When you assume...

It’s the second installment of my Recruitment 101 tips: a quick study of 5 simple but vital things every recruiter should be doing. Following on from last week’s first tip, let’s move on to my second piece of advice:?

Never make assumptions

It’s natural to make assumptions. As humans, we often draw on past experience and apply patterns or common consequences to situations to predict what may happen.?

Making assumptions allows us to make quicker decisions and navigate new or different pathways. However, this can also lead to jumping to false conclusions.

In recruitment it’s easy to make assumptions as we navigate candidate and client relationships.?

We may:?

• Assume the candidate will take the role if offered
• Assume the candidate doesn’t have any concerns about the role/opportunity
• Assume the candidate is excited about the opportunity they are interviewing for
• Assume the candidate isn’t interviewing anywhere else
• Assume the client is working with you exclusively
• Assume the client doesn’t have anyone in mind for the role already, either internally or externally

The list goes on.

However, making these assumptions can be hugely detrimental. And time consuming. Making assumptions can have all kinds of detrimental effects, from failing to properly understand the job opportunity, to causing a process you’ve been working on for weeks or months to fall apart at the last hurdle.

Instead, leave no stone unturned. Get all the information you need from all parties. If you’re not sure about a particular stance or situation, just ask! Knowledge is power.?

Be confident that you have all of the knowledge you need to avoid resorting to guesswork.

Psychology Today notes 3 steps to avoid making assumptions:

1. Assess the evidence
2. Trust your ability to problem solve - there’s no need to preemptively solve a problem that hasn’t happened
3. Develop a strategy of restriction to avoid overthinking

These can be applied to recruitment to make sure any decision making is coming from an informed position, from a person confident in their work.

Don’t assume, just ask.

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