The recruitment form is an integral part of any recruitment.
It serves you to gather the necessary information to help you select and choose the best employee. And, unlike a resume, or the cover letters still used by some HR professionals, you decide what information it should contain.
In theory, you can multiply the fields that a candidate will have to complete, choosing from the options provided or in descriptive form. However, their multiplicity or too detailed scope may discourage. What will be the result? A negligible influx of resumes.
You may ask only basic questions in it to make filling it out a formality. The result? You will receive the data you already have available on your resume and the document will become useless. We will help you find the golden mean.
A well-designed recruitment form makes the difference!
It helps you efficiently make the first selection of submitted applications. Thus, it facilitates and speeds up the entire recruitment process. Remember that this is the place where candidates answer specific key questions about a particular position. What can be key and make the whole process easier?
If experience in the position is important for hiring, here is the place to state years of experience in the field or industry.
What else can determine the rejection of a candidate? If his financial expectations far exceed the company’s capabilities. The timeframe in which he can take the job may also be decisive.
Something you should never forget about
Imagine that during the selection process you are typing three dream potential employees. The first interview or even the performance of the task is exemplary. You have this confidence that you will hire a future star. However, during the next stage, you find out that two of the candidates have very high financial requirements. The third, on the other hand, is bound by a six-month contract, and you need an employee in two months at the furthest.
The process that was already underway is both your wasted time and those candidates. And it would have been enough to pick out the key issues as early as the recruitment form stage. And not risk having to start the process all over again.
This affects the company’s brand.
Avoid the situation described above. Candidates who have taken their time and engaged in the process may, to put it mildly, feel ripped off. Imagine your feelings if, halfway through from the recruiting company, a statement was made “then I guess we can’t afford you after all” or “well, but we need an employee sooner”. Then, why weren’t these issues raised earlier!!! They should have! Just at this point.
A meticulously prepared recruitment form is a clear indication that the recruiter is taking a thorough approach to the entire process. Thoughtful questions, clear instructions, clear design affect the good perception of the recruiting company. The ability to object to the processing of certain information is also important, as well.
Show that the company is open to working with people with disabilities.
Remember to make it readable for people with physical disabilities. Apply the principle of high contrast between background and text. Apply the option of choosing larger fonts for better text readability. Alternative descriptions to images are helpful for people with disabilities when filling out the form.
All of the above issues also affect the company’s perception and image building.
Recruitment form — what has to be included?
Think through what to ask in order to avoid misunderstandings and to make it easier to select applications.
Contact data
It should contain such personal data as name, surname, contact number, e-mail. These are sufficient to be able to contact the candidate. Under the field with e-mail and cell phone, you can add information on which of these forms of contact is preferred by the recruiter.
What can help you in the selection process is, for example, a profile on LinkedIn. You can ask for a link to this profile. On the other hand, a registered or residential address, even more so for a remote job offer, is out of place, to say the least.
Education & work experience
You will find this type of data in the candidate’s resume. Asking to list specific schools and completed courses again may discourage the candidate. Intuitive at this point will be the ability to download the resume and add as a file.
When it comes to work experience, be sensitively guided. Remember that too much information that candidates have to additionally enter into the form may result in a low number of incoming resumes. A question with options to choose from and an open-ended question with an opportunity to complete the information may be ideal.
Open and closed questions
If you want to learn about a candidate’s motivations, strengths in terms of skills and competencies, or future plans, you can include open-ended questions with boxes for descriptive answers.
This is important because, in a move away from cover letters, this may be the only opportunity before an interview to learn about a candidate’s motivation. You can also easily get an idea of whether the person will be a good fit for the team, and whether their expectations for their career path can be met.
A process that was already underway is both your wasted time and those of the candidates. And it would have been enough to pick out the key issues as early as the recruitment form stage. And not risk having to start the process all over again.
Recruitment form – what should not be included in it?
It is extremely important to balance the number of fields. Thoughtful and appropriate design has the effect of making the process more efficient.
Insightful personal questions and complex commands.
Do not invade privacy. Remember, the document should not include questions about: place of birth, or marital status. It is also definitely not the place to collect information about the children of a potential future employee!
With candidate experience in mind, avoid closed questions with yes or no answers available. Always leave the opportunity to elaborate on the answer to give candidates a chance to express their thoughts freely. Instructions should be short, understandable, and clear.
Education and work experience irrelevant to the position.
Leave education regarding high school or high school diploma grades for the lunchtime interview when the candidate is already on the team. This information will only litter the form, will not be useful in the hiring process and may cause discouragement. Similarly, work experience regarding seasonal work or apprenticeships at a technical school.
Recruitment form – best practices.
When designing a recruitment form, remember a few rules.
The less, the more specific – Collect only the data that is necessary for the employee recruitment process. Excess can litter the form and make it harder for you to select candidates.
A clear document is easier to fill out – Take care of the logical arrangement of questions. Use headings, and in questions with options to choose from, bullet lists.
Clear messages guarantee that you will get a specific answer – Don’t interject company slang or bureaucratic language into the questions. If it is direct and clear, chances are your answer will be equally clear and direct.
In the back of your mind, you need to have the factors that are critical in a given hiring process, and just ask about themIf it is a specific skill, ask about it. This is because you may not find this information in your resume. If it is the form of employment – contract or b2b – be sure to ask which is preferred. And if you offer only b2b, ask for a specific gross amount so that you can easily compare the expectations of the candidates on the list.
If you are testing the effectiveness of particular forms of outreach, include an open-ended question.
Remember to choose larger fonts. A large contrast between the text and the background is a helpful solution for people with physical disabilities who have the right to take part in the process.
Remember to include information in the form – who is the controller of personal data – and that personal data is processed for recruitment purposes. The candidate should confirm that the content of his data is consistent. Consents not marked with an asterisk are voluntary.
Create a ready-to-go tool to create a recruitment form.
The recruitment system should be tailored to you. To your work style. Using support tools should not mean that you have to carry out the recruitment process according to an imposed path.
TRAFFIT provides you with such flexibility. Here the entire process, including the design of the form, depends on your needs:
What can you use TRAFFIT for?
It can be your support at every stage:
- You configure the candidate profile and recruitment details. Each piece of data can serve as a filter by which you later search for potential employees from your entire talent pool.
- You create your recruitment process path. There can be a different one for each, or you duplicate an already created one. You add recruitment steps, dictionaries and email automation.
- You design a job listing using graphics and fonts that are consistent with the company’s brand book. You can use ready-made scripts for this purpose, freely modifying them.
- You’ll create an recruitment application form that asks only the questions you can’t find in your resume and on LinkedIn. The ATS system will combine all the information about the candidate thanks to the resume parser and LinkedIn sourcing plugin.
- You receive notifications when new applications arrive.
- You tag team members to participate in the process or provide them with specific profiles from the talent pool.
- You make notes next to candidates, evaluate and tag them, and use the talent pool for future recruitments.
- You easily create reports on your work. The system reports on the effectiveness of your recruiting and specific application sources.
- You design a Careers page and make job ads available there with one click. In addition, you can share these ads in several places simultaneously, such as LinkedIn Jobs, OLX, Indeed, Jooble.
Don’t forget about…
Include information related to the law of data processing and storage in accordance with the GDPR, the address of the supervisory authority may appear. And in accordance with what law or regulation the application will be processed by the company based (and here the exact address).
But using TRAFFIT you do not have to create such messages yourself. You have the contents of all consents available to you here. And it is also important to remember that everyone has the right to correct and amend data, as well as to file a complaint, or to remove data from the database.
Once you’ve created the form, take another look at it and answer yourself honestly whether it’s neat. Remember that a legible, clear, transparent document is eagerly filled out. This is your guarantee of an influx of sufficient applications.
Let’s have a quick call, we will be happy to advise you on how to do it right!
