LinkedIn’s Head of Recruitment (Brendan Browne) recently wrote that there are two major hiring mistakes, he is only wrong because there are actually 6 major hiring mistakes!!”
And all of these mistakes are costing Australian business billions of dollars.
Brendan Browne quite rightly identifies two mistakes:
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Hiring managers set unrealistic expectations
They are focused on hiring the superstar, the individual that has everything, the game changer. Problem is that they are so focused on this imaginary person, or “purple squirrels” as Brendan affectionately calls them, that they miss the candidates that have 90% of what they need.
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Recruiters making impersonal cold calls
LinkedIn found that by including a personal recommendation from a mutual connection, the response rate jumped from 28% to 85%.
But to tell you the truth, while the above two hiring mistakes are very important, they are not what we believe are the most important. Here are the biggest hiring mistakes that we continually see:
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Not understanding what type of candidate would be a future high performer
If you have not developed a current Position Description that summarises the skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience required to do the job well, then how are you going to effectively screen resumes.
If you have not developed a Role Benchmark that identifies the abilities, traits, behaviours and interests required to be a future high performer, then how can you possibly write an effective job advertisement and conduct effective interviews?
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Copying & pasting to create a job advertisement
There is one statement that needs to be heeded, “You have a 100% failure rate of hiring the best person for the role if they did not apply for your role in the first place”.
If you look at most job advertisements you will see a paragraph about how good the company is, then the role expectations are cut and pasted from the position description and finally how to apply on the company’s terms. It is all about the company and nowhere does it answer the one fundamental question that a top candidate wants to know; “What’s in it for me?”. To attract the best candidates now, especially millennials, you need to tell them why they will not only enjoy the role but why they will be successful in your role. It does take a reasonably high degree of empathy to write a great job advertisement, but the most important attribute are the inclusion of the interests and behaviours that are required to be a future high performer.
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Not being prepared for an interview
I am flabbergasted at how often I see hiring managers walk into candidate interviews without any preparation, in many cases the resume has only been skimmed with no comprehensive review and there are no standard first interview questions. While there is no doubt that using JobFit psychometric assessments before the second interview provides a substantial increase in the success rate of selecting future high performers, it is still a priority to make sure that probing questions have been developed before walking into the second interview. This tends to not be the case.
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Hiring on “like” not on “fit”
And this is probably the biggest mistake of all; hiring individuals because the hiring manager “liked” them. Is there any wonder why the traditional recruitment process only delivers high performers 26% of the time, let alone that it also delivers not-yet-competent employees about one-quarter of the time. If you are not evaluating candidate fit, then you can be guaranteed that you will be disappointed more often than you will be happy.
Selecting future high performers does not have to be difficult, just follow these basic steps:
- Make sure you have an up-to-date Position Description
- Make sure you develop a Role Benchmark.
- Take care writing the job advertisement and target the ideal candidate by answering “What’s in it for me?”.
- Review resumes and have standard first interview questions.
- Assess shortlisted candidates using a JobFit assessment and measure their “fit” against the Role Benchmark.
- Use the JobFit Interview Guide questions in the second interview to explore all potential barriers to success.
The reward for doing all of the above?
A highly engaged and productive team that will drive your business forward and maximise organisational potential.