Inappropriate Prerequisites

It’s always funny to look at the profile most companies write to attract the right person to the right position. Most companies exaggerate in terms of the requirements vs the compensations. We want an expert willing to be paid the least possible. It’s also common that HR don’t have the right information and tools to promote a specific position to a certain department. In either case the recruiter should be able to think carefully about how to write a job advertisement, this is a strong marketing tool very underrated.

Use hard skills to predict performance

Some recruiters keep focusing on hard skills ignoring the existence of soft skills. Hard skills are more useful when we evaluate resumes but in an interview you need to validate those hard skills and discover the soft skills of the candidates. If the candidate has a bachelor degree in journalism (unfortunately) it doesn’t mean they are excellent writers or journalists. But if you need a great communicator, you’ll find them not by looking at the hard skills but looking at the soft skills and evaluate things such as: pronunciation, logical thinking, speech organization, body language, etc.

Misread Motivation

Motivation is a word that is in the mouth of all leaders and managers because it’s in every book about leadership and management. But do we really know how to evaluate motivation in an interview? Every candidate who is coming to the interview is going to be motivated. Not to perform the role he or she can be assigned but because it’s a job opportunity. As a recruiter and interviewer you have to go further and make some smart questions about how will the candidate be motivated towards a certain situation, task or role. Exploring a hypothetical scenario works most of the times as well as asking for past successful experiences where the candidate felt very motivated.

Hunting for negative information

Recruiters usually have a negative attitude towards candidates which by itself indicates a bad recruitment and adjustment of this person to his/her professional role. But it’s also something that comes from routine. Therefore some recruiters become suspicious about candidates and they focus on their flaws instead of their strengths. It’s okay to ask what kind of things we need to improve in ourselves but only as a way of evaluating the capability of the candidate to reflect about him/herself (self-awareness). Otherwise is a waste of time.

Talking too much

AS a recruiter your job is to get to know the candidate the best you can. So let her/him talk and only at the end try to make some questions to lead the conversation to a place you feel you need to. Give space for the candidate to show what he/she got because it will also facilitate your job as a recruiter. Observe, take notes and prepare questions. Don’t manipulate completely the interview because otherwise you’ll turn the interview into a Q&A session and an interview is supposed to be much more than that.

Fail to hire for a cultural fit

You will be looking at hard skills, at soft skills and all the other skills but if you don’t look inside your company and evaluate what kind of culture do you have and what kind of person adjusts to it…you will fail. Culture is one of the most important things. You can have an impressive resume, great professional experience and brilliant past achievements. You can be the perfect Product Manager because you have all the hard and technical requirements and you also seem to be a “nice person” but if you don’t identify with the culture you will not perform accordingly to your potential. We’ve seen this happen a lot of times and it’s a pity both recruiters and candidates can’t anticipate this during the selection process.

Ignoring Candidate Needs

Recruiters ignore candidates’ needs and candidates ignore their own needs in order to please the recruiter. This how the recruitment world works in most places. The candidate is the one performing in the company, the one contributing to profit, dealing with customers, managing the budgets, leading a team and achieving high results. How can we ignore their needs? Ignoring their needs is compromising their performance and therefore the company’s performance and the recruiter’s performance. Listen to the candidates and tell the truth. If you cannot fulfil the candidates’ needs then it is not the right person for the right company/position.

Let personal attitudes impact decisions

Sometimes we can let personal attitudes impact on our decision. We’ve seen it happening everywhere: politics, journalism, music, sports and we can also find it in recruitment. It’s hard to separate our inner self in order to play this role we are supposed to. But when recruiting you should try to as impartial as you can. This doesn’t not mean you have to be rude or extremely professional it means you have to recruit the right person for the right job instead of the right person to get along with you.

www.impressiveresumes.net