Whether you are placing print ads or using the latest technology, the basic business tenet remains: Recruiting—who you let in the door—is the primary determinant of success, both for the organization and the hiring manager. In this continuing series, Recruiting Daily Advisor will explore the major sins that recruiters and hiring managers make.
Who You Let in the Door
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Hire the right people:
- They’ll be productive.
- They’ll stay.
- They won’t sue you.
Hire carelessly and the opposite will surely be true. So, today, Recruiting Sin #1—Not knowing what you are looking for.
‘I need this job filled yesterday’
Especially in today’s slimmed down workplace, when there’s an opening, there’s also a hiring manager clamoring, “I need this job filled yesterday!”
It’s no surprise that managers who are short an employee want a new hire instantly, but that’s a dangerous demand. Filling a job quickly will never make up for hiring the wrong person. Slow down, step back, and figure out what you are looking for. If you don’t, you’ll cause a host of problems:
- The best candidates will stay away. They won’t apply to a vaguely described job; “Those people don’t have their stuff together,” they’ll think.
- A bevy of candidates who don’t qualify will apply, because your description of what you are looking for wasn’t clear enough to screen anyone out.
- You’ll get some candidates you can consider, but you won’t have a really good basis for evaluating them.
Result? You’re going to make a bad hire, and that means low productivity at best and a termination and a lawsuit at worst.
Revisiting your recruiting strategy and want to know best practices? Start on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, with a new interactive webinar, Recruiting and Technology: What’s Happening in the Real World? Learn More
Recruiting Caveats
Here are some other common missteps at this stage:
Filling Instead of Replacing
One common problem is hiring to replace the person, not to fill the job. Many times, because of the incumbent’s special skill or relationship, certain responsibilities fall to the job that really don’t belong there, and other responsibilities may have been shunted off because the incumbent isn’t good at them.
Hiring the Best Applicant
Managers often misstep by hiring the best applicant, not the best employee. As expert Mel Kleiman says, we’re all tempted to hire the best applicant—the one who is personable and affable, the one you can get along with, the one who has all the right answers, but that’s not necessarily the person who can do the best job.
Recruiting is the backbone of a successful organization, and it’s challenging in 2015. Join us Tuesday, April 21, 2015, for a new interactive webinar, Recruiting and Technology: What’s Happening in the Real World? Register Now
Jobs change. For example, many jobs have changed due to technology. Jobs that used to require judgment now just require babysitting a computer. Take a loan officer who used to exercise judgment about awarding loans, but now the computer determines creditworthiness.
Forgetting the Future
And, what about the future? Are new duties coming along? Realignments of departments? A merger? A technology change? For example, is social media expertise now desirable or required? Will the person in this job be expected to take on greater responsibility at some point?
In tomorrow’s Advisor, turning knowledge about the job into a posting that will attract great candidates and discourage unqualified candidates from applying.