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Hiring Mistakes You’re Making (And How To Stop Making Them)

Tags: Candidate Experience, Employer Brand, Recruitment Process

The recruitment industry has greatly changed over the past few years, and it’s all thanks to advancements in technology and the world-takeover of social media. These changes mean recruiters are able to reach an enormous number of candidates resulting in potentially thousands of applications for every role. Not only do recruiters need to be able to keep on top of all these applications, but they need to hire the applicants critically.

Let’s take a look at some of the mistakes you might be making that result in hiring the wrong candidates.

Mistake 1: Hiring versatile candidates over specialists.

Hiring versatile candidates over specialists may seem like a good idea, but the fact is that most multi-talented candidates are average performers whereas specialists tend to outperform.

Why you make that mistake.

There are two reasons you make the mistake of choosing versatile candidates over specialists. Firstly, versatile must be better, right? With so many talents, they can try their hand at tasks that are beyond the responsibilities of their role. If a candidate can do more than what you’ve hired them for, they must be good for your business. The problem is that you hired them for a specific role, not to dip their toes in the pool of every department; you don’t want them spreading themselves thin, do you?

Secondly, you panic and you settle. Finding a specialist must be a mammoth task. You’re much more likely to find a versatile candidate who you can train up than spend months trying to find that one person who will truly add value to your business.

How to fix it.

The simple answer is to hire specialists over versatile candidates. But how are you going to find those specialists? Using a clever Applicant Tracking System (ATS), you can attract and hire the perfect candidate for your role. Using features like talent pooling, tagging and categorising, questionnaires, auto-shortlisting (and auto-rejection), and video interviewing, you’re much more likely to find that perfect candidate. Plus, you’ll be equipped with all the tools you need to establish if they truly are an expert in their field and that they’re the right fit for your business.

Mistake 2: Hiring in a hurry.

Your star employee just handed in their notice. You need to replace them and you need to replace them NOW. How can you possibly function without someone fulfilling that role?!

These are legitimate concerns, but hurrying into a hire without giving the candidates proper consideration can result in hiring the wrong employee and having to go through the whole process over again.

Why you make that mistake.

This one is pretty easy: you hire in a hurry out of panic. But as we just mentioned, this panic, albeit legitimate, could lead to extending your hiring period to even longer than it would have taken to find the right candidate in the first place.

How to fix it.

Once again, you need to get your hands on an ATS. Using talent pooling, you can have candidates at the ready should you need to fill a position quickly. Automation features (such as auto-shortlisting and auto-rejection based on specific criteria) can save your recruiters hours of trawling through CVs of candidates that aren’t even qualified for your role.

But remember, although an ATS will give you the tools you need to hire quickly, you should still slow it down a little and make sure you’ve considered every possible candidate and that you assess the ones you like properly. Video Interviewing is one way to assess a candidate effectively while condensing your recruitment process and ultimately time to hire.

How else an ATS can improve the quality of your hires.

Anonymised applications can help you to avoid discrimination and personal bias.
In late 2016, many large and small UK businesses joined the league of discrimination-free recruitment. 2017 is surely the year of hiring top talent, irrespective of race, color, religion, or origin.

Video Interviewing can help you to avoid challenging interviews.

The face of recruitment has completely transformed in recent years. While you may be interviewing tens of candidates in a day, the candidates may be giving interviews to two or more other companies in the same day. The recruitment authority has narrowed down for the recruiters and expanded for the candidates. After a challenging interview, you may have found a highly skilled candidate, but the discouraged candidate may choose another organisation to work with instead of working in an apparently challenging and stricter environment.

Multi-media job ads and complete brand integration help you to sell your organisation to candidates.

Your job post isn’t only an advertisement for a vacant seat but also an invitation to the candidates to work with your organisation. The talented applicants want to know your specialities, they need to find a reason to invest their talent in your organisation. In order to attract such talented applicants, you need to explain ‘why they should apply’ and ‘what makes your organisation better than others’.

See for yourself how having the right platform can stop you making detrimental hiring mistakes and result in hiring better quality candidates every time.

Try out our ATS and Video Interviewing Platform for 3 months completely free. Get in touch and or schedule a demo.

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