The process of recruitment: some thoughts

The market for hiring people is changing again. In the last few years, more people graduated than there were jobs. Nowadays you see the opposite: it is getting more and more difficult to hire the right people, as good candidates can choose from various offers. Consequently, organizations have to adjust the way (the process) of attracting people. A lot of companies don’t even have a good process for doing so. Why not? There are multiple reasons:

· It wasn’t necessary: potential people applied anyway
· People stayed longer at one job because the market wasn’t good enough to switch
· Many companies were busy downsizing rather than hiring people
· The recruitment process is seen as a supportive process, and as a result, gets less attention than the core process.

But now this has to change. If organization wants to grow and pick up with the market demand, they need to ‘attack’ more people. Furthermore, they need to be able to act quickly, to avoid that good candidates are ‘snatched away’ by competitors. The recruitment process needs to get more attention. Management starts asking questions like: were do we find good people, what is the score if you look at résumés received vs. interviews conducted, how many people got an offer? So the recruitment process has to be a lean and mean process with measurable deliverables and steering information.

Does all this mean that as a student you don’t have to work on building your résumé? No, of course not. Although the market is getting tighter, it is still important that you have done some extracurricular activities, especially as these will help you to develop yourself.
But what is now important to do and put on your resume and what not. For me there are no golden rules, except: make sure that you don’t lie and don’t make things better and more beautiful than they are. Remember that you can always meet a recruiter or someone who has studied at the same university. Consequently the person directly sees it if you have written down all kinds of things that in reality were slightly different or not true at all.

Like I said there are no golden rules for setting up a resume, but some tips:
· Give an expected end date of your studies so if a company is seeking people who can start at a certain date they may keep you in mind even is your graduation is over a year.
· Write down the most important things you did besides studying but don’t go overboard.
· Also look at the company were you are applying and adjust your resume to address certain strong points that are appealing to the specific company

Furthermore, to be successful in interviews, please take into account some tips. Most important: always be prepared when you go into a interview:
· Visit the website of the company or find information about the organization in other ways.
· If you have a name of a person you are going to speak with, Google the name so you may get some background information that can help you.
· Write down some questions you want to ask.
· Make notes during the interview to show your interest and to be able to review the interview afterwards.
· Last but not least make sure you have your own resume with you. By doing so you can easy answer any question and a company can see that you take the interview seriously.

Conclusion: the market is changing and companies really need new people. However this does not mean that you have to do your best to present yourself in the best possible way to the company of your choice.