Making the right hire can save you time and money, improve organizational culture, and help you meet your company goals. But on the flip side, hiring mistakes can lead to high turnover rates, increased hiring costs, and reduced morale and efficiency.

To help you steer clear of the worst hiring blunders, we’ve compiled our tips for avoiding the most common hiring mistakes we see so you can improve your hiring process and find best-fit candidates.

1. Define the Position and Candidate Profile

All too often, we see companies jump the gun on hiring without taking the time to fully understand and define their needs for the position.

For a new role (or an existing position that has recently been vacated) take the time to engage with individuals on your team who work in similar roles or are adjacent to the opening. This will help you more thoroughly understand the job duties, the technology used, what cultural fit looks like and the deliverables and goals of the position.

When we talk with applicants about a position, they typically want to understand what a day will look like in the job. Will they be on the phone, at a desk, engaging with team members, working on multiple projects, or focusing on one function? They want to know what technology or tools they'll use and what the company culture is, as well as what success looks like and how they will be measured.

In addition to clarifying job duties and position goals, defining the position includes determining how your new hire will fit into the organization’s culture.

When you hire candidates who align with your culture and organizational goals, it not only helps you reach those goals, it ensures your new hires are set up for success. Do your employees’ behaviors, attitudes, and actions 100% align with your culture? The more you understand the elements of what makes current employees successful, the more equipped you will be in attracting and screening candidates for the position.

Before getting started on a new hire, take the time to engage stakeholders related to the position to thoroughly review the job and your desired candidate characteristics and outcomes. Once you’ve defined these elements of the position, you’re ready to find your next great hire.

2. Match the Position With Market-Rate Compensation

A mismatch between the position and the compensation you offer will result in consistently unqualified (and sometimes overqualified!) candidates. If you want to attract candidates who meet the skillset, experience level, and education you desire, compensation is a key factor in driving quality applicant traffic.

Ideally, you want to offer a compensation package consistent with the market rate for the position.

The tightrope we walk in today’s market is finding a compensation amount that is equitable for current employees in similar roles yet attractive enough to entice qualified applicants. When the compensation you offer is below market rate, you will get fewer applicants and unqualified or minimally qualified applicants, thus extending the time-to-hire (and your frustration).

If your budget simply doesn’t allow an increase in pay to attract the candidates you seek, you may need to adjust the position level, position duties, remote work options, or your criteria in order to expand the applicant pool and attract viable candidates.

Learn more about determining compensation in our recent blog.

3. Hiring Is a Marketing and Sales Process

How excited would you be to apply to a job posting that was just a job description and a list of qualifications? Would you be more interested in applying for a position that gives an overview of the company, the company’s culture, and a concise description of the job and its requirements?

If we had to hazard a guess, we’d imagine you’d prefer the latter. And so do today’s job applicants.

How you present your open position, company, and culture and how you communicate with candidates influences your candidate pool and candidate interest. Marketing an open position is most effective when it includes an overview of your company, your culture and values, position responsibilities, and key requirements of the position.

Your job postings, recruitment messaging, and even interviews are an opportunity to market and sell your company to potential applicants. For starters, be truthful. Include language that expresses your company culture and values into the job postings and connect with your interviewing team to present a unified message about the company and job.

Communicating the great aspects (and challenges) of working at your company will help potential candidates determine whether the role and your organization could be a good fit for them.

4. Assign a Hiring Point Person

Most companies assign a point person to manage the hiring process internally. Where businesses without a dedicated HR person get tripped up is assigning a point person that does not have the BANDWIDTH to manage the process.

If the person in charge of the hiring process can’t respond to all applications in one to two business days and is too short on time to call, follow up with, schedule, and confirm interviews, not only do you not have a point person but your company is wasting time and missing out on top talent.

Hiring requires quick communication with candidates, a systemized and streamlined process, decision making, and ongoing candidate communication.

The mistake we often see is either a senior leader taking on an important hire with no availability or support to manage the details or a junior team member who doesn’t have the authority to make independent decisions.

The point person for a hire needs time to devote to the hiring project.

They should also be someone who has the trust and authority to make recommendations on where to post the ad, recruiting resources to use, and what the hiring process will look like, as well as determine which candidates will move forward in the process.

5. Define the Interview Process

For some positions, it might make sense to present an offer in the first interview. Other positions require multiple interviews, assessments, a work sample request, and references. The more complex the process, the more planning is required.

Whether yours is a one-and-done interview process or a multiple interview marathon, it’s important to ask yourself:

What are the criteria you will use to evaluate candidates?
What exact questions will you ask candidates? (Remember, it is a best practice to ask all candidates the same questions.)
Have you trained your managers on conducting interviews?
How will you end an interview?
Do you have an offer template?
Do you have a process to communicate with candidates once they have accepted an offer?

Whether the position is suitable for a one-and-done interview or requires multiple steps, each interaction with a candidate should be planned well in advance. Candidates recognize a great interview just as easily as a company recognizes a great candidate. Investing time in defining the process, crafting interview questions, training interviewers and preparing documents will establish a professional and appealing approach that keeps candidates engaged and interested.

Avoid Common Hiring Mistakes With Help From Red Seat

At Red Seat, we help our clients recruit and hire great new employees every day, and we’d love to do the same for you! Contact us to talk about how we can best support your hiring needs.

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How To Avoid the 5 Most Common Hiring Mistakes We See