashish@hotmail.com
:PassportNumber:T12040
:DateofBirth:2-Oct-73
:DayPhone(withSTDCode) :08026583827
:EveningPhone(withSTDCode) :08026584557
:City(Currentresidence) :Bangalore
:WillingtoRelocateto(CityNames) :Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai
:CurrentSalary(Annual) :3.5 Lakhs
:ExpectedSalary(Annual) :4.0 Lakhs
:Skills:Core Java, J2EE
:HighestQualification: Engineering
:HighestQualificationInstitution:REC Surat
:HighestQualification(%orCGPA) :65%
:TotalSoftwareDevelopmentExperience(months) :36
:Skill1Name:Java
:Skill1Expereince(months) :4
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.
Page 39
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 it’s 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.
Page 40
New Idea: AC Buses to Retain Employees

It is critical for companies to retain employees. And
companies are trying several HR practices to ensure
employee retention and satisfaction. Here is another idea
that could be used as a retention tool.
In Bangalore, for instance, several companies ferry

employees to work on buses. These buses offer the
same levels of service and comfort as Bangalore’s local
transport buses. The commute is tiring and frustrating.
Can companies offer air-conditioned buses to ferry
employees to work instead?
Air-conditioned (AC) buses ensure employees commute to work in comfort. Employees do not
have to hear blaring horns or sweat in the heat. When they reach office, they would feel fresh
and ready for the day. The cost of AC buses is far more than regular buses. But, there are
several advantages that an AC bus offers.
The biggest advantage for companies providing an AC bus commute would be that it would be
seen as a significant differentiator by employees. When all else matches – job role, office
location, employee perks – employees might choose not to make the shift to another company
since they get to go to work on an AC bus. Consider the impact it can have when employees in
an AC bus wave to rival company employees traveling in a non-AC bus on a hot summer
afternoon!
The other advantage is the fact that employees commute in a noise free environment. So
commute time can be used for training. Organization wide training courses on communication
skills or presentation skills are ideally suited for delivery in an AC bus using LCD displays. Also,
HR teams could use the commute to interact with employees. Tax consultants can have tax
return forms filled out on the bus. Financial advisors can offer investment advice. Others who
want to popularize their services with employees can use the commute to do so. Also with
charging points in place, employees can even work on their laptops. Even with increased costs,
the advantages may make the option worth exploring.
Commuting in AC buses operated by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation has

shown that commuting can be a pleasurable experience. Will companies offer this as an
employee perk?
Page 41
New Idea: SMS in Recruitment

There are several software applications that can be used to
improve the productivity of a recruitment team. One of these
software applications which is built around the SMS service
offered by mobile phone companies can help in dramatically
improving the productivity of the Interview Scheduling and other
steps of the recruitment process. A substantial amount of time is
spent on making calls and sending emails during Interview
Scheduling, while conveying the results of a selection process to
candidates. Further, emails are sent to stay in touch with offered
candidates who have not yet joined. It is possible to convey these messages faster, cheaper
and more reliably by using an SMS based software application.
How SMS Can Help

A good SMS based software application can convey messages to several candidates at once
and receive delivery receipts. It can also receive and report responses from candidates sent via
SMS and register these responses. An explanation of how this works is given below.
Assume you are a Recruiter who wants to schedule interviews for a hundred
candidates. You have the names and mobile numbers of these candidates in an
Excel sheet. You fill out the date, time and venue of the interview for each of these
candidates on the same Excel sheet.
The Excel sheet can be uploaded onto an SMS based software application which
SMSes the date, time and venue to each of the hundred candidates within a few
minutes and provides a report of deliveries.
Candidates who receive the SMSes can send back an SMS to confirm their
participation. A report can be run off the application which tells you how many of the
hundred participants have confirmed their participation.
Those who have not confirmed their participation can be reached by making phone
calls.
The advantage of the software application is that in ten minutes, it is possible to SMS a hundred
candidates and receives confirmations. This substantially reduces the amount of time Recruiters
spend on the phone, scheduling candidates. Further, SMS is most likely to be delivered and
read compared to email or phone calls. Since most candidates are in meetings during a working
day, they would not answer a phone call. Also, most candidates check their personal email ids
once a day or once in two days. But, they certainly check SMSes during the day.
Several SMS based software applications are available on the market. The companies can be
looked up on the Internet.
Page 42
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 candidate’s job site CV number and
the email id of the company, the job site forwards the CV to the company’s 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.

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Page 1

A Beginner’s Guide to Recruitment

About The Authors

Mohan Kannegal is Co-Founder, Director and Head of Delivery at

Mohan is a Production Engineer from the National Institute of Technology,

Karthik Vijayaraghavan has over 14 years of experience in the field of

A graduate in Computer Science, his interests are a unique ability to build

You can write to the authors at book@tractalent.com.

Copyright © Mohan Kannegal & Karthik Vijayaraghavan 2008

CHAPTER 1: REQUISITIONING PEOPLE ............................................................................................................................................... 6

The Requisition Form ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

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

Receiving CVs on an Online Form (URL)............................................................................................................................................................... 15

Receiving CVs as Hard Copy ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Identifying & Training CV Screeners....................................................................................................................................................................... 18

CV Screening Specification Form ............................................................................................................................................................................ 19

Organizing CVs for Screening – Email ................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Duplicate CV Checking ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 23

Updating Sources .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Metrics for CV Screening ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 24

CHAPTER 5: INTERVIEW SCHEDULING & COORDINATION ............................................................................................................ 25

Identifying & Training Interview Schedulers ........................................................................................................................................................ 25

Interview Scheduling .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Metrics of Interview Scheduling................................................................................................................................................................................ 28

CHAPTER 7: OFFER MAKING & ON-BOARDING................................................................................................................................ 30

Good Practices in Offer Making & On-boarding.................................................................................................................................................. 31

CHAPTER 8: MANAGING RECRUITMENT ........................................................................................................................................... 32

Knowing Your Recruitment Funnel.......................................................................................................................................................................... 32

Hiring Plan ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 33

Planning Recruitment Team Size ............................................................................................................................................................................. 33

Tracking & Monitoring Activity.................................................................................................................................................................................. 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

NEW IDEA: AC BUSES TO RETAIN EMPLOYEES .............................................................................................................................. 40

NEW IDEA: SMS IN RECRUITMENT...................................................................................................................................................... 41

How SMS Can Help........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 41

Chapter 1: Requisitioning People

The Requisition Form

The minimum information required on a Requisition Form is

Case: Verbal Communication of Requirements

Form: Sample Requisition Form

Guidelines on Using a Requisition Form

Chapter 2: Job Opening Communication

The different sources for CVs are

Job Advertisements in Newspapers

A Job Opening Communication form helps in communicating a

Job Opening Communication (JOC)

Guidelines for Writing a JOC

Chapter 3: Receiving CVs

Receiving CVs involves creating email ids or online forms

We are discussing this in a separate chapter to highlight its

Receiving CVs by Email

Checks for Receiving CVs by Email