When it comes to recruitment, there is often little margin for error. If a hiring process faces unexpected delays, or results in the wrong person being hired, it can lead to significant amounts of time and money being wasted, as well as causing disruptions to key business processes.
As such, it is important to ensure that your recruitment processes are not being undermined by avoidable mistakes that can often lead to businesses making bad recruitment decisions. By being aware of these common errors, it will be easier for your organisation to get this right the first time.
Here, we will explore some of the most common recruitment mistakes that can have a major impact on the success of your business, and look at the steps you can take to avoid them.
The recruitment errors you need to avoid
The following recruitment mistakes are easily and frequently made, but can be difficult to correct without recognising them for what they are:
Failing to offer top talent what they are looking for
Today’s recruitment market is highly competitive, which means that businesses need to be prepared to offer the best talent an attractive package that meets their expectations. Not only does this mean offering a generous salary, but also other perks and allowances that today’s applicants expect, such as flexible working options and the promise of future career development.
Companies need to be prepared to create a generous offering, and advertise the benefits of the role as clearly as possible. If they fail to do so, candidates will simply look elsewhere, and in the current marketplace it is unlikely that there will be a shortage of offers that better suit their expectations.
Being too selective about finding the “perfect” candidate
Every recruitment process will involve putting together a profile for the ideal candidate. This is a useful way of defining what qualities and qualifications you are searching for, but there must also be a degree of flexibility when assessing applicants; otherwise you will risk missing out on suitable candidates for trivial reasons.
For example, it is a mistake to pass over a candidate who is perceived to be overqualified, or who may lack a certain amount of experience, if the rest of their application is very strong. It may be the case that an inexperienced candidate is perfectly capable of fulfilling the requirements of the role with the right amount of training or support, or that “overqualified” applicants may be happy with a lower position if they are given opportunities to advance.
Spending too long searching for the “perfect candidate” is likely to simply result in a key position going unfilled for a long time, which will be damaging to the company.
Neglecting to assess the cultural fit
When assessing a candidate, it is vital to take more than just their qualifications and CV into account. You must make sure that you are asking the right questions during the interview to find out whether they are culturally a good match for the organisation, or if their personality type will mesh well with your team.
Failing to consider these potential culture clashes can result in an otherwise well-qualified candidate being unable to properly integrate into your organisation, or even leading to conflicts and disharmony that can disrupt the team as a whole.
Making a decision too quickly or too slowly
In a fast-moving jobs market, taking too long to reach a hiring decision can be a major issue. Even if the candidate is well-matched for the role and keen to take it, they will not wait indefinitely, and if your company delays its decision, it is likely that the individual will simply choose another role instead.
However, rushing into a recruitment decision is not the solution. If you simply hire the first available candidate without spending enough time to do your due diligence, you risk hiring an unqualified applicant, or passing over better available candidates.
Failure to communicate
Today’s job applicants expect that employers will stay in touch with them proactively and regularly throughout the hiring process, in order to keep them updated on the status of their application, and to answer any questions they might have.
If your company fails to do this, candidates will simply not feel as though they are a priority to you, and this can make it more difficult to convince them to join your team. This failure to communicate also deprives you of the opportunity to receive valuable feedback about your application and interview process that can help you to improve it.
How to avoid these mistakes
Businesses can avoid these potentially costly recruitment mistakes by following a few key principles:
● Provide a generous employment package and clearly advertise the key benefits you offer
● Make your recruitment process as streamlined and candidate-friendly as possible, to encourage people to apply and avoid unnecessary delays
● Take your time to assess all aspects of a candidate and their application, including their personality and cultural values, while keeping them in the loop through regular communication
● Have a clear idea of the essential skills and attributes a candidate would need to have, but open-minded enough to consider applicants with potential for development
● Continually review and solicit feedback about your recruitment process in order to identify potential bottlenecks, inefficiencies and systemic issues that need to be corrected
● Consider hiring a specialist recruitment agency partner to help provide guidance and support in improving your hiring processes
How Employment Solutions can help
Getting recruitment right the first time is much easier with support from an experienced recruitment agency partner. By working with a specialist recruiter, you will be able to receive best practice advice throughout the process, allowing potential mistakes to be eliminated before they happen.
Employment Solutions is a specialist engineering and manufacturing recruiter with more than 20 years of experience helping companies make the right decisions about recruitment. We can ensure that your hiring policies are tailored to meet your specific business needs, and make sure that you are able to implement the right process to target the right candidates every time.
To learn more about how Employment Solutions can help you achieve your recruitment goals, call our team on 0161 839 5353, or complete the contact form below to arrange a call back.