To properly staff a company – large or small – it’s important to not only find the
right candidate, but avoid the frequent mistakes employers make during the hiring process. Recruiting the best potential employees means looking beyond word-of-mouth, initial resume perceptions, and the rush to fill vacant spots. There are several errors that notoriously occur during the hiring process, from speeding through the interview itself and dropping the ball on later communications to inaccurately assessing the company’s needs and making unfair salary offers. Here are some of the top mistakes recruiters and hiring managers need to safeguard against when seeking to bring quality talent to their organization.
A successful recruiter or hiring manager needs to clearly understand the ins-and-outs of their operation in order to assess what positions need to be filled, and what type of person it will take to fill them. As well, there needs to be proper communication between supervisors, staff and hiring managers so that everyone on board knows what it takes to keep divisions running smoothly and how many employees are needed in each specific department. There cannot be an environment wherein “if somebody good comes up we’ll consider interviewing/hiring him or her – maybe they could fill spot A, B, C . .” Ambiguity cannot rule the acquisition of staff.
The Employee Retention Blog lists ten major areas of concern during the hiring process. Their top mistake listed – hiring in the reactive mode – doesn’t define just one mistake, but many; rushing to fill positions simply out of recent vacancy makes for more trouble than good, in the long run. And quickly attempting to interview and hire often means the company hasn’t assessed the empty spot since the last person left, further increasing the likelihood that the wrong person, filling a position that needs to be tweaked, will be hired.
Taking the resume at face value is an error that appears frequently on lists about hiring mistakes. There is a reason that behavioral interviewing has become so popular an HR topic today; resumes don’t speak for a person, a person does. 
One cannot read through a resume and know how someone will react on the job, they only know what previous positions or accolades were received, they are not nearly as in-depth of an indicator of future behavior as the right questions can be. Over-emphasis and over-utilizing the resume as hiring tool leads to another mistake that can be made: interviewing poorly. The resume is merely an entrance into more in-depth questions and scenarios that the hirer can use to better assess the candidate.
Much about finding the right talent lies in keeping a good flow of time between communications and interactions. When companies are in the process of interviewing but not yet in decision-making status it’s important to keep candidates aware of what stage things are in and to let them know that you’ve acknowledged their time and will alert them to when hiring decisions will likely be made. Sometimes a candidate fails to hear back from a company, feels they were passed over, and accepts something else in the interim simply out of lack of communication.
Here are a few other mistakes that can be made during the hiring process:
• Relying on references – even former supervisors may not be as honest as necessary.
• Low-balling salary offers – quite frankly it’s rude to the candidate, and to the reputation of your business.
Taking care to avoid the pitfalls mentioned above will ensure that quality talent is properly assessed – and hired.
Read more articles:
Behavioral interviewing garners much more than yes and no responses
Want the best employee for your small business? Ask the best questions!
