9 Recruiting Mistakes that Product Development Businesses Need to Avoid

“The people within your organization are your most important assets”- Forbes.

A team isn’t made of individuals. Still, each individual has a significant impact on the functioning of the team.

“Hiring the right individuals would help you build a high-performing and happy team. Hire the wrong person, and you’ll spend a lot of time, energy, and money fixing your entire team.”

Parable? 

Yes. 

But it offers deep insight into building the right team.

The idea of hiring the right individual is a particularly arduous task. 

If hiring is not executed well, it can be the most expensive mistake your hiring manager can make. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average cost of a bad hire is up to 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings.

And no manager would want that.

To make the process effective, you must have an effective hiring process full of checks and balances to help ascertain the best among all candidates. Here are nine top strategies that hiring managers must follow while hiring IT talent;

Also Read: Product Development Process: Frameworks & Processes every Startup owner must know!

9 Mistakes to Avoid While Hiring IT Talent

Writing Unclear Job Descriptions

Sometimes hiring managers have a set approach to knowing when they meet the right candidate. This mindset is the beginning of all the terrible inefficiencies in the hiring process. 

We all know that interviews are time-consuming, and much time is wasted on interviewing the wrong people. Writing job descriptions can help you ease the entire process.

Writing a solid and transparent job description can help you in the following ways:

• It tells the candidate what his job is like and what the organization is looking for.
• It helps the hiring manager to be thoughtful about the attributes he must look for in the candidates.

The exercise of writing a solid job description would help you have an idea of what a person would be doing daily.

Ignoring the Active Sourcing Approach

It is always recommended to do your sourcing, even when the recruiter supports your hiring efforts. This would help you to engage with a diverse pool of applications that are fit for the role and may not have come across your listing.

Need help reaching out to the candidates? LinkedIn is the right place to start your hunt for potential candidates. Send personalized messages to people that meet the qualifications of the role.

Once you’re done combing through the profiles, you should get your network involved and look for employee referrals. 

Overlooking Candidate’s Expectations

Many organizations need to pay more attention to the most significant problem people face in the current hiring market: missing what a candidate expects. 

In a December 2021 poll by SHRM, 65% of executives said they were “extremely concerned” about their company’s ability to recruit new talent.

Earlier organizations thought that candidates should be courting them, but these days talent has greater power, and it’s a mistake to assume that candidates would take anything they are offered. 

Ending the Recruitment Process with the Contract

The recruitment process doesn’t just end when your candidate is selected. To assume that it does end there would be one of the biggest mistakes you could make as a recruiter. Signing over the contract is just a minuscule part of the recruitment process. The moment they’ve signed the papers, you have to make them feel welcome and assimilate them with the company’s culture. Neglecting these steps can prove detrimental to the company and the candidate in the long run. 

Hiring a Bad Cultural Fit

When you’re in a time crunch and looking to hire urgently. To fill a position. Typically, people end up hiring quickly and wrongly. Logically speaking, keep looking for one who is a perfect fit for your company rather than a bad cultural fit. Hiring someone who doesn’t fit your company’s culture will cause a huge problem for your company. 

Hiring Based on a Candidate’s History

Previous experience is undoubtedly an important consideration when making the right hiring decision. But focusing solely on the candidate’s history isn’t the right practice.

And, sometimes, the best people come from different backgrounds and industries, so be open-minded and look for candidates with diverse experience. 

Need to Do Regular Follow-Ups

Once the candidates are short-listed and the recruitment process starts, those who haven’t cleared the preliminary stages are cut and ghosted. This is very disheartening and will reflect carelessness on the part of recruiters.

Failing to Prepare for an Interview

Like the initial phone screening, hiring managers should adequately prepare for the interview beforehand to facilitate thoughtful interaction. Almost all candidates can qualify when they are interviewed at the surface level, but digging deeper into the conversation allows both the hiring manager and the candidate to get a perspective of the description. 

By showing up at the interview fully prepared, every candidate, manager, and other team manager is better positioned to ask thoughtful questions to identify the best candidates.

Lacking Diversity

It isn’t a secret that workplace diversity is essential for corporate success. The candidates can never forget when an organization is all words and no actions. 

Including diversity is much more than considering gender and race. For instance, some organizations can hire a diverse range of people, but they always prefer candidates that are their race and ethnicity. 

Truly including diversity means looking at the candidate’s qualifications, motivations, and personality. Talent can be found in all forms, and there are far more critical traits than just a college degree. 

So, these were the nine hiring mistakes that organizations knowingly or unknowingly make while hiring IT talent. Remember that learning from mistakes is the key to not keep repeating them. 

Have an excellent hiring journey ahead!

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