Companies should always be critical of existing business processes to identify areas that need improvement. The recruitment process requires special attention. According to Undercover Recruiter, recruiting errors cause companies to lose 10% of their potential sales. Today, we’re going to share five common mistakes companies make in the hiring process and tips on how to fix them.
Mistake #1: Recruiting a Candidate with Perfect Standards
This is what most companies usually do: they narrow down the pool of suitable candidates, create a standardized list of desirable qualities, and try to find the perfect person for the position. The problem with the methodology is that it provides that only a certain type of candidate can be suitable for a position.
So, in the process of hiring, the HR department can only focus on the experience of the candidate in a particular industry, his education, or his place of internship. This is a mistake. By narrowing the entry threshold, companies may not see valuable employees with other experience/education. In addition, the business, in combination with the skills of the candidate, should take into account whether he will fit into the company’s culture, and how useful he can be. Such features are difficult to discern if you start only from the dry facts about the companies in which a person worked.
Solution
Use a non-standard approach to assessing a candidate. Pay attention to the “imperfect”. Often, an applicant who, at first glance, does not meet the full list of requirements, may have the skills necessary to become a highly qualified specialist. Such hidden stars help shake up business processes.
Another type of candidate that HR shouldn’t ignore is the overqualified candidate.
The advantages for the employer are obvious, an overqualified employee is a “personnel reserve” that can be quickly activated if necessary. In addition, he can become a performance motivator for the rest of the staff, creating healthy competition.
Mistake #2: Lack of communication between the HR department and the internal customer
Often there is a problem with interaction with line managers – customers of vacancies. Difficulties arise in the formation of requirements for candidates, in the selection of applicants, and assessment of their potential. Why does this happen: HR does not ask the customer about who he sees in the position, does not dive into details, is not interested in the result, does not delve into why the customer formulates certain requirements and does not ask clarifying questions. And the manager transfers the task of formulating requirements for a new position to HR, not attaching importance to this stage. Often, the manager does not clearly describe the requirements for a future employee, using ambiguous criteria, for example, “an experienced salesperson with knowledge of the industry is required.”
At the same time, department heads want HR specialists to have a pool of candidates that they can contact at any time, HR wants the internal customer of vacancies to tell in more detail about the requirements for a potential candidate.
Solution
When misunderstandings constantly arise between HR specialists and department heads – the initiators of the selection, the company should establish a communication process and designate the roles of each.
In the first stage, the HR manager must conduct an interview with the manager, the initiator of the hiring, about the wishes and requirements of the candidate. Further, agree with him on the description of the vacancy, agree on conducting joint interviews, and start searching for candidates. If in the course of working on a vacancy, HR understands that there are problems (there are no suitable candidates, the salary is “not in the market”), it is important to immediately inform the customer about the current situation in order to take action or revise the requirements for candidates and not waste time.
HR systems help to build transparent processes within the company, which allow both the recruiter and the internal customer to track the candidate’s path, from applying for a vacancy and hiring to the process of adaptation, training, and further career growth within the company.
Mistake #3: Ignoring modern selection tools
There are many interesting ways to find candidates and recruiting tools other than job search sites. The problem is that if one hiring method continues to work year after year, recruiters likely won’t change it. But this practice leads to missed opportunities in the search for new talent.
Solution
An easy way to try out a new recruiting method for a company is to implement something new along with existing practice. For example, you can use ads on social networks in addition to vacancies on job search sites, post requests in profile and industry communities, and use search using boolean queries.
In order to save time and not waste resources on learning new rules for the correct recruitment, use the services of IT recruiting agency CNA-IT.
