Tens of millions of people in America lost their jobs and were unemployed because of the Coronavirus pandemic. While the number of unemployed has decreased to some extent recently, the labor market conditions keep changing. With the number of Covid-19 infections in many industry sectors, states still increasing, it will take some time for the economy to stabilize. However, though there may be millions of qualified candidates available, employers cannot afford to make a mistake while hiring a skilled worker, just because the hiring manager or employer requires a talented worker urgently.
Challenge
“There is no natural mechanism today to match the people being laid off to the available job openings. As a result, the time lag between when people with transferable skillsets are laid off and then hired is too long, winding and unwieldy with an uncertain outcome. The wasted time costs the individual, the nation’s taxpayers, and the national response to this pandemic.” Michael B. Horn in Forbes April 9, 2020
Every company requires some top notch employees so that the business functions smoothly during a recession, and is able to prevent a disastrous decline in revenues or worst case, bankruptcy. Hence the employer should hire enough essential staff.
Currently there are a very large number of unemployed people looking for work, so many employers are finding the process of interviewing them and weeding through them to find a suitable employee a major challenge. All employers find the process of hiring new employees difficult, because if there is a mistake, the business will find that it has the wrong employee. Hence every recruiter should be aware of the mistakes frequently made when they interview job applicants and choose the right candidate for the vacant position in their organization.
Top 5 Errors in Hiring made by Recruiters
Don’t let your recruiters make the common hiring mistakes – especially during a recession. With millions of unemployed workers to choose from the hiring decision is made harder in selecting the right talent. This may be a good time to hire a staffing agency to help you sift through the resumes and candidates and save you lots of time to find the right job-candidate match.
1.Being Narrow Minded
Many organizations are adversely affected by the unconscious biases of the hiring manager or recruiter, resulting in unintentional discrimination. This can result in wrong decisions, resulting in the workforce not being inclusive or diverse. Some hiring managers want all their employees to be similar to them in their backgrounds, their mindset, having similar weaknesses and strengths. However, in this case there will be no diversity in the team. Any problems in the work culture will not be rectified since a person with different strengths is required to do this. Ideally the recruiter should have an impartial attitude and consider the candidate’s qualities which will best match the job vacancy.
It has been observed that staffing agencies are more impartial compared to employers while hiring the right candidate for their clients.
2.Prejudices due to First Impression or Name of Candidate
It is observed that biases based on first impression or candidate’s name can affect recruitment, promotions and mentoring in an organization. Many organizations prefer recruiting their employees from high profile popular schools. They often hire graduates from these schools without checking their skills or abilities personally, which may be a big mistake. Additionally recruiters should also be cautious about judging a job applicant based on the negative or positive impression created initially. It seems silly to state this, but many employees can be major assets even if they are not good looking. Employers should remember that merit matters, they are not running a beauty contest.
3.Unclear Job Profile, Skillset Required
Ideally the recruiter should formulate a questionnaire for testing how capable the job applicant is, and how suitable he is for the vacant position. A pre-structured interview can be used to find out the hidden qualities of each candidate, so that the best applicant is hired. Experts claim placement agencies are quite efficient in finding the best employees for companies, conducting interviews and offering other recruitment related services since that’s their specialty all day, every day.
4.Not Checking Candidates Skills
The recruiter should check if the candidate has completed courses, gotten licenses, certifications or undergone additional training to acquire skills they will require for doing their job efficiently. If the candidate lacks the requisite skills which are required, without some employer-provided training after the employee is recruited, he may not learn everything he requires for doing the work allocated at his job, adversely affecting the new hire’s productivity may suffer for a period of time until he finished training. Thus, with all the candidates newly available, a recruiter or staffing agency should be patient to find the qualified ‘needle-in-the-haystack.’
5.Job Profile Information not Provided to Candidates
The recruiter is expected to inform the candidates applying for a job, about the job profile, including working conditions at the business. The salary structure and work culture should also be discussed with the job applicant, so he,can judge for himself if he is a good fit. Iif he finds that this particular job is not what he is looking for. This will ensure that no effort is wasted, and the person is not dissatisfied later, when he finds out that the job profile, was not what he expected, and he does not have the skills or personality required.
Avoid These Mistakes
Be sure you limit your hiring mistakes and get the right employee, connect with a Flexicrew recruiting specialist Now!