The speed with which the recruitment industry is evolving has been phenomenal and recruiters who do not adapt fast to this forever-changing market, risk rendering themselves obsolete.
Here are the 10 most common habits that makes recruiters unsuccessful.
1. Failing to plan:
Because of a lot of inter-dependency on different people and processes in the organisation, hiring needs planning in advance to succeed. A lot of recruiters who do not plan in advance, fail miserably.
Take responsibility for your actions and efforts by planning every stage of the process to make your hiring fail-proof.
2. Failing to promote your jobs at the right place:
Best jobs promoted at the wrong place will only help you get wrong applicants faster. Without understanding who your target audience is and what are their favourite sites they visit often, it will be dificult for you to attract the right applicants from your job ads.
Do some research to understand the job as well as the kind of candidate profiles that will be suitable for the job and promote your jobs accordingly.
3. Relying heavily on job descriptions rather than Understanding the Job:
In large corporations, Job descriptions often get legally sterilised to avoid any negative repercussions later. What comes out as a result are plain and vague job descriptions which does not provide the candidate with any real insights about what the role actually requires. Focusing too much on job descriptions will only make this confusion even worse. Therefore good recruiters always try to focus on what matters the most instead of what’s writen on job descriptions.
Getting insights from the hiring managers or the immediate manager whom the new hire will report to, will give you what’s needed to get the right person on board faster.
4. Making wrong assumptions about what will work based on the past hires:
Just because a certain kind of candidate worked with a certain client, does not mean that you should look for and send the replica of that candidate again. It is important to understand that employers prefer hiring candidates having different background and skillsets as the benefits of work-force diversity are still under-rated.
Do not let some pre-conceived notion about what kind of candidate works with which client stop you send some good candidate profiles having a different background than what has worked in the past.
5. Focusing too much on work experience and Not on potential:
Recruiters often give in to a rather heuristical approach of considering candidates only within a certain range of experience years. It definitely makes their work of finding the right candidates easier by narrowing down the list of candidates they need to filter but this approach is flawed as you might miss out some of the great candidates who do not fall under this range. Better way is to focus on potential rather than experience.
6. Turning a blind eye towards your external communication:
Recruitment is a two-way street. You might be thinking it’s you who is looking for the right candidates for your requirements, but if you think from the candidates’ perspective, they too are looking for the right organisations where they can grow professionally and personally. Therefore it becomes extremely important for you to present your organisation well in the minds of the prospective candidates.
Ensure your telecalls are professional, Your online identity is in sync with your organisations’ propositions and last but not the least, Your websites and social media accounts are updated and presentable. Remember, candidates are watching you.
7. Not being forthright:
Organisations who chose to conceal some critical information about the job while hiring, often end up with bad hires or too much attrition later. Be forthright about certain important job-aspects like pay, working hours, expected work-load, etc. during the hiring process as this helps you gain candidate’s goodwill.
8. Asking wrong questions:
One of the top reasons recruiters fail is because they fail to ask the right questions at the right time. If you do not pose the candidates with right set of interview questions, you are sure to fail in understanding the fitment of the person. That will result either in a bad hire or a lost opportunity in terms of losing a great candidate.
Sniff out the best candidates at the early stage of hiring using the right questions.
9. Being too slow to react on feedback:
The speed with which you react to any feedback received from the client or the candidate, can make or break the deal. Sometimes employers give subtle hints about certain specific things they want from the potential candidate which they don’t want to say clearly in order to avoid any legal troubles. Picking up those clues early can help you close the deal faster.
Keep your eyes and ears open to grab any such hints and react faster to turn the outcome into a positive one.
10. Lacking perseverance:
Attracting right talent needs patience and perseverance. Senior candidates do not give out their details too easily. You need to win their trust by showcasing your professionalism and that takes some time.
Those recruiters who fail to recruit might be too hasty. Don’t repeat the same mistake by giving up too early.
These are the 10 most cited habits of recruiters who bring them down. We hope you don’t fall prey to any of these.
