Common mistakes to avoid in recruitment
With over 20 years of recruitment experience I’ve seen it all, the good, the bad, and the downright ridiculous!! I’ve witnessed some incredible recruitment processes and some that have made me cringe from my toes to my curls.
I’d like to share with you what I feel are the most common mistakes to avoid ensuring your recruitment process doesn’t fall into the
cringe category.
Don’t forget to share:
What to think about before you go to advert: -
- Beginning the process without a clear role defined: Vague or recycled job descriptions lead to poor matches and misunderstandings later down the line. Ensure you know exactly what you’re looking for, what skills and experience do they need and write a clear job description.
- Ambiguous job adverts: Overused phrases like “competitive salary” or unclear requirements deter strong candidates and attract the wrong ones. Ensure your job advert has a person specification/experience required/what we’re looking for section and talk about the skills, experiences and competencies you need in the right person.
- Ignoring internal talent: For the sake of everyone involved in the process – please look at internal potentials first before you waste your time, money and external candidates time in going through the process.
Ensure you have a well-designed recruitment process: -
- Rushing or dragging out hiring: Moving too fast increases the risk of a poor hire, while long, multi-stage processes cause dropouts. I worked with a CV writing client last year who went through 7 interview stages! If you don’t know they’re the right person for you after 2 interviews the likelihood is they’re not.
- Starting the search without everyone on board: Skipping a proper briefing with stakeholders means you recruit to a title, not to the real needs of the role and everyone involved. Get the hiring team together, discuss what’s missing, what do they need, what don’t they need (equally as important!) and who is going to fit the bill.
- Not using structured interviews: Over-reliance on informal chats reduces fairness and makes decision harder to justify. I’m a HUGE fan on competency-based interviewing purely for this reason, it gives structure, an opportunity to score candidates against
each other and evidence-based hiring. I can help you design a competency-based framework and questions that are fit for purpose and avoid bad or biased hiring decisions.
Evaluating candidates: -
Over-weighting ‘gut feel’: Letting likeability or small talk trump evidence and criteria leads to inconsistent hires.
Narrow focus on “culture fit”: Hiring only people who “feel like us” limits diversity and overlooks valuable different perspectives which can be great for any business as they grow.
Confusing good applicants with good candidates: Strong communicators can be favoured over better-qualified but quieter people. Focus on skills fit and not just personality fit.
Keep in touch during the process: -
Poor or infrequent updates: Silence between stages makes candidates disengage and harms your reputation. I’ve seen this time and time again with businesses and then they’re surprised when the best applicant rejects the offer. See my blog about how to create a great candidate experience https://askverity.com/positive-candidate-experience/
No or minimal feedback: Even brief, constructive feedback supports your brand and helps candidates move forward. If a candidate has a bad experience with you, believe me, they will tell plenty of other potential future hires!
Weak employer branding: Not explaining your company mission, values and benefits makes it harder to attract in-demand talent. Remember, you need to sell the opportunity to them as much as they need to sell themselves to you. An interview is a
two-way street.
Compliance, offers and onboarding: -
Skipping reference and background checks: Failure to verify information increases the risk of costly bad hires. You may not get much from a reference nowadays, but you will at least confirm employment dates and reason for leaving in most cases.
Rejecting “overqualified” candidates too quickly: You may lose excellent hires without exploring their motivation and fit. They may be at a stage in their career where they want less stress but could be able to bring plenty to the party to help your business without being a threat.
Poor onboarding: Treating onboarding as an afterthought leads to low engagement and early turnover. Giving them a laptop and some online training to complete on day one is never a good start. I can help you design engaging onboarding processes that will keep that brand new hire excited to be working with you.
I hope you’ve found this informative and interesting, if you need further help with any of the above, here at AskVerity we’ve plenty of experience to in designing adverts, job descriptions, recruitment processes, competency-based frameworks, questions and unbiased recruitment processes. To find out more contact us at verity@askverity.com or visit www.askverity.com
