Common hiring mistakes - part 2

With enough time spent in recruitment and hiring, it’s inevitable to come across the common missteps hiring companies will make, time and time again.

Last week we brought you part 1. To save you some time and energy from potentially making those same mistakes yourself, here is part 2 of common hiring mistakes – so that you can get on with what you do best, and get your new hire in with ease for both parties.

FOUR: Selfish messaging

It can be easy to get caught up in the “here’s why we’re great, and we’re a market leader” of it all. What’s most important about this point is making sure you answer that next question: WHY should your company being a “market leader” mean anything to a candidate?

Remembering the old adage of sales will be helpful here: Features are great, but people buy benefits. Share all the good things about your organisation you like, but make sure you’re relating that to why someone will want to come work for you. This means making it a little less about ‘you’ and a lot more about their experience. What’s in it for them to join? What experience, values or culture will they step in to? What’s the appeal?

FIVE: Only advertising on traditional job boards

If you are only posting your jobs on job boards, you’re missing a massive portion of the market. While they are well-known, they are also becoming lesser used as people are turning to different sources for job ads and information.

One question you can always ask here is: “How can we get to the people we’re actually trying to reach?” This will call you to be pro-active about the ideas of where you share your vacancies, and this will yield more of the return you’re hoping for. Particularly in the climate of skills shortages across many sectors, it doesn’t take professionals long to find a role should they want it. When you put it in front of them where they are, in places like the plethora of social media channels we have access to, it doesn’t just ‘wait’ for people to come find you. It sparks an idea in a candidates mind that may have needed that in order for them to even consider the idea.

SIX: Not having a clear hiring process

Make sure you know what steps are required before you start advertising. Your hiring process involves how many interviews you’ll feel are necessary and with whom (and what the ‘point’ of each will be). It further extends into ensuring you have a clear way of delivering feedback, clarity in who will deliver that, and ensuring that you’re not hiring and advertising just as the key decision-makers will be unavailable. There’s no point in having an end date for applications the week that decision-maker is going on three weeks’ leave.

Have the steps in place to ensure the process is smooth, because we guarantee that if the candidate wasn’t already, it’s likely this interview or conversation has prompted them to start looking at what is around. This is why it’s important to ensure your process doesn’t get in the way of things progressing so that you’re in the best position to secure them.

SEVEN: Not planning the information you want out of the interview

This point is connected with the previous one, but is important enough to warrant its very own mention.

You must be clear in what you want out the interview with any candidate.

You might have a standard list of questions you use as a basis for all new hires, and then add relevant ones per the role – this is a great way to have that structure in place. This also includes having the right people at each interview stage, such as the direct report line manager or a HR representative. This way you’ll be able to best get the information you need to get in order to make your hiring decision and, just as importantly, help the candidate make their decision about their willingness to join your organisation.

Having this prepared also keeps you out of hot water because you’ll be less likely to ask unlawful or discriminatory questions with a plan in place. When an interview is just as important for the candidate to glean information as it is for the company, you don’t want to start off my asking questions that murky the waters and set off red flags for a candidate who might very well know they’re not meant to be asked certain things.

Great areas of focus are skills, behavioural and personality-based questions, steering clear of those that attempt to psychoanalyse. This allows you to get the information that truly matters, and leaves the interaction in a more valuable spot.

We’ve got just one more part on this topic coming up next week!

We also have a whole podcast episode on this topic. Have a listen here.