10 Mistakes Recruiters Are Making

With roughly 8.3 percent of the country looking for work, and resumes flooding in, recruitment and retention are too important to leave to chance. Employment of the right people is closely related to your organization’s success. As, it has been estimated that nearly 46 percent of new hires fail within 18 months, and a bad hiring decision can cost a company upwards of 200 percent of a year’s salary!

So, how can recruiters improve these staggering statistics? Get back to the basics when hiring — and avoid these 10 mistakes many recruiters make:

1. No clearly defined role or job description. A broad job description can increase the amount of resumes you receive and can make the screening process lengthy and cumbersome. If you don’t know the exact role, how can you hire the right person?
2. Not pre-screening. Pre-screening via video gives you the ability learn more about applicants before making the decision to conduct an in-person meeting. This saves your time and theirs — and increasing the chances of NOT making a bad hire.
3. Subscribing to the “butts in the seats” mentality. We’ve all been there. You have an open position that needs someone yesterday. You’re receiving pressure from the hiring manager and your superiors to get a “butt in the seat.” Rather than making a quick decision to put the wrong person in the role, consider hiring temporary help or utilizing an outside agency to take on some of the work while you look for the right fit.
4. Assuming the resume is correct. Let’s face reality: many candidates pad their resumes. It’s up to you to uncover the truth in all the fluff. If you don’t, it will cost you.
5. Discounting a candidate for being overqualified. With the unemployment rate hovering around 8.3 percent, many good people are out of work. Just because they look overqualified on paper, doesn’t mean they can’t do a great job. Look beyond the resume! With video, you can see traits that may just be a perfect fit for your company’s culture. Regardless of how overqualified they are, if they applied and could be a good fit for the company, they’re worth a closer look.
6. Failing to check references. This is a biggie! According to the 2010 SHRM Survey, almost 25 percent of companies don’t check references.
7. Not utilizing internal resources. Recruiters shouldn’t be the only ones conducting interviews. Make sure you have the hiring manager and other members of the team involved in the process, too. Different perspectives will help reduce the potential for future conflicts.Video’s sharing capabilities allow recruiters to easily do this so everyone can determine if the candidate is a right fit.
8. Hiring “what comes along.” The candidates you find for each position are only as good as the processes used. When you hold a job fair or other broad-based search, you might only look to hire from that pool, regardless if the applicants meet the criteria or not. If you don’t find the right people, try a different recruiting approach. Don’t settle for what’s simply in front of you.
9. Automatically promoting from within. While an internal employee may seem like the best person for the job, all candidates need to go through the same screening and interviewing process to ensure a good match.
10. Not recognizing a mistake. We all make mistakes, but a failure to acknowledge a hiring mistake can be catastrophic. The sooner you recognize a bad hire, the quicker you can work with the management team to remedy it.

Have you made any of these recruiting mistakes? What was the outcome? How did you remedy the situation?

IMAGE Courtesy of SocialMediaRecruitment.