Tricks to avoid recruitment horror stories
At Recruitee, we avoid creating new recruitment horror stories by hiring together!
In the spirit of Halloween, we gathered four of our Recruitee team members together around the (virtual) campfire to tell recruitment horror stories. Although some creative liberties might have been taken in the retelling of these tales, the recruitment issues they bring to life are real.
Here are four spooky stories that could keep you up at night, but don’t worry — we are here to share the solutions so you can avoid any nightmares!
🍭 Trick 1: Don’t ghost your candidates, or they’ll come back to haunt you
Ghosting candidates is a real issue in modern recruitment. From a job seeker’s perspective, it can feel frustrating when a recruiter suddenly goes radio silent. A lack of communication can lead to a disappointing candidate experience. This ghosting can leave a lingering impression on your employer brand when disappointed candidates vent these feelings online. In this way, these candidates can indeed “come back to haunt you.” How can you avoid ghosting these candidates? Make a consistent candidate communication strategy and leverage tools like an ATS system to schedule candidate touchpoint activities.
“Avoid ghosting candidates by creating a continuous feedback loop between you (the recruiter) and the hiring team. This gives you proper and timely feedback for each of the candidates!”
Karim Gharsallah, Global Head of Talent @ Recruitee
🍬 Trick 2: Always clarify expectations about the role
No one wins when a new hire joins your company without accurate expectations about their new role. Misunderstandings in job expectations can have several different causes — such as an unclear job description or unclear communication with the candidate. At Recruitee, we work together from the start of the hiring process. This helps keep everyone on the same page and allows candidates to meet the team so that they can get a more accurate impression of the role and the organization.
“Accurate expectations are important because without them, how can you determine whether the role is the right fit for you? How do you know if you’ll succeed? Joining a new company is a big decision, so you have to know what you’re in for!”
Jolijn van der Steur, Account Executive @ Recruitee
🍭 Trick 3: Hire for growth; stop waiting for the “perfect” candidate
When a top performer leaves your company, it can be hard not to want to replace them and all the good qualities they took with them. However, using a past performer as an ideal when hiring a new candidate can lead to an anchoring hiring bias. This happens when a recruiter falls into the “ideal candidate” mindset. Waiting for the “perfect” candidate to fill the role can mean the position is left open for far too long. This means that plenty of candidates who could grow into the role in their own way, with their own unique qualities and talents, might be overlooked. Hire for growth instead!
Hiring for growth means that we hire for attitude and potential rather than experience. We will not always hire the most experienced applicant, instead, we will hire the one with a thirst for knowledge and the strongest passion for the job.
Szonja Zsiros, Recruiter @ Recruitee
🍬 Trick 4: Avoid hiring bias; hire collaboratively
Unfortunately, some recruiters fall into the trap of continuously hiring people who are just like them. He is suffering from similarity bias (also called affinity bias). In hiring, this is an unconscious inclination towards people with who we share something in common with such as interests or backgrounds. This might lead to the exclusion of candidates who don’t “fit the mold.” At Recruitee, we believe that hiring collaboratively is one solution to overcoming hiring bias because it encourages teams to work together instead of relying on one individual recruiter.
“I believe in hiring collaboratively to eliminate hiring bias because more opinions mean less personal bias. A diverse array of opinions leads to more diverse decisions. This guarantees that the match with a candidate isn’t only with the recruiter/hiring manager, but with the whole company.”
Erik Beentjes, Customer Success Manager @ Recruitee
