Which recruiting procedures should you finally get rid of? If you are currently thinking about how to streamline your recruiting process, this article is right for you. To begin with, let us point to a fact which happens in all human activities, including recruitment - we often look to solutions that are too complex and forget about basic rules. Then, the things we tend to take for granted become a problem. We start to make mistakes that we never thought we would make. Nobody could be so stupid as to check references of job applicants only after offering them a job? Or could it be like that?
The following five most overlooked "matters of course" in recruiting were described by Alison Green, author of the popular Ask a Manager blog.
1. Courtesy interviews
Stop inviting job applicants for interviews when you think they do not have a real chance of getting hired. It does not matter whether they are friends of your boss or if you meet them every day outside your house. Try to be open from the very beginning and explain why particular candidates will not be invited for interviews.
2. Skipping telephone interviews before face-to-face meetings
Even though you are trying to avoid this practice, you know very well that initial telephone interviews save both your and the applicants' time. It makes no sense to invite someone you have already spoken with, and found out that he could not enter your company in the required time period or that he did not have appropriate qualifications.
3. Focus on degrees
How many times have you seen that graduates, even from prestigious schools, do not have to have the necessary skills to be employed at the company? There you go ... There is no other way than to focus on the applicants' experience.
4. Too many questions that do not cover the applicants' experience
Asking applicants why they chose this particular job, which work culture suits them, what they liked the most in former jobs, who they prefer to work with, etc. is fine, but not throughout the whole interview. It is much more important to focus on specific experience - what a particular applicant has achieved and how.
5. Late reference checking
Checking references only after a candidate accepts your offer is really too late. You could place both your company and the candidate in an uncomfortable position. Thus, always be careful to check references, and do it in advance.
-Kk-