“To err is human” we’ve all heard this phrase which by all means stands to be true!
Failures are inevitable but they make our judgment better. They make us realize our shortcomings, they strengthen our strategies, and most importantly, they leave us with learnings that can’t be taught by anyone or anything else.
“As long as you are learning, you are not failing.” – Bob Ross
One such field where failures make you better is recruitment.
Therefore, embracing them is what a recruiter should do. It’s not a secret that sometimes there will be bad hires, or loopholes in the recruitment process or coordination problems with the hiring manager.
However, these recruitment mistakes will only pave the path for you to become a better recruiter. Making you more critical and precise with your analysis of a candidate, enhancing the quality of talent to welcome to your company.
However, don’t get me wrong. I am not asking you to embrace unethical practices.
3 Recruitment Mistakes Recruiters Should Embrace For Becoming Better-
1. Unfit Hiring
This comes as no surprise that almost every recruiter has hired someone not quite worthy of the position.
Approximately 74% of the employers have admitted to the fact that they hired someone unfit for a designated job role.
However, this doesn’t mean you are not good at what you do and you don’t have to let your guard down.
When you come to this realization, you should try to turn this bad hire into a good hire. Sit with the employee and understand which part of their job seems hard.
There will also be scenarios where you realize the employee has lied in their resume. They never possessed a specific skill.
As a recruiter, what do you do?
A recruiter is a people person and it won’t be wise on your part if you gave up so easily.
Therefore, try training and retraining the employee on the skill set and follow up with their manager to know their progress.
Try not to leave any stone unturned from your side to make the person better at their job.
Why embrace this failure?
If you’ve ever hired a wrong person, you would become more diligent and observant while hiring a candidate. Also, you are more likely to take precautions the next time you hire.
If you have turned a bad hire into a good hire, you are already brushing up your people skills.
2. Absconding Employees
Companies invest a surplus amount of money in hiring and training an employee. When they abscond, it results in great loss. As retaining an employee is more economical than hiring one.
An absconding employee is every recruiter’s nightmare and none want it to happen to them.
People come up to you and say, “you weren’t thorough with the candidate, you failed to understand the credibility of the employee.”
This is because it’s expected out of recruiters to understand the candidate and make sure that the candidate stays employed in the organization for a long time.
Even though the intention remains the same from every recruiter’s end, it is quite impossible to know what’s going on in a candidate's head.
What can you do to avoid this?
As a recruiter, you should never ignore the red flags!
Every potential candidate will try their best to convince you that they have the integrity, credibility, and loyalty you’re looking for in the organization.
In such cases, be practical while making your decision. However, what can you do to check the integrity of the employee?
The answer to this lies in background verification and reference checks.
Call the candidate’s previous employer and references. Ask them about their behavior and worth ethics.
Don’t forget to cross-check whether the candidate is proficient or at least at an intermediate level in the skills they have mentioned.
You should also look at their employment history, i.e., if they are inclined towards job-hopping or not!
This will get you an idea, whether or not the candidate will stay in the organization for long or not
Why embrace it?
If someone from your hiring drive has ever absconded, you’d question yourself first! What were the signs you missed?
When you start questioning yourself, you become more vigilant and keen. You know exactly what to ask the next candidate and how to be more observant towards them.
You will get thorough with background verification and all you would aim at will be hiring talent who is credible.
This will lead to your growth as a recruiter.
3. Degree = Job Fit
New recruiters give a degree more weightage than the candidate. Especially when hiring a fresher.
In some organizations, if the candidate has studied from a prestigious college, he/she is by default the favorite.
Due to this practice, you end up missing out on real talent. However, what recruiters fail to realize is that having a degree from a high-profile college doesn’t mean that the candidate is well accumulated with the concrete knowledge required for the job.
Another misconception in the minds of recruiters is, “the bigger the college, the better the culture fit.”
Recruiters fail to understand the culture of all the companies differs. For example:
“If a candidate has interned in BUZZFEED and now wants to seek a position in GENERAL ELECTRIC. The candidate might turn out to be a job fit. However, they won't be a culture fit.”
Hiring such a candidate will result in bad hiring, as the culture of both companies are poles apart.
Are degrees not important?
This is the first question that pops in the head, isn’t it?
Absolutely, they are! However, a degree can’t be the only metric of judgment when it comes to hiring a candidate.
I do understand it is expected for an academically famous college to churn out job-fit students.
However, this isn’t 100% true, as the practical skills of a candidate matter more than their degree.
There are many professionals who have done their degree from an ordinary college and still manage to perform the best.
Why should you embrace this failure?
This failure broadens your horizon, as a recruiter you become more accepting. You realize the importance of individual skills, integrity, and hard work over a degree.
This will help you become a better recruiter as you will judge people for the knowledge and skills they possess. It will also end up making you an unbiased recruiter.
It will make you a better judge of people too. The phrase, don’t judge the book by its cover will become your motto!
Have you also made similar mistakes? Or perhaps, different ones? Let us know in the comment section what were mistakes you made? How did they help you become better at recruiting?
