Employees are a company’s greatest asset. But acquiring the best talent that checks all the necessary boxes is easier said than done. And if you’re prone to making common hiring mistakes, the process is bound to be more challenging.
Luckily, we’ve compiled the top mistakes every hiring manager should avoid when hiring in this article.
Importance of Better Hiring Practices
Putting more effort into getting the hiring process done right the first time is important for any company. Here are a few reasons why:
Lower Turnover
Your efforts to reduce turnover rates should start with a more solid hiring process. When you’re hiring approach is more holistic, meaning you consider job-fit and culture-fit, not just hard skills, you’re setting up both the business and the new hire for success.
Improving employee retention rates also means you can continue working with and nurturing top talents. If current employees see clear opportunities for growth and advancement within the organization, they are more likely to stay. Employees are motivated to perform well since they know that their contributions are being recognized and rewarded by management.
Improved Efficiency
Poor hiring practices can have negative effects on your business operations. Conversely, improved hiring practices can reduce the time spent repeating the same hiring and onboarding processes. Doing so will help the team be more efficient, avoid unnecessary downtime, and allow for a more stabilized workflow. A better hiring process will eventually result in a better-performing, more focused team.
Reduced Costs
High employee turnover can be costly. Even if you’re only considering the additional labor hours hiring managers and recruiters will spend on repeating the whole hiring process, you’ll see how an inefficient hiring process can hurt your budget. It can also cause your productivity to plummet, further affecting your bottom line.
Top Five Hiring Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Here are the top hiring mistakes hiring managers like you should avoid if you want to get the best talent for your company:
- Creating an Incomplete Job Description
Being clear about what you’re looking for helps hiring managers and interviewers and lets jobseekers be better informed about the role they’re applying for. Make sure your job description clearly explains the following:
- Job Scope and Responsibilities
- Required Skills
- Job Type (Full-time, Part-time, etc.)
- Compensation and Benefits
- And Other Important Details
To create a complete job description, you should be widely familiar with what the job requires. It’s best to involve line managers, supervisors, and team members to provide their input for a better, more effective job description.
- Not Considering Internal Candidates
Creating an internal job board and a channel where managers can recommend team members can help speed up the hiring process. Aside from speeding things up on the recruitment end, you can also save time training internal hires because they’re already familiar with the industry and the organization’s processes. Plus, hiring managers will already have a better picture of current employees’ actual performance within the company. It will all be a matter of preparing and training them for the next internal career move.
Hiring from within is an excellent way of filling vacancies while making employees feel more involved. Your current employees will see they can have a place in the company’s future, encouraging better performance, improved morale, and higher job satisfaction.
- Unconscious Bias
Increasing diversity and inclusion in your company should start with the hiring process. When you’re only considering a small group out of a big talent pool, you’re limiting yourself and the company. Plenty of highly talented professionals are out there, but you need to be willing to make a conscious effort to seek them out.
You can begin with having a more diverse hiring panel and a blind hiring process. When hiring managers screen applications, details like demographics and other personal information are not included. These details are irrelevant to the hiring process and can only cause bias, so it’s best to remove them when considering applications.
- Avoiding Technology
Stay informed about the latest HR trends and technology to keep your recruitment game sharp. Any modern business knows how much technology can help streamline business processes, including talent acquisition.
Adopting technology can help hiring managers screen candidates more accurately and efficiently when done well. They can save time without sacrificing the quality of the talent that is carried onto the next step of the recruitment process. A typical example of such technology is Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that can source, vet, and match talents based on your company’s requirements.
- Not Considering Cultural Fit
Hiring managers may seem so focused on ensuring candidates have the right technical skills and experience that they may neglect to check if a potential employee has the right soft skills to succeed in the role and as a member of the organization. Technical skills can be taught through training and on-the-job coaching, but attitude and values may need more time to solidify.
To ensure you’re hiring someone suitable for the role and your organization, ask the right questions. An applicant’s resume will most likely showcase their technical skills and career experience, so focusing on these two alone during the interview stage can seem redundant. Instead, make sure you’re asking the questions that can help you learn more about a candidate’s soft skills and whether or not they’re a good match.
Conclusion
Turning around the hiring process takes time and effort. You must continuously work to create an efficient, more inclusive recruitment approach. By avoiding these five costly mistakes, hiring managers can help build a more productive team, increase employee satisfaction, and improve business productivity. All these are essential for business success.