To err is Human but how safe is it to err while hiring? When employers try to bring new employees on-board, they can bump into a lot of pitfalls which sometimes might have serious repercussions.
Within so many organizations, recruitment as a process happens to be reactive in nature. A senior manager will be faced with an internal restructuring or a resignation letter affecting his team and the next thing he will do is to call the HR or the recruiter with an urgent mandate to find the best replacement for the post. As the time goes by and the position is still vacant, he goes into panic mode and what happens next is a bad hire.
With a slightly better planning and strategy, things can change in a big-way. We have identified some of the common hiring mistakes you can not afford along with the ways to deal with them.
Deadly Hiring Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs:
1. Having too lengthy hiring process:
If your resources are over-loaded because you haven’t been able to get that new developer on-board in time, it definitely has its impact on your bottom-line. Remember : It costs money not to hire. A simple thumb-rule to follow to avoid getting your hiring process become lengthier over time is to keep questioning every step of the process until it’s value addition is proven.
2. Not having a defined career path for the position:
Career mapping is one of the most important management tool successful companies use to attract and retain the best talent. Having a clear career trajectory helps you attract and retain the best talent easily. It comes as an assurance to the candidate about your commitment and concern for the development of the candidate.
3. Not having pre-interview telephonic screening:
Many a times, Just a 20 minutes telephonic call before the actual interview can help you save hours of your time being wasted in interviewing wrong candidates. Having a telephonic screening before calling the candidates for interviews helps you manage your time more effectively by screening candidates that are not a good match for the position you are hiring.
4. Ignoring Employee Referrals as a policy:
Plenty of research have proven that referrals is the best source of quality hire. By not having an Employee Referral program in place you are losing on an opportunity to get the best talent at a much lesser cost. Let your best employees recommend other good candidates.
5. Being ill-prepared for the interview:
Ron Lichty mentions in his book Managing the Unmanageable – “The typical Hiring manager reads the resume on the way to meet the candidate unprepared”. As a hiring manager, your job is to weigh out all the candidates on the same criteria. To do a fair job of judging all the candidates consistently, you’ll need to have done sufficient research about the job, it’s career path and the inter-dependency within the company.
6. Not testing candidates’ key job skills:
Certain jobs require specific skills to be able to run the task successfully. Except certain soft skills, most of these skills can be tested in simulated situations. Not testing the skills that are critical for the job success can be the biggest recruiting blunder you can make. It becomes even more crucial for technical jobs like programming. When the skills can not be tested in real-time, past experience can be considered as good indicator of the person’s potential.
7. Banking on curve ball questions to determine the fitment of the candidate:
A massive study conducted at the University of Michigan by John and Rhonda Hunter came up with shocking revelation about the effectiveness of interviews in accurately predicting the candidate’s on-the-job success : The typical interview i`ncreases the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2%! It does not mean you should do away with the interviews completely, as interviews are still one of the best tools to gauge the candidates’ personality and fitment for the job if used correctly along with a few other tools.
If you have been making some of the mistakes above, eliminate one mistake at a time instead of planning a major system overhaul. What hiring mistakes have you experienced in past? We’d love to hear about them.
