Are you looking for new employees or planning to hire in the New Year? Finding and selecting the right candidate can be a challenge at the best of times, but making mistakes during the recruitment process can end up costing you more then money.
If you are serious about finding the right employee for your business then here are my top 10 mistakes to avoid during the recruitment process:
1) Not being clear on what the role is – if you aren’t sure what the job is, it will be even more difficult for a candidate to determine if they are genuinely interested.
2) Not getting agreement with all stakeholders prior starting the recruitment process
3) Writing ads that are unclear, boring and company centric with no focus on the candidate.
4) Not knowing how long the recruitment process is going to take. This is important from a candidate’s perspective. For example, if process gets dragged out to six interviews, background checks, psych testing, reference checks and takes three months, without prior notice, the candidates can get disengaged and start looking for other roles.
5) Bad interview technique – leading questions, answering questions for the candidates and not having set questions for all candidates, so you can’t compare apples with apples.
6) Not responding to all unsuccessful candidates – all candidates may be potential customers and not making the effort to give feedback will leave a bad impression of you and your brand.
7) Managers who take weeks and sometimes months to make a decision… The candidates have probably found another job by the time a final decision is made.
8) Doing informal reference checks without the candidate’s permission (which is not allowable under the Privacy Act). This can not only jeopardise the candidate’s existing job but you may end up talking to someone who is not the right person to speak to anyway.
9) Deciding to make an offer at a $ rate significantly less than what the candidate originally asked for. This can be offensive to the candidate if the candidate is worth the original $ and it’s the market rate.
10)Having poor contracts, new starter documents and a bad induction.
If you are serious about finding the right employee for your business, then having a professionally run recruitment process is critical. Make sure you plan ahead when thinking of your staffing needs, so that you have time to complete every stage properly – without rushing, or making hasty decisions.
Each step in the recruitment process is essential, and omitting stages can lead to disappointment, and to your business missing out on the best candidate, or perhaps hiring a candidate that isn’t quite right for the role. Make sure you allow plenty of time when you are recruiting new staff members – finding the right employee is worth a bit of extra time and effort.
