Hiring top-tier talent is more difficult now than ever, and many employers struggle to recruit candidates with the skills and experience they need. Unfortunately, many of these employers are still using recruiting processes developed years ago, when the job market was less competitive, leading to avoidable mistakes. Here are some of the biggest mistakes in recruiting.
Recruiting Mistake #1: Writing Boring Job Listings
Writing good job listings can be challenging, and it is seldom a task that gets the attention and respect it deserves. However, creating a candidate-centric job posting is crucial for recruiting the highest levels of talent, who have more options in the workplace, and higher expectations from an employer.
To create better job listings:
- Communicate your culture. This means more than simply repeating your mission statement in the listing. Corporate culture is also communicated through the tone and word choices in a job listing.
- Write for the candidate as a person. Candidates are more than a list of skills. Do you want to work with people who are independent and make their own decisions? Do you want to work with people who are highly collaborative and work best with constant communication? What kind of people work best in your existing teams? Communicate these personality factors in your job listing.
- Post a salary range, and follow through. Any senior-level employee must consider salary when determining whether a position is a good fit for them; communicating your expectations early saves you and the candidate wasted time. Also, many people tell horror stories of interviewing for a job in a specific salary range, and then being offered the job at a much lower rate. Don’t be deceptive in your job postings.
Recruiting Mistake #2: Having a Lengthy Application Process
Applying for a job can be a gruelling process. It takes time and energy to tailor a CV and cover letter to the job listing, then create a user ID and profile on the application site, then upload your documents, then re-enter all the data that’s on your documents. Some lucky candidates get an automatic response, while many simply wait weeks or months in order to be dragged through a lengthy interview process. The application process is often framed as a series of obstacles a candidate must overcome, and it is a tedious, demoralizing process.
Furthermore, a lengthy application process can deter some of the best people from working with your company. It communicates an excessive commitment to bureaucracy instead of efficiency, a culture of indecisiveness, and a lack of interest in your candidate.
Working with a recruitment firm like grapefrute helps companies provide a personalized, responsive candidate experience, with fewer forms and less waiting.
Recruiting Mistake #3: Rigid Thinking About Roles and Candidates
Almost all the standard advice about how to recruit top talent starts with envisioning your ideal team member and then creating a recruitment experience for them. This system may have worked in the past, when employers were trying to eliminate unwanted candidates. It does not work today, when top candidates have their choice of jobs.
Instead, it is essential for employers to be more flexible and open-minded about their talent choices. Instead of rigidly sticking to a single idea or ideal model, consider alternatives and remain flexible. Just because a particular role has always been performed in a specific way by a particular person doesn’t mean things can’t change. In fact, staying open to new ideas and alternatives is a great way to maintain a company culture of innovation, and avoid unconscious bias during the recruitment process.
At grapefrute, we have years of experience working with top companies in FMCG and life sciences, filling the most challenging, in-demand positions. We have the skills and the resources to help clients meet their recruitment goals, but we also partner with clients to help them adjust their recruitment processes, avoiding these (and other) common mistakes. Contact us to learn more.
