Hiring the wrong candidate can be a costly recruitment mistake. CV-Library reports that in the UK poor hiring decisions can generate losses of up to £15,000 for businesses. Which can quickly multiply depending on the number of roles and applications an employer and recruiter may receive.
To avoid this (& keep costs down) here are 4 recruiting mistakes you can avoid to ensure consistent and high quality hires.
A poorly written job ad
A job advert is usually the first point of contact between employer/recruiter and job seeker, therefore if it lacks effort, is brief and vague it will most likely attract the wrong candidates. By not specifying the exact role requirements or desired skill set, you are encouraging applications from a wide range of candidates who could be either underqualified or overqualified for the role. This then takes additional time and resources to manually sort through irrelevant job applications and attempt to find candidates who fit the job description.
Not only this, but a poorly written job advert will discourage qualified applicants from applying for the role. As a general confusion about what is required from them to be successful within their application is unclear. Instead, a more effective method of targeting a niche audience through a specific and detailed job advert is key in attracting the right job applicants.
Lack of communication
Candidates value information and communication is key to achieving this. Any job updates or insights you can provide them to ensure they don’t feel left in the dark will improve the candidate experience and hopefully discourage them from dropping out of the recruitment process.
Whilst automated emails and updates are effective in keeping a candidate ‘in the loop’ regarding the status of their application, a phone call or face to face meeting can go a long way for both the job seeker and recruiter. The hiring professional can get to know the candidate on a greater level and assess their likelihood to fit the potential role. Whereas the job seeker can grasp a greater understanding of whether the role is right for them.
Rushed hiring decisions
Rushing to get anything done, is likely to lead to a mistake. But in recruitment sometimes this is simply just the reality. The demands of the job and a high volume of job applications a hiring professional deals with on a daily basis is likely to result in a recruiter feeling the pressure. Their time is stretched and more often than not it is difficult to review job applications in full. Causing only 5-7 seconds to be spent evaluating CVs and determining the potential candidate’s job fate.
As a consequence of this, some potentially great hires might slip through the initial screening process. Therefore resulting in a hiring strategy that considers only candidates who were lucky enough to have impressed the recruiter in such a short space of time. Which for obvious reasons, doesn’t necessarily make for the most effective and fair hiring decisions.
Letting unconscious bias get in the way of a potentially great hire
Understanding and overcoming unconscious bias in recruitment can lead to a more diverse workforce and a hiring strategy that considers all applicants qualified for a specific role. A fair hiring decision is one that is based on a candidate’s; skills, experience and potential rather than their personal characteristics which they have little to no control over.
As it is difficult to guarantee human judgement will almost never make an unconsciously biased decision, automated hiring technology can be utilised to ensure this risk is significantly reduced. Through screening candidates based on their skills and experience, all other unrelated factors to the role are not considered in a candidates application. Allowing for a much fairer hiring strategy.
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