Fatal Attraction: 4 Recruiting Mistakes You’re Probably Making

by Oliver Shiel, Digital Marketing Manager at Core HR

Recruitment is a costly business that requires significant investment, both in terms of time and money. Just how costly it is depends on who you’re asking. Figures on how much it costs to replace an employee vary from as low as 20% of his or her salary, to six to nine months’ salary, to as astronomically high as five times their salary.
The reality is that the figure will vary from organisation to organisation based on a wide variety of factors and, while it’s always a big drain on resources, it’s significantly cheaper than the magic wand many HR managers wish they had to wave their recruitment problems away.

So you can’t change the unfortunate fact that hiring new talent, whether replacing a departing employee or expanding teams or departments, is expensive. But you can ensure that every penny of that money is spent wisely by making your recruitment strategy and processes as efficient and effective as possible.

That’s a task that is, of course, easier said than done. There are so many potential pitfalls to be avoided in the constant struggle to attract the best talent to your organisation that can trip up even the most experienced recruitment and HR professionals. If your current recruitment efforts aren’t delivering the value you need then it’s time to take a long hard look at the strategy to see where it’s going wrong. Here are four potentially fatal errors that leave organisations failing to get full value for their investments in recruitment.

Forgetting to look inside the organisation

Nowadays companies, even small ones, think global. The web, remote working, convenient travel and a host of other benefits of the global village mean your next great hire might not even have set foot on the same continent as you yet. And that’s absolutely wonderful for recruiters.

But sometimes this global thinking can cause HR managers to forget what might be sitting right under their nose – current employees. Filling roles internally is significantly cheaper and faster, while plentiful internal opportunities can also help improve employee morale and engagement. It makes eminent sense for organisations to start their search internally, before engaging in lengthy and costly external searches.

But internal recruitment can be a drain on resources if it’s not managed correctly. Clever organisations are turning to HR technology and recruitment software to help streamline the rollout of vacancies to teams in a staged manner and deliver and engaging online application process to employees. IN this way they’re ensuring they get real bang for their recruitment buck!

Failing to fully embrace social

It’s been said so often before that it shouldn’t really need repeating, but unfortunately it does: any recruitment strategy worth its salt needs to have social HR embedded right through it. From playing a key role in your employer brand to being instrumental in employee referrals, social isn’t changing how we recruit, it’s changed it already and if you’re not using it to its full potential you’re getting left behind. Far behind.

Current and former employees are discussing your brand and their experience working at your organisation online. Organisations need to be ready to capitalize on this by facilitating these conversations, encouraging employees to share and ensuring that these conversations send the right message to potential candidates.

Your online reputation really, really matters. According to Glassdoor, 69% of candidates wouldn’t accept a role with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed at the time. Meanwhile, a recent Gartner report identified that referrals from employees’ social channels results in higher quality candidates that stay with an organisation longer.

Social media is far, far more than just another place to share vacancies, and successful organisations have already cottoned on to that and are reaping the rewards.

Not getting the most from exit interviews

A Harvard Business Review study on exit interviews found that three-quarters of 210 surveyed organisations conducted exit interviews when employees left the organisation but less than one-third of respondents could name a specific action taken as a result of those interviews. Exit interviews can offer significant value to organisations, but only if they’re utilised to their full potential. They must be more than mere box-ticking exercises.

For example, the HBR study found that less than one-third of organisations share the findings gained through exit interviews with senior decision makers. What’s the point of exit interviews if not to gain insights into the employee experience so as to find ways and implement strategies to improve it?

Exit interviews are opportunities for organisations to learn more about the real employee experience and use these findings to devise strategies and programmes aimed at ensuring it’s constantly improving. It’s important that the right people conduct these interviews and that the results are shared company-wide.

Not recruiting the right cultural fit
Skills and experience are, of course, two key criteria by which potential candidates should be judged, but too often organisations neglect to focus on the qualities that are inherent to an organisation’s culture. Hiring someone who shares the same values as the organisation and will be a good cultural fit is equally as important as someone who ticks all the boxes in terms of skills.

Recruitment experts agree that candidates who share your organisation’s values and vision will be more effective employees, deliver more value and stay longer at the organisation. The temptation may be to go for the candidate with the most experience and broadest skillset, but opting for a slightly more moderate skillset but a great cultural fit and then investing in getting that recruit up to speed is often the better long-term decision.

Organisations who fail to prioritise culture during the recruitment process run the risk of losing new employees in a short space of time, inefficient and ineffective teams and lower levels of employee engagement.