The hiring and recruiting process is an important process that an employee will remember forever. Hiring managers and recruiters have to constantly create effective strategies in order to find, attract, and maintain the interest of the right candidates and ultimately land job placements for organizations.
The process of recruitment may seem a simple process. However, there are often many mistakes that are made in the recruitment process that typically stretches the recruitment process for many months where on average it only takes 36 days and, in worst-case scenarios, costs an organization the ‘right candidate’.
Here are some critical mistakes that recruiters and organizations often, and should never, make in trying to hire the right candidate.
Not Capitalizing On The Job Description
In creating the job description for an open role, organizations sometimes make the mistake of creating a job description that is entirely too long, difficult to comprehend, and fails to create a sense of excitement and optimism about applying to the role. The job description should be very specific, yet in a way, communicate the culture of the brand. This also helps in attracting the right culture fit to your organization.
For job description success, the description should thoroughly explain all areas of the role, the qualifications that are required and most desirable for the role, the purpose of the role and the department, and the competitive perks/benefits offered to the employee. Lastly, most employers fail in the area of taking a realistic approach. The job description should have realistic qualifications geared towards a candidate that actually DOES exist instead of those who do not.
Settling For Less
Knowing your worth as a member of your organization is extremely important. Often times, candidates that are not well equipped to handle the responsibilities of the role are hired which ultimately comes at a cost to the company. Why? Well, for many reasons, such as management leaders not wanting to hire someone that can be a threat to their job security, an overly-lengthy hiring process at the expense of trying to find the right candidate, and not having many candidates to choose from.
The truth of the matter is, companies need fresh, new talent that has the potential to become leaders in order to remain competitive and create an opportunity for business growth.
Rejecting The “Overqualified”
Many companies avoid hiring candidates they deem are overqualified for the role. In actuality, hiring a candidate that has more experience, a higher degree, has worked for larger organizations, etc. can have a major impact on your organization. The sole reason a hiring manager may avoid hiring this individual is the thought of the candidate potentially leaving the organization for a better opportunity. That should never be the case.
In recruiting, you can avoid this by investing in employer branding. Employer branding consists of strategies designed to paint a positive image of your company as an employer and a great place to work and ultimately catch the attention of the best candidates in the marketing. Employer branding exists as an effort to attract them, land them, and most importantly, retain them. Done right, you can hire an overqualified candidate and not worry about potentially losing them by preaching the perks offered at your company that are most important to these candidates, such as the room for growth and advancement and continuous learning.
Allowing Unconscious Bias To Influence The Hiring Decision
Unconscious bias in the recruitment and hiring process is the forming of an opinion on a candidate and his/her ability to work or fit within your organization’s culture based on an immediate first impression. Unconscious bias comes in many different ways such as making judgments and choosing not to hire because of age, gender, social class, race, or religion. This can be seen as early as the stages of first hearing the name of the candidate or seeing a picture of the candidate.
Unconscious bias hurts the chance of diversity in the workplace. Studies show the significant relationship between business growth and diversity. Diverse teams tend to perform significantly better than less-diverse teams in business, and eliminating unconscious bias from your hiring and recruiting practices can ultimately turn into better hiring decisions and a positive impact on your company’s revenue. And, if proven by the candidate, can lead to legal trouble based on discriminatory practices.
Unconscious bias is a huge mistake that a lot of hiring managers and recruiters tend to make. Becoming aware of the potential biases, addressing them, and monitoring the recruitment process and where these biases typically arise can be a step in the right direction of avoiding this in the future and landing the right candidates.
Waiting For The “Perfect Match” That Doesn’t Always Exist
We all want the perfect match, so as organizations we tend to try to narrow our searches when recruiting. This can actually have an adverse effect as there is no “perfect candidate”. Hiring and recruiting focus should be placed on the amount of value an employee can bring to the role and to the organization, and not if the candidate checks every single box on the job description and in the interview. The most successful organizations are the organizations that focus on hiring talent that can grow into the role and deliver a major impact. Recruit candidates that meet the key requirements for the role and are trainable to learn. This, in turn, creates loyalty and the desire to contribute to your organization’s mission.
Hiring Based On The Interview
A great interview can be enough for an employer to decide to hire a candidate. However, studies have shown that hiring candidates simply because of how well they did in the interview should not overshadow everything else in the hiring and recruiting process.
According to a study from the Chally Group, interviews only help increase an organization’s chance of hiring the best candidate for the role by 2%, which is not significant enough to be deemed the deciding factor of whether a candidate gets hired or not. Ensuring that you check all areas and make your hiring decision based on more than one factor will help you land that best-qualified candidate.