I'm involved with recruiting new colleagues, typically architects of different flavours, into the architecture practice that I'm part of, this process, like most other company's recruitment and joining processes is a multi stage, multi format process involving many different people and many different touch points with candidates. It has the potential to become complicated and unwieldy, extending itself out over undesired periods of time.

Working as an architect you tend to spend a fair bit of time looking at business processes, mostly outward facing processes, or processes that drive the overall business objectives, but every now and then we turn our eye to our own internal processes. This article examines how having a poor recruitment and joining process can have an adverse affect on both the new team member, and the existing team that are involved in the process.

The recruitment and joining experience, more important that you think

Having a new person joining your practice is a key impression shaping experience for them, it will form their initial view of people involved, and the overall team, and the maturity of the team. Think of this as the first handshake of a meeting, you remember that don't you? You know how when you first meet someone, you shake their hand, and that action is forever associated with them. 'John' forever has a handshake like a wet fish, limp and uninterested, whereas 'Susan' has a firm, but not too firm, authorative, confirming handshake. Everyone's is different, but they all leave a lasting impression about that person. Your recruitment and joining process is no different, just significantly more complex.

The danger here is that the people performing this process, whether that is existing team management or Human resources may see the activity as just that, a series of activities, the physical actions of the process. Often this is not the existing managers core responsibility, they have a 'normal' job to do, and this sort of thing isn't typically as important as that job. Its highly unlikely that any of them have objectives around how many candidates they recruit, or even more significantly retain, so its treated with less priority than it should otherwise have.

Typical activities might be:

1. 1. Review CV's
2. 2. Conduct telephone interview
3. 3. Conduct face to face interviews
4. 4. Make recommendations to cost centre management about candidate suitability
5. 5. Communicate offer
6. 6. Order a phone and laptop
7. 7. Request the right access privileges (AD accounts etc.)
8. 8. Order a security pass
9. 9. Send out a 'first day instructions' email

Now, there are obviously physical tasks to perform here, but most of these can, and often do have an outward facing impact on the candidate. That's the factor that is often overlooked. When times are busy, and everyone has project work, or partner relationships to manage, investing time and energy into ensuring a smooth recruitment and joining process can often be the first thing to suffer.

It's a maturity barometer

Aside from creating that initial impression with new employees it is also a good mark of how mature a team is, and potentially an organisation. I like to think of it this way, if a company has mature, well thought out recruitment and joining processes, there is a strong chance that the rest of their internal and external processes are also well thought out. The opposite is also true in my experience. If they cannot recognise the importance of these processes, including the impact they have on morale and the future engagement of employees, then there is a strong chance you may find they do not have the rest of their house in order.