How do you select the perfect candidate when hiring new employees? When you're growing an emerging business and the cost of making a wrong decision can be detrimental to your bottom line, hiring correctly is essential.
Here are the top five mistakes to avoid when hiring new employees.
Top 5 Hiring Mistakes to Avoid
1. Rushing the Hiring Process
It’s only normal to try to hire a candidate in a timely manner, but one of the biggest hiring mistakes to avoid is rushing the selection process. Often, managers and recruiters feel pressured to fill a vacancy to avoid a disruption in business or service. However, skipping steps and not properly vetting candidates typically results in making the wrong decision when hiring new employees.
2. Ignoring the Subtleties
Subtleties are the little nuances that you pick up in the interview process, such as a lack of responsiveness when corresponding with you, an odd response to an interview question or a poor tone of voice. Listen to your instincts. Are you getting mixed messages from a candidate? Your instincts can be one of your strongest attributes during the hiring process. Don’t ignore them just because a candidate seems like a good fit on paper.
3. Not Looking Beyond the Resume
A resume only includes work experience, skills, and education—it does not include information about the candidate’s personality traits. Personality traits impact success on the job, not just skills and experience. For example, one candidate may be highly qualified but lacks initiative and commitment, while another candidate may not have the same skills but is quick to learn, performance driven, and possesses a higher level of initiative. Include behavioral based questions in your interview that solicit responses that reveal whether a candidate has the appropriate personality traits for success on the job.
4. Not Making a Timely Decision
You don’t want to rush the process, but you don’t want to delay the decision either. Delaying a hiring decision could result in losing the best candidate to another company. In today’s War For Talent, where supply of skilled and talented individuals is below the demand, it's imperative not to delay hiring decisions.
5. Making the Decision Alone
Selecting the right candidate is complicated because the strengths, weaknesses, and cultural fit of each individual can vary. When hiring new employees, include a two-three step screening and interviewing process that includes multiple team members. Start with the recruiter conducting the phone interview, and then have the hiring manager follow up. When conducting the final interview, include another key team member or manager. This will allow you to collect various insights on each candidate.
Learn more about hiring mistakes to avoid in People Power: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Managing Human Capital.
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