5 reasons why you lose the best candidates when recruiting.

In a recent conversation with an online peer group, we were discussing some of the poor recruitment practices we've seen recently. When we think about early life experience for a customer, those first stages of the customer journey are so critical and impactful to make the right impression to win the customers attention and encourage them to try our product. And yet when it comes to our own people, we are sometimes disconnected from the human element, letting process trump experience. Without even being aware, we lose some of the best candidates because of the way we behave in our recruiting process. Here's 5 real examples and a suggestion on how to avoid each one!

Absent hiring managers: Whether in-house or outsourced, the recruitment function is responsible for sourcing human capital (that is, finding great people) to fit your requirements. They have the knowledge, skills and network to tap into large pools of candidates - they know what they are doing. What is more tricky is understanding your specific skills needs and assessing whether by reading a CV or LinkedIn profile they can determine if a particular person fits. So many strong and perfect fit candidates get missed at the start of the process because the hiring manager is not working closely enough with the recruitment function. The upfront effort to help those who are sourcing candidates to "read profiles" in the way you would takes some time and effort. Absent hiring managers reduce the volume of good candidates, and increase the time it takes to fill roles.

Solution: Invest time and energy with your recruiting teams so that they understand you, the technical skills you need and the personality types that fit in your team.

Unapproved roles being pulled mid-process: We've all done it - eager to get a vacancy filled, we bring in the HR team to start sourcing candidates, only to be told that there is no budget until next quarter. No harm done - we dipped a toe in the water to see if there were any potential fits out there, and it was interesting to do a few interviews to help firm up the job spec.

But look at it through the candidate's eyes - whether right at the start of the process, or even worse, toward the end of the process, you (and by default your business) has misled someone into thinking that there was a role ready and waiting for them. By disregarding your own process to have full sign-off before you start recruiting, you trampled over someone's hopes and expectations. What does that say about how you treat your people, and how your business might be perceived?

Solution: Unless you have full approval, sign-off, budget, agreement to proceed, don't start conversations with candidates!

Cut and paste robotic responses: We all acknowledge that communication has a huge impact on people - how they feel, how they respond, what they think of us. Good communication can deliver a negative message and still leave someone feeling OK. Bad communication of a good message leaves a bitter taste in people's mouth, even when the message is to their advantage. In our online peer group, we shared some examples of "cut and paste" HR and recruiting team response. Read the two real examples below, and think how each one makes you feel:

"I would like to thank you for devoting your time and energy to apply with us. While we are thankful that you displayed interest towards our company, we have decided to move with a few other candidates. We regret that we do not have any better news for you at this time."

"Thank you for giving your time to complete our assessment. However, your assessment does not meet our criteria. I regret to inform you that your application has not been selected for further consideration. "

Both passages are from real companies that talk about valuing their employees and treating people with respect. Both messages perform the same task of delivering bad news, but which one would you rather receive?

Solution: Avoid cut and paste robotic responses, and instead try to make the written communications you deliver to candidates as human as possible by asking yourself how you would feel if you received this message!

Disproportionate effort from the candidate: How much time and effort do you expect a candidate to invest in your business during the recruiting process? They should at least understand and be a good fit for the role profile / job description. And they can easily do plenty of research on your company. It's certainly not unreasonable for them to look up about your history, values and culture on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, etc. Most businesses have a short "speed date" between HR and the candidate as a first step, followed by longer more in-depth conversations and potentially very detailed presentations requiring a lot of time and effort for the candidate. This is not unreasonable to expect as you and the potential candidates move closer to achieving the perfect match. And yet some businesses expect a lot of time effort and detail upfront. Home address details, re-typing the whole career history into the company website, asking for reference details before any interview has occurred. This is clunky, but bearable.

What is unacceptable is where businesses flip the normal process and expect candidates to spend hours or days in providing written presentations at the beginning of the process. Every single candidate (rather than a small subset who have been matched to the role) needing to complete complex and time-consuming assessments before the business even had the courtesy to schedule a human exchange with the candidate seems unreasonable and disrespectful of candidates' time. It also suggests a conveyor-belt approach to the people within the organisation.

Solution: Consider the effort you expect at each stage of your recruiting process, make it fair and balanced to respect candidates' time and effort.

Excessive onboarding effort: So the long journey is finally at an end, and you decide to offer the role to the candidate. Congratulations!! You won them over as much as they won you over - now you can really start to make connections with each other. At least, that's how it should feel. Businesses in heavily regulated industries and larger enterprises can sometimes lose sight of the human element of onboarding because they are too focused on the practicalities.

For example, if your backgrounding checking process takes longer than the notice period you ask of the candidate, you are potentially leaving your new joiner unemployed because of your own process failing. Likewise, expecting candidates to incur personal cost or excessive time to complete your onboarding is also a big fail. I know of at least one enterprise employer in Portugal who expects candidates to queue up at a public building to request (and pay for) a paper certificate as part of onboarding whilst promoting how much they are protecting their staff from exposure to the Covid virus. The need to spend hours at a public building during a pandemic does not fit with this message.

Sometimes businesses do need to gather a lot of information as part of the onboarding process, but for the candidate, it can feel intrusive and invasive. How your business manages this critical phase will set the tone of the relationship between you and your new staff member.

Solution: HR processes are rarely thought through from the employee perspective, so hiring managers should stay close and offer personal interaction to minimise the negative experience new joiners face during onboarding.

Finding new people to join your organisation should be an enjoyable and exciting experience for both you and your candidates. Positively engage with people, even those who are not successful, demonstrate your values, show the human side of your organisation and give the best possible impression of your business. Whether you are a cool start-up or a global enterprise, despite what candidates may say, they are joining your business to earn a salary and pay the bills. But with a positive experience from the start, and a good impression for everyone who applies to your company, you can win over hearts and minds over time, and create a positive impression of your company within the marketplace.