Are You Making These 5 Common Mistakes When Hiring for a job?

Finding the right employees for a job is essential for an organization to succeed. Without having an appropriate team of employees, no organization will be able to move forward to meet their goals. Additionally, if unqualified employees, or employees that do not match the requirements, are hired, it can ultimately cost an organization a lot of money in the long run.

To prevent hiring mistakes, recruiters need to know how to hire new employees properly, to minimize risks of ending up with recruits that would hurt the organization. It is clear that if bad employees are hired, they will get fired or will eventually quit in the near future, which means the employer will have to start the recruitment process all over again to refill the position in the organization.

In this article, we have listed some common hiring mistakes that employers make when finding the right employee for the job.

1. Having a Narrow Candidate Search Pool

One of the biggest hiring mistakes occurs while pooling potential candidates for a job. Most employers tend to filter out a majority of resumes and only keep the CVs that attract their attention the most. So this is so important for candidates who are looking for a job to know how to write a good CV that will get employers attention.

While it is important to narrow down a list of the top candidates when finding the right employees to hire, this should not be the case when initially looking for candidate applications.

Successful organizations know that one of the key elements for success is diversification. Diversification does not necessarily mean having a wide variety of products and services to provide to customers, it also means having a diverse group of people in the workforce. Finding the right employees from different backgrounds, with different characteristics and perspectives will give any organization a competitive edge because of the new and unique ideas they bring with them. Employers can increase their candidate pool by attracting potential candidates through innovative job ads. Nowadays, people rarely look to the job section in newspapers to find vacancies, rather it is through electronic media that most people find jobs. Facebook and LinkedIn have become the most popular sources through which employees find job opportunities. Similarly, Bikroy has also developed a new platform through which employers can effortlessly skim through a diverse pool of potential talents, find out more about BikroyJOBS here: A Recruitment Game Changer, Now Onboard BikroyJOBS!

So, to expand the pool of candidates, employers need to engage multiple media sources, such as their websites and other social media platforms, to broadcast their job vacancies to enable a diverse group of people to apply.

2. Basing Hiring Decisions on First Impressions

It is inevitable that employers will form some type of opinion about candidates during the interview process. A candidate’s speaking abilities, their non-verbal behavior and attitude all contribute to how an interviewer might judge them and their potential fit into the job position, thus causing interview errors and bias. Here are some common things that most interviewers tend to look out for in candidates “Interview Body Language Do’s & Don’ts“

However, if an employer makes their ultimate decision on who to hire based solely on their impression of the candidate, it can lead to hiring an employee that is not right for the job at all. A candidate may have skills and knowledge that is perfect for the job position, but due to not making a good first impression by being nervous or not having proper interview behavior, it can cause employers to think that the person is not right for the job after all. But what this means is that a good candidate is being rejected based solely on their interview taking skills, ultimately costing the organization a potentially perfect candidate from being hired.

So, to avoid this, employers should focus more on the candidate’s listed skills and experience from their resume as well as the supporting information they provide during their interview. By limiting the qualitative factors from affecting their decision, it can help employers in finding the right employees that best fit the job they will be doing rather than fitting the personality of the people they will be working with.

3. Not Preparing the Candidate for the Job/Interview

Candidates need a certain degree of preparation before they can sit for an interview so that the process goes smoothly. Most often interviewers may ask questions to the candidate regarding the company and its policies, and interviewees are expected to ask relevant and insightful questions in turn. For this, a lot of valuable interview time is wasted, asking all candidates similar questions as well as giving them brief information about the company and its culture. To save time and focus more on important matters such as the employee’s skills and their fit into the organization, employers can provide most of this information beforehand during the initial recruitment stages. Employers can utilize a detailed Job Description to provide potential candidates with information about the job, what tasks will need to be performed, as well as giving some brief information regarding the company and its policies. Furthermore, employers can include a proper mission and objectives page on their website so candidates can get an idea of what kind of organization it is and whether or not they are suitable to apply.

Additionally, candidates can take initiative and prepare for interviews on their own, here is an article to help prepare candidates to apply for jobs.

4. Not Preparing the Recruiters

One critical mistake on the employer’s part is that most do not plan the process of how to hire new employees. What many employers do not realize is that without a proper recruitment process and interview structure, it is very difficult to determine which candidate is best suited for the job amongst the hundreds that are interviewed. If interviewees are not asked all relevant questions and matched according to the hirer’s list of requirements, the chances of hiring the wrong candidate increases.

To prepare the interviewer, they need to know how to hire new employees and there needs to be a well-formed plan which lays out:

• What the job they are hiring for entails
• What relevant questions to ask candidates, and
• What critical skills and indicators to look out for during the interview process

Directing the interview through the predetermined structure will save the organization a lot of time and effort while also digging up all relevant information necessary to make the final hiring decision.

5. Not Pre-screening Candidates

To save time and reduce the burden of going through hundreds of applicants, recruiters should sift through applications and group together only the relevant candidates. Thanks to technological advancements, we have many tools at our disposal to ease such tedious processes. Using an Applicant Tracking System, employers can quickly filter in CVs of candidates that meet their job requirements and have a similar set of skills and expertise that are crucial for the job candidates are applying for. By doing so, it cuts a significant portion of time from the recruitment process and helps employers in finding the right employees.

Checking references is also another important step in the candidate screening process. There are many cases of candidates not stating correct information in their resumes or during interviews, in the hopes that these facts may be overlooked. To make sure that potential hires are being truthful, it is crucial to cross-check their statements with relevant references. By doing so it helps employers pick out only the most authentic candidates that truly are the best fit for the corresponding jobs.

In today’s world, the market for finding the best talent is extremely competitive. Every company is looking for recruits that would give them the optimum returns as, after all, employees are an integral part of any organization. With the right set of recruits, every employer can ensure a smooth flow of day-to-day operations while minimizing costs and maximizing returns. By keeping the above-mentioned hiring mistakes in mind, employers can effectively understand how to hire new employees that are best suited for the organization.

What other common hiring mistakes can you think of that we might have missed? Leave your suggestions in the comment section below.

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