Employee recruiting errors can indeed be fatal.
In the long run, it won't matter if you have the world's best location, the lowest prices, the hottest products or the snazziest, most automated facility. If even one of the people you hire is dishonest, lazy, unconcerned or inattentive, that person has the power to cause paying customers to leave dissatisfied and never come back.
The legendary NBA coach Red Auerbach said it best: "If you hire the wrong people, all the fancy management techniques in the world won't bail you out." This is why employee recruiting and selection is the cornerstone of success and why it's crucial you get it right.
Are any of the following five common recruiting missteps keeping your organization from being 100 percent staffed by "A" players?
1. Reactive recruiting
This is, by far, the most pervasive error. Few employers do any recruiting until there's an immediate need. This leads to desperation hiring. Those who recruit proactively — even when there's no specific need — have a thick file of prescreened, preferred applicants to call.
2. Not knowing what "the best" looks like
What does the ideal job applicant look like? How smart and physically able? What attitudes and personality traits are most important? What skills, experience and/or talents are really required? Once you have this picture firmly in mind, you're much more likely to recognize it when you see it.
3. The best applicant mistake
Applicants rehearse canned answers and put only their best foot forward. Falling for fleeting first impressions will cause you to hire the best applicant rather than the person who would be best on the job.
4. All eggs in one basket
If all your eggs are in one basket and you drop it, then what? To get the best results, use every recruiting source you can. The four most successful strategies, in order, are:
- former employees (call the best ones and see if they'd like to come back)
- current employees (ask for referrals)
- every new hire (ask if there's anyone they've worked with who might be interested)
- traditional and social media (newspapers, job boards, Craigslist, Facebook, etc.)
5. Sins of ommission
This problem arises when the employer does not tell the whole truth and omits discussing any of the potentially unpleasant or boring parts of the job. This is a misguided effort to keep the applicant on the hook.
Most employers don't realize that if they're 100 percent honest upfront and the applicant opts in, the new hire is much more likely to take pride in doing even the tough parts of the job and will stay on board longer. Employers who only "sell the sizzle" end up with disgruntled employees who feel they were misled or lied to who jump ship at the first opportunity. As a policy, honesty always pays.
