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Common mistakes to avoid

We are all human and mistakes will happen throughout the recruiting and hiring process. Most mistakes are easily corrected, like mispronouncing an applicant’s name, but others are harder to recover from and may ruin your chances of hiring the candidate you really want. To limit the chances of this happening, try to avoid these common mistakes:

Posting an open position in specific places, such as industry-specific job boards, shows you did your homework and know how to advertise a job strategically. But you also run the risk of not attracting as many qualified candidates due to the limited reach. Your ideal candidate may use more traditional, or general, job boards. You also may unintentionally encourage the same types of applicants, even after you show no interest them. In this case, expanding your reach can benefit your recruiting strategy.

By contrast, when it’s time to pick people for a second round of interviews, narrow your finalists down to five or six top candidates, maybe fewer depending on the position.

Broadening the applicant pool can help you narrow down your candidates later.

Over the last decade, group interviews became wildly popular (and widely despised). One big flaw of group interviews is they can lead to unconscious biases. One candidate’s performance among three others might affect, positively or negatively, how the hiring manager sees the other candidates. It’s best to treat your interview room like a laboratory: For the most accurate results, limit cross-contamination.

Additionally, don’t hold too many interviews on the same day. This can trick your brain into incorrectly evaluating candidates for reasons that ultimately don’t matter, such as how their personalities blend or clash, or how a bad candidate might make a mediocre one look great by comparison.

According to Workopolis, hiring managers and other HR leaders often mistakenly use a cold or curt tone in interviews, albeit sometimes unintentionally. Be mindful of how you and other interviewers speak to applicants. It’s not wrong to want to keep things professional, but you don’t need to check your personality at the door. At the end of the day, you want a candidate who matches your office culture, and that includes how employees hold casual conversation.

Every interviewer needs resume information at the ready and an efficient method for organizing notes, not to mention a streamlined system for onboarding the candidate they choose. Using end-to-end HR software that includes applicant tracking functionality can help you manage candidate interactions during the application process and seamlessly welcome the best applicant to your team.

Lesley Lyons is an accomplished marketing and communications professional with over 30 years of experience developing strategies to successfully market and sell products and services for companies of various sizes and industries. As the Marketing Director for PeopleStrategy, Lesley is responsible for promoting the company’s brand through digital, social and traditional platforms and programs.  Visit www.peoplestrategy.com  Follow @PeopleStrategy