Five More Mistakes Employers make in the Recruiting and Hiring Process
Tony Beshara, President
Babich & Associates
Dallas, Texas
www.babich.com
In the November 12 issue of Bankers Digest I wrote about five of the top ten mistakes employers make in the recruiting and hiring process in an article titled “The Shelf Life of a Candidate in Today’s Market.” In this issue I’ll add six through ten.
6. Interviewing or not interviewing a candidate based on the resume!
40% of hiring a person is based on personality and chemistry! Then why do people rely on resumes instead of interviews? Because they don’t know how to use a resume.
I can’t tell you how many phenomenal candidates get eliminated because of a resume and how many poor performers get interviewed because of a well written resume. “But I can’t interview every resume I get!”
OK, right. But if a candidate even looks like a possibility of being a good one, at least pick up the phone and spend a few minutes with him or her. Or, better yet, spend 30 minutes face to face with them. Get a quick take on who they are and what they can do. Do this with a number of candidates. You can then thoroughly interview the ones who are the best for your situation. This method is quick and efficient, but it takes discipline… no more than 30 minutes on the first one!
Hiring authorities and screeners put way too much emphasis on what is on a resume. They try to judge the total quality of a candidate by a resume. A resume is a “go by.” It should simply define a candidate as a “possibility”…and a broad possibility at that. The interviews have to be the qualifiers.. Don’t rely on resumes!
7. Not interviewing enough candidates….or interviewing way too many.Most hiring managers err on the “too few” end of the spectrum. “I want to talk to the three best candidates!”…”I don’t have time to talk to everybody!” No one person other than a hiring authority can tell who is”“best.” Three or four is usually too few. The “bell curve” for most professional hires requiresabout nine or 10 candidates. This, of course, depends on the level of job and the availability of certain types of candidates. The key is to know what kind of availability there is in the marketplace for the kind of person being sought. Our banking division, for instance, may be lucky to find three or four qualified V.P.’s at any one time. A midlevel sales position may require 10 or 12 candidates. Even recruiting a number of quality candidates for administrative positions isn’t as easy to do in this market.
The key is to interview a range of quality candidates and know what is available. If you want to wait for superman or superwoman, I guess it’s OK. It just depends on how badly you need to hire someone. Just be sure you know, first hand, the quality of candidates who are on the market, and the only way to do that is to do your own interviewing of the numbers necessary and available.
The other end of the spectrum is the hiring authority who wants to interview forever, thinking unrealistically that the quality of candidates will get better the more that are interviewed. All too often, we hear, “We have interviewed 20…25 or 30 candidates.” There is something wrong here. They exhaust themselves in a”“process,” losing sight of the result …and then complain about it. They confuse activity with productivity.
Interview the number of candidates necessary. Don’t make the mistake on either end of the spectrum.
8. Not communicating with candidates after interviews and not giving honest feedback. For some reason, hiring authorities don’t seem to mind being rude…even to candidates they are interested in hiring. Everyone is busy. The truth is that, to a candidate, looking for a job, whether presently employed or not, finding a job is a very high priority. To a hiring authority, in spite of the lip service of how important hiring is, it is simply one of their functions. Hiring is a risk. Most employers don’t really like doing it. So the process often gets postponed, sloppy, and rather unprofessional.
As the market tightens, quality candidates will have many suitors. A good candidate may simply lose interest in a possibly good opportunity if he or she is treated rudely. On the other hand, we have had candidates elect to pursue opportunities simply because they were treated with respect and courtesy.
Also, if the candidate isn’t going to be considered, he or she should be told as soon as possible. We are amazed at the number of hiring authorities who won’t return a candidate’s call…or multiple calls just to say that they have found a more suitable candidate. We never know when that lack of courtesy will come back to us. What goes around often comes around.
9. Not selling the job and the company. Although this isn’t the biggest mistake hiring authorities make, it is certainly the most prevalent one. We can never figure out why, in trying to find the best talent available, hiring authorities act as though they are doing someone a favor by granting them the privilege of an interview. They act as though they have the only job on the planet and candidates are begging to work there. Wrong! Good candidates will have many choices. The days of the early 2000’s when there were endless numbers of candidates are gone. The company and the hiring authorities who sell their job the best, will hire the best talent. It is a candidate driven market. We can also forget lowball offers, poor benefits or a’“take it or leave it” attitude when making an offer.
10. Not having “back up” candidates. This means continuing to interview even though a great candidate may have been found. In fact, we recommend having three great candidates in the queue. As happens too often, a hiring authority zeroes in on one candidate and, as the interviewing process drags on (see #4), the hiring authority quits interviewing because it is a pain. They get to the end of the process, make an offer, and it isn’t accepted. The frustration of having to start all over is astounding. So, the solution is to keep interviewing until someone is hired…and has started the job.
10. (a) Not firing a new hire when the hiring is obviously a mistake. This is a tough mistake to make. Everyone wants to see a new employee make it. But too often, cutting the new hire too much slack because he is new is a mistake. The numbers of failed new hires who are let go or quit six or seven months after their hiring, with the hiring authority complaining, “I saw it in the first week!” would make us all cry. It becomes disruptive to the business, it destroys the chemistry of the employees working with the new hire, and worst of all, everyone can detect it but the hiring authority chooses to overlook it. Respect for the hiring authority diminishes and eventually the new employee leaves or is fired.
The solution the better hiring authorities adopt is to keep new employees in line in the very beginning, even “over manage” a bit. If disregard for the company policies, or poor work habits, like showing up late, missing work, having numerous “personal” problems, emerge in the first few weeks of employment, it isn’t going to get any better.
There is a big difference between “rookie” mistakes and poor work habits, low integrity, bad manners or serious personal problems that impinge on work. Even the most rigorous interviewing process and extensive reference, background and credit checking can’t prevent this from happening.
