6 Most Common Hiring Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

Here at Blue Rocket, we’ve put together 6 of the most common hiring mistakes, with some advice on how best to avoid them…

  1. Not asking the right interview questions

A lot of hiring managers do not take the time to prepare properly for interviews. This means that interviewers can end up just asking superficial questions about previous experience and not really probing a candidate to see how well they will do in the job & if they have the right skills.

  1. Not recruiting for a cultural / team fit

Whilst recruiting different personalities with different views, should be seen as a positive – it is important that any new member of staff fits in with the rest of the team. Similar ethics & values, should keep you on the right path.

  1. Automatically rejecting overqualified candidates

When initially shortlisting CVs, it can be tempting to take out any candidates who exceed the required experience. You may think that they will not be challenged enough & get bored, or will move on as soon as a more challenging position presents itself. However, think of the advantages taking on someone with more experience & additional skills. This can often outweigh any possible downsides and ultimately, you could get a lot more for less.

  1. Missing the opportunity to sell your company

In a candidate short market, job seekers have a lot more choice and often will be presented with a handful of job offers. So, with more competition than ever for the very best candidates, you need to sell your company in the interview. Why should this candidate want to work for you? What is important to them? Talk about the future, talk about your values, the team and of course any benefits, like flexible working or regular social activities.

  1. Writing BAD job adverts

Go on indeed.com & take a couple of minutes to scroll through a few jobs either in your town or sector, or both and it won’t be long before you come across a number of really poor written adverts. These adverts have been written with no thought going into them & probably within just a couple of minutes.

Surprisingly, its not always smaller companies who are guilty of this, but large corporates also, and even recruitment agencies, who should really know better – they should be experts at this?

Firstly, you need to optimise your advert so it appears towards the top of the listings, if not – the very top. You need to get the job seekers attention so they click, then you need to hit their emotional buttons – answer the question of what’s in it for me?  Then, influence them into applying for your job. Job seekers have become job shoppers.

  1. Only having a small pool of candidates to shortlist & hire from

As with most things in life, the more options you have the better the decision-making process. So, with your recruitment advertising it is vital that you maximise your exposure and this will significantly improve application rates & ultimately give you more choice to hire from.

We would certainly recommend using at least 2 job boards, aggregators such as indeed.com & social media. Our online recruitment advertising bundle is perfect for this, but of course there are other companies out there who offer advertising & recruitment solutions, and of course you can always go to the job boards / online platforms directly.

I hope this helps, and if you’d like any more advice, or if we can be of assistance with your recruitment advertising, we’d be delighted to hear from you   🚀🚀🚀