Improve Your Hiring Process by Avoiding these Common Mistakes Hiring Managers Make, Too Often
It’s become quite the challenge to find and keep great employees. Hiring the wrong person can cost your company a lot. So can losing out on a great hire. From lost productivity, production delays, damage to customer relations, impact on staff morale to costs and time to re-hire, and termination payments. We’ve previously written about 5 Hiring Mistakes Managers Make Too Often. But it’s still as current as ever, so we wanted a revisit with common mistakes hiring managers make today.
Read on to learn about the common mistakes hiring managers make too often. These actions negatively impact the hiring process and will cause you more headaches as you try to explain to management why the new hire did not work out. Avoid these hiring mistakes:
Slow Hiring Process:
Certainly you’ve heard: the unemployment rate is at a 40-year low. Competition for good employees is a reality. Don’t miss out on hiring great candidates because the hiring process takes too long! Take a close look at your hiring process and figure out the average time from application to job offer. Learn the average amount of time it takes to hire someone new in your company. If it is a long process, find out where the delays are. Are good candidates moving on because they receive no feedback or feedback occurs too late? What can you do to avoid delays and speed up decision making? Keep the candidate engaged. For the delays that can’t be avoided, communicate. Communication is essential. Provide candidates with a simple update to maintain their interest.
Outdated (or Unrealistic) Job Descriptions:
A frequent hiring mistake is lack of planning. Know what you are looking for. It’s always a rush to get the job advertised and get a person on board. But, it’s important for managers to take the time to really think about the problem. Decide the skills needed and the right fit to do the job well. Jobs change and evolve over time. You don’t need to hire someone exactly like the last person who held the job. Take the time to clearly describe the job responsibilities or risk the mistake of attracting the wrong talent. Identify the essential skills, knowledge and personality needed. Technology and processes change daily. You don’t want to end up with candidates who are be a perfect fit for an old job description from 2015. They might not be able to deliver on solving problems and issues today faced by the business today.
Forgetting to “sell” the Company and Role:
Recruitment is now a marketing function. Companies able to attract top talent have carefully developed their company brand and are marketing to candidates in many different ways. Hiring someone new is a partnership. You want a certain person with the skills, knowledge, experience and personal fit. But you are offering more than just a job. You’re offering a culture, atmosphere, training, future development opportunities and more. So, ensure the recruitment process involves effort to favorably present the company and role to prospective candidates. At all levels. In the job ad, during telephone screening, at the interview stage and at the time of offer.
Candidates are actively being “wooed” by prospective employers. Miss the opportunity to present the benefits of working for your company you will lose a great candidate. Failure to present a realistic preview of what it is like to work in your company, and you’ll hire someone who is not the right fit.
Unstructured Interview:
You need a structured interview process. What happens when you just wing it? You end up talking too much and not learning enough about the candidate. Interviews have been proven to be very poor predictors of hiring success. But since they are still so widely used and relied upon, you can at least improve the outcomes by having a structure to follow. Without a structure you end up hiring the person who is most like you or who makes the best first impression.
What is a structured interview?
- Draft interview questions that will give you information about the essential job requirements. Pull these from your updated job description.
- Make a list of “nice to have skills” too. Draft questions about these points as well. But, remember when making your decision to put more weight on the “essential requirements”.
- Read the candidates resume and draft specific questions about their skills and experience.
- Learn to actively listen. Pause before you ask the next question and the candidate will fill the void, giving you more in-depth answers.
- Learn about the candidate’s motivation for changing jobs and interest in the role.
- Take notes – you can’t remember everything!
- Know about bias and avoid making biased decisions.
Holding out hope for the “Unicorn”:
“They’re great, can I see someone else”. The goal is to find a good fit for the best chance of success. However, don’t lose sight on the big picture. You’ve put in the leg work, understand what you’re looking for and have met with some good candidates. Candidates who have great personalities, a drive to learn and do more, and most of the qualifications for the role. So, why do you need to meet someone else? Are you willing to sacrifice productivity, morale or your deliverables simply because you haven’t found the exact fit? So, if you find a great candidate, give them a chance.
For more, Workopolis has a compiled a great list of 8 Interview Mistakes Hiring Managers Make.
