Are you committing any of the Seven Deadly Sins of Recruiting?
I’ve seen the same mistakes day in and day out when it comes to evaluating a recruiting process and it really seems to come down to seven deadly sins…
1) Lack of Process
When hiring managers don’t have a standardized process, its a messy and thrown together schedule that doesn’t provide objective takeaway information. You need to be consistent in all interviews and have detailed information regarding each interview.
2) “Spraying and Praying”
Hiring managers will post the job on multiple different sites then sit back and pray that the right candidate sees it (and applies for it). This is a huge mistake because it only allows you to see one group of candidates in the market – the active ones. And they’re all active for a reason.
3) Using Poor Predictors of Success
This doesn’t happen too often in the sales side of things, but educational requirements or polarized interviews can often filter out the wrong candidates. In sales, we have all seen candidates who are “all hat and no cattle”.
4) Skipping Steps
Sometimes hiring managers will skip certain crucial steps due to an amazing interview, or a strong personal connection. You’re creating a process for a reason, all candidates need to have references and assessments completed. All candidates will go through the same process
5) Losing “Hiring Intertia”
Hiring managers can sometimes get caught up in their own day to day responsibilities (rightfully so) which can lead to slow scheduling. If a candidate is in process for too long, the interest may start to fade. The candidate may also believe that the process is slow because the company is not interested and lose faith in themselves. Make sure to keep a constant line of communication, with action items moving things forward regularly.
6) Checking References Too Late
Since the process is time consuming, many hiring managers will flirt with the idea of doing a weak reference or skipping the reference altogether which is a terrible idea. If you are hiring a superstar – they will be able to provide you with solid references that will hands down recommend the candidate. They know their references will be enthusiastic. If they’re previous managers, what more can you ask for? The only addition on top is to do what is called a “backdoor reference” – where you contact someone that was not listed as a reference, but did previously manage or work with the candidate.
7) Lacking Structured Onboarding
You can’t just drop a superstar into the pool and hope they sink or swim. Onboarding should be a structured 30-60 day process where there are objective goals and metrics established for getting ‘up and running’.
If you can manage to avoid these seven deadly sins, you can easily improve your hiring process and retain better grade employees.
If you’re looking to see what positive steps you can take. . . view Elite LBM Talent: The Blueprint (link).
