Our Recruiter & HR Consultant Shares Our New 4-Step Hiring Process

Over the last 6 months, as many of you may know, we have been doing a lot of work surrounding diversity and inclusion behind the scenes! If you are interested in learning about all of the things that we have implemented within our organization you can check it out in our blog post, here!

If you have been following us on Instagram, you would have heard the news that we were hiring 5 NEW positions. Wow, I honestly can’t believe how much we have grown in the last year! We consulted with and hired Career Contacts, female-owned recruitment, and HR consulting firm that specializes in diversity and inclusion for this round of hiring.

Today, I am handing our blog over to, Natasha, from Career Contacts to share how our recruitment process has been different this time around. Plus, if you are an entrepreneur and thinking about how you can implement more diversity and inclusion on your team, I highly recommend reading this post.

Take it away Natasha!

Hi Everyone!

I am so excited to be taking over the blog today and chatting about all things HR and Recruitment. 

My name is Natasha Jeshani, and I am one of the owners of Career Contacts. We are a full service, boutique HR and Recruitment consulting firm that provides temporary staffing, permanent placement and HR consulting services. 

Career Contacts has been supporting Jillian and her team’s most recent recruitment for JHD and The Jilly Box. When we were first approached by Jillian and her team, they explained that it was so important for them to ensure that we had a recruitment process that was checking off all of the boxes; keeping diversity, equity, and inclusion at the forefront of the conversation. 

After receiving over 1000 applications for the open roles with both JHD and The JillyBox, we thought it would be helpful to bring everyone behind the scenes to understand what our recruitment process looks like! 

When Career Contacts first started working with Jillian and the team this past summer, we knew we were aligning ourselves to a brand and a group of women we could stand behind. In fact, that is the first step in our process; making sure that we are working with companies that we are proud to put candidates in front of! 

Together, Team Jilly and Career Contacts launched five new recruits – for a team of this size, that is some serious growth! 

Here is a high-level overview of the steps that we take in our recruitment process. 

Step 1: Meet the Team 

Before you even see the job posting, there is work being done behind the scenes. We start by looking over the current skills, bandwidth, and needs of the team to ensure we understand their needs, we also update job descriptions (with language in mind) to ensure that everyone is aware of their roles which may have evolved since the time of hire. We also review pay equity, discuss performance and performance management, and so much more! 

After doing this, we build out a job description for the new hire(s) to ensures gaps are filled, and that every single hire is set up for success. 

Step 2: Job Postings 

I am going to let you in on a not so little secret; we don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all model for this process. We create over six different job postings PER ROLE to ensure that we are building out a plan that attracts a diverse group of candidates from different backgrounds, locations, education levels, etc. 

Career Contacts has an active job board where every role gets posted first. 

Then, we strategically work with other job boards across North America, social sites, schools at all levels that support a number of different industries, partners that amplify our reach and of course, we are headhunters. 

Step 3: Sourcing & Screening 

Did you know that although we use technology wherever possible, human eyes (and a human heart) review every candidate that applies? We know that it takes time and effort to apply and we believe you deserve the same time and effort from us when reviewing that application! 

As candidates enter our various systems (our proprietary systems, ATS, social sites, emails, etc.) we ensure everyone goes through the same level of screening. Accommodations are also made from time to time. True equity requires recruitment processes to respect the different needs of candidates. 

We’ve also built our own systems internally at Career Contacts to ensure that all candidates coming into our platforms have an added layer to remove content that could invite any unconscious bias and affect a recruiter’s first impressions of a candidate. 

Our team, like the candidates we attract, are diverse. We are diverse in ethnicity, gender, sex and sexual orientation, ability, age, educational background, and so much more. We are PROUD of the diversity that we attract within our internal team as it provides us with the ability to infuse those same values into our recruitment process. 

Another not so small detail about what we do to find the right candidate? Our screening process is robust; it’s unique to Career Contacts and we take a multi-pronged approach. While we can’t give away all our secrets, I will tell you that we give every candidate three chances to shine before we even “meet” with them. We know it isn’t easy to hear you did not get the job (or not get any updates along the way) so we do our very best to keep the lines of communication open, no matter how many candidates are in our pipeline. 

We think it’s important to screen candidates towards an opportunity, not away from one. 

Step 4: Selection 

This is a team effort. Although all of the initial work happens within Career Contacts, several members of the JHD team supported the recruitment process too. That means that there may be an initial zoom interview, a bigger team interview and when feasible, an onsite meeting and tour.

Respecting all COVID safety protocols, the team is equipped to do what it needs to do to ensure that not only is a candidate a good long-term fit for the team, but that the team is the right one for the candidate. Jillian is also on the frontlines herself, ensuring that she is involved in the process. Jillian practices what she preaches – that her team is the most important part of her business, and with a happy team, she can trust that she will be able to create a happy community that she supports. 

I believe that when a recruitment team and the company they are recruiting for both take a people first approach to hiring, the result are (strategic, intentional, mindful) MAGIC!  

Thanks for reading!

Natasha

If you are looking for job opportunities, you can head over to the Career Contacts job board at www.careercontacts.ca or connect with Natasha on Instagram @yourcareercontact.