5 Critical Mistakes in Recruiting

November 17, 2021

5 min read

The recruiter’s job is not as easy as it seems. In recruitment, there is often a thin line between success and failure and even the tiniest mistake can trip you up. According to TheUndercoverRecruiter, poor recruitment leads to decreased employee morale (reported 32% of respondents) and reduced productivity (36%). The financial cost of a bad hire is 30% of an employee’s first year’s earnings. Having gained deep knowledge of working with hundreds of candidates every month, we’ve prepared a practical list of critical mistakes you should avoid.

Mistake #1. Rushing candidates or protracting the recruiting process

Why is timing so important? It is easy to slip when you are in a rush. It is difficult to properly screen candidates if you rush them through your process. Hiring managers want the best employees who are the best fit for their company. Missing an important detail could mean hiring the wrong person. Plus, candidates won’t like being rushed, trust us on that.

What’s wrong with taking your time then? Well, one thing’s for sure – candidates often apply to more than one company, which means that you have competition. If you protract too much, a candidate is more likely to accept the offer from the other company.

What to do to find a perfect candidate without worrying too much about time limits and finding the golden mean? Hire an outsourced recruiter! They will find the candidate that will have a 100% match with your requirements in no time.

Mistake #2. Having too many requirements

As much as you’d love to have a magical multitasker on board, asking too much is likely to scare candidates off. For instance, an e-commerce company in the UK was in need of a content writer. The job ad included “Knowledge in SEO” as a requirement, even though it wasn’t one of the listed responsibilities. As a result, they received over 100 resumes but none were suitable for hire.

What to do instead? List all the necessary attributes and skills you are looking for but don’t be afraid to consider candidates outside of your initial search. It’s always better to broaden the spectrum than miss out on a good hire.

Mistake #3. Poor communication

Posting your job is not enough to have a good candidate in the bag. Too weak or too intrusive communication can break the entire process.

What should you do? Keep in touch with candidates, let them know what they are up for at each stage of the recruiting process. Explain who you are looking for, align your views, and always give feedback on their performance. Avoid flooding your candidates with too many emails, this is likely to annoy them a lot. Remember to be friendly and creative. Creative welcome messages will help you distinguish yourself from tens of other competitors whose messages candidates receive every day.

Mistake #4. Mixing-up key details

An example of a mistake that a recruiter can make here would be misspelling the candidate’s name (or worse – forgetting it!), using wrong wording for a highly technical job, or asking non-relatable questions. These mistakes are small but serious enough to change the course of your entire recruiting campaign.

What to do instead? Check all parameters before you post any job ads, ask colleagues for help if you’d like, and ask candidates only questions that will help you get a real insight into their soft and hard skills. Take care of these details so that you can represent your company well.

Mistake #5. Offering too little

When looking for new employees, you must always keep your budget in mind. Hence, recruiters often propose lower salary ranges than the actual position value. As a consequence, most candidates, knowing their real worth, will not accept such an offer.

How to solve this? If you’re not sure about what salary to suggest, try looking at what your competitors offer. Use the information you find on job-searching websites too, they are likely to have listed salaries. You don’t have to pay more than your competition, but if you want to recruit A-list candidates, making a competitive offer is a must. We have experts that conduct market research to show current salaries for different positions. Contact us to get one!

Last but not least, remember that these are just examples of many mistakes you can encounter. But how to reduce the chance of failure when hiring a good candidate?

Hire a recruitment company and avoid making the mistakes that we’ve listed in this article! We are StaffingPartner and we have years of experience in recruitment outsourcing services, having helped dozens of clients, including worldwide IT enterprises like Ciklum, Eleks, Playtika, Sigma Software, N-iX, and others. Our skilled recruiters can quickly provide you with a list of quality candidates that will be a good match for your product within 3 business days. Contact us for more information.