5 Common Recruitment Mistakes

There is no fail-safe process for successful IT recruitment, but knowing the potential problems that might arise can help you overcome them. When it comes to IT recruitment, experience is invaluable. So if you don't have hiring experience, it can help to engage with an IT Recruitment Agency. They can offer help and guidance as well as do the initial screening. You’ll not just save time and effort but only have to deal with qualified candidates.

 

1: Poor Job Description

Too often, companies fail to develop clear and accurate job descriptions. Consequently, they fail to properly relay the job information to their IT Recruitment Agencies or include it in a job posting. Generic job ads attract generic skills. That may mean you get a high response rate, but many applicants won't be what you're looking for. It is far more efficient to invest time developing a good job description before you advertise than investing considerably more time sifting through resumes.

 

When developing your job description, ensure you include all the technical skills required, duties to be performed and responsibilities.

 

2: Overlooking Internal Options

Many companies overlook existing employees and don't consider paying for training, rather than paying for recruitment. If you have an internal staff member who lacks technical skills but shows aptitude, they could be a perfect fit with some training and mentoring. Not only will it increase team loyalty and productivity by providing career progression, but you may also find it easier and cheaper to backfill the lower-level role. Talk to your IT Recruitment Agency to determine skills availability and whether it's easier from a hiring perspective to recruit or promote.

 

3: Over-reliance on Interview Relying

Interviews are an interesting but an unreliable recruitment tool. Candidates can train themselves to give off a targeted impression or learn to respond to questions asked favourably. While an interview is useful, it's best to supplement it with additional skills testing or a surprise task during the interview. This will help establish how the candidate might cope, under pressure and go about their job. To assist you, IT Recruitment Agencies can conduct pre-selection testing as part of the recruitment process.

 

4: Unconscious Bias

Unconscious Bias is a big deal in recruitment as it can restrict the pool of candidates you look at and prevent you from hiring the best person for the job. For example, it is crucial to overlook gender, ethnicity, disability or age. One way to overcome this is, to have an IT Recruitment Agency present candidates with all personal details, including their name and age, removed. This way, you are evaluating purely by merit and are forcibly removing any bias.

 

5: Not Hiring People! The Best Available

Many managers are afraid to hire people they perceive to be better than them. Some feel their position is under threat; others worry it will make them look bad. Whatever the reason, what they fail to realise is hiring the very best will make their job easier and actually make them look better.

 

As a manager, recruiting the best people the market has to offer is a smart move. Your team will deliver better results, and as the one that built and managed the team, you will receive recognition. A good IT Recruitment Agency can find the best candidates and reduce the temptation to hire a lower calibre candidate.