In a job-seekers market, and with warning signs of a recession still lingering, you may be having a tough time meeting your staffing goals. But the source of your troubles may be internal recruiting mistakes that hamper your ability to hire and keep the talent you need. Read on to see if you recognize any of these four unforced errors in your organization.
Hanging Candidates Out to Dry
One of the most frequent complaints job seekers have about hiring processes is they simply take too long. Unfortunately, that’s often because hirers simply ghosted the candidates, who are left in limbo. Make sure you keep your candidates updated on the status of their application – including (and especially) when you’ve decided to go another direction. And when you get to the interview stage, approach it with a clear idea of what you’re seeking so that you can move from interview to hiring in a timely way. Remember: Candidates who have a bad experience applying for your company will share it with other job seekers, dealing a blow to your brand.
Leading Candidates On
Job postings are often long on hype and short on detail. Specifically, listings may present a vague idea of the salary available for a given position. This is bad enough, but some hirers will string a candidate along even when they know there’s no way their company will pay the amount an applicant is looking for. Then, if the candidate gets the job, they may be in for a shock when it appears their salary request has been ignored. Instead of undercutting your candidates, embrace pay transparency from the very first job posting. It’s perfectly fine to give yourself some wiggle room, but don’t promise something you can’t deliver.
Letting Personal Biases Get in the Way
You may think you can be totally objective and impartial when evaluating candidates, but you’re human, and unconscious bias can sabotage your recruiting efforts. By not being aware of the flawed shortcuts your brain makes, you could be missing out on a great hire. To help you avoid such missed opportunities, watch for these unconscious biases in your hiring process.
- The Halo Effect involves allowing one obvious positive trait about a person to affect how we judge them in unrelated areas. For instance, If a person is attractive, we might assume they’re also intelligent, kind, and funny.
- Confirmation Bias is the tendency to look for information that confirms a belief you have and subconsciously filter out all evidence to the contrary. For instance, an interviewer hiring for a management position may believe that men are inherently better managers than women.
- Affinity Bias describes our natural tendency to get along with people who are like us. It’s easy for hiring managers to fall victim to affinity bias, especially when evaluating for a culture fit.
Lacking a Consistent Recruitment Process
How much of your recruiting process is manual? How much time do you spend mining for talent? And how do you track where your candidates are in the selection progression? Do you actually have a repeatable hiring process? If not, you could be setting yourself – and your candidates – up for confusion and frustration. For you, that means lower productivity; for the candidates, it gives them more cause to disparage your business.
Arrow Offers Staffing Solutions
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