3 Main Benefits of a Collaborative Hiring Process

Historically, it was managers who solely led the recruitment process in the company. They did everything from:

• Writing job descriptions
• Posting job ads on job boards
• Screening candidates
• Holding interviews and assessments
• Managing onboarding processes

However, things have changed in the past decade. There’s a new model when it comes to the hiring process that many companies have started to implement in their organization. Hailed as a great way to hire people by the late Steve Jobs, the collaborative hiring process slowly became a staple in many Silicon Valley organizations.

So let’s see what a collaborative hiring process is, what its three main benefits are, and how you can implement it in your organization.

What is a collaborative hiring process?

A collaborative hiring process is often called “team-based hiring.” This is a recruitment process where hiring managers enlist team members from partnering teams to help with various hiring processes.

There’s a new model when it comes to the hiring process that many companies have started to implement in their organization.

The point of the collaborative hiring process is to have “expert” team members participate in the hiring processes where they can contribute the most (their area of expertise).

On top of having employees help the hiring managers in the hiring process, it’s also beneficial for the candidates applying for the open positions. They get to:

• Meet multiple team members from the company
• Get a sense of how the company operates
• Be introduced to people who work in various partnering teams

Even though most companies use the collaborative hiring process during the interview stage, there are massive benefits to using the process throughout all of the hiring steps, such as candidate sourcing, screening, evaluation, and even during onboarding.

The 3 main benefits of a collaborative hiring process

There are multiple benefits to using a collaborative hiring process. Still, they can be put under three overall umbrellas of the candidate hiring process:

• Sourcing
• Evaluation
• Onboarding

Sourcing starts with creating the best possible job description

This is the first stage in which you will use a collaborative hiring process. Usually, the hiring manager writes the job description and the job ad or posting when the organization is searching for a new employee.

But the problem is that the hiring manager doesn’t know all the details involved in the role’s day-to-day function. They don’t know what exact skills a salesperson should have or what technical skills a back-end programmer needs to know.

That’s why the wise hiring manager enlists the help of team members when crafting the perfect job description.

The ideal job description and advertisement for a position would be one that the team members where the person will work help create. So, if you’re hiring a software developer, it’s in your best interest to ask your existing software developers to help you craft the position description.

Are five years of experience really necessary for a JavaScript developer, or do they just need experience in data structures and data types on Java? These might look like small things, but they’re the difference between you receiving a great application or a strong candidate skipping the job ad because they think they don’t qualify.

So, when you’re writing a job description for any role in the organization, consult with the people on that team regarding what you need to include in the details. This will ensure that you get the maximum amount of qualified applications during your hiring process.

Removing bias from the interview process

This is the second stage of your hiring process, where you can use your team members to have a more efficient process. Once you have received enough applications, it’s time to begin the screening and interview process.

During a collaborative hiring process, you can even ask your team members to share what they know to be the best pre-employment tests for the specific open position.

The main benefit comes during the interview stage. As a hiring manager, you should create interview scorecards and distribute them to your colleagues who will be involved in the interview process. You do this so you can receive objective (and numerical) scores and feedback for your candidates.

When you’re hiring a candidate for a programming position, it would be beneficial to have other programmers as interviewers. Since they understand the job better, they can assess the candidate’s skills accurately and see if they’re the right fit.

Including multiple interview perspectives will eliminate a lot of unconscious bias from the hiring process. You also ensure that you hire the right candidate.

On top of that, they will assess the candidate who wants to come and work in their team. This is the person they’ll potentially be working with, so it needs to be someone who would fit in the group. Therefore, they also need to see if they would be the right personality and culture fit for the company and specifically for the department.

Easier onboarding and integration of the new employee

This is the third place in the hiring process where you will benefit significantly from a collaborative hiring process. The team members that will be helping the hiring manager in the hiring process are the ones that will be working with the candidate later on.

During the hiring process, they got to know the candidate, and the candidate saw the people with whom they’ll potentially be working within the company. As a result, the team will already be socially integrated because the existing team and the candidate will already know one another.

Using a collaborative hiring process ensures you already start with the social integration of the candidate into their new work environment.

The usual challenge with onboarding is that you need to integrate the candidate socially and professionally with the established group. Professionally, the new hire will need to learn the company’s processes, applications, programs, and technologies used to operate daily tasks. Even though there can be many new things here, it’s the easy part of onboarding. The hard part is social integration — ensuring that the new employee successfully becomes a part of the team.

That’s why using a collaborative hiring process is so beneficial. It ensures you already start with the social integration of the candidate in their new work environment.

How to make the collaborative hiring process work in your company

The hiring manager will still need to lead the hiring process. That means that they will need to update everyone on what the process looks like and even do some training for the people who will be interviewing candidates.

The three minimums the hiring managers needs to do to lead the collaborative hiring process successfully are:

• Create a standard operating procedure for all collaborators involved (what everyone needs to do in every situation)
• Update everyone on what applications and programs will be used in the hiring process
• Train everyone involved so that they produce the most optimal results

Conclusion

A collaborative hiring process is an agile approach that reinvents the hiring process. With it, you receive help from experts from other teams so you can find, assess, and hire the best possible candidate in the recruitment process.

If you need more help with the collaborative hiring process, you should read The Complete Guide To Hiring article in our blog section.