Hiring Best Practices, Are They Working?
Hiring Best Practices, Are They Working?
What we used to do 10 years ago in the recruiting world isn’t working any longer.
It is human nature to follow along with how we’ve always done things. Recruiting is no exception. Today’s feedback is that yesterday’s recruiting best practices are not providing adequate results today making it harder and harder to fill roles.
So, what to do? A common place to start is to rewrite the job description. However statistics show that job requirements keep getting higher and higher. This has led to candidate burnout and can stall the recruitment process. Adding requirements to a job description after a failed hiring process is not usually the answer. Hiring someone that we feel is a good fit and then they add up to not being a good fit is happening over and over in today’s hot job market.
So what went wrong? It could have been that we hired the wrong person. It could have been that the onboarding process didn’t work. But we find it difficult to pinpoint why that person did not work out, which is not easy to understand and avoid replicating.
The problem is that when we rewrite the job description for the next hire we seek traits that were lacking in the original job description. A skill perhaps that was lacking? And then we turn around and add those to the job description.
This concept does not work. Adding requirements is not effective in weeding out applicants that are a bad fit.
The reason this is a concept that doesn’t work is that the bad fit applicant typically does not read the entire job description. They often do not pay attention to the added skills you are seeking however they apply anyway. This struggle is real. You end up hiring them in desperation and eventually their managers struggle with the new hire because the applicant does not follow rules, processes and company procedures.
So if your current strategy is adding additional requirements to weed out applicants from applying, it isn’t working. What is happening is the exact opposite. Increasing requirements and skills is scaring good applicants away.
Overstating the job description reduces the ads ability to attract good candidates.
Writing a job description about why your current employees are there and describing the day to day processes of the open role is key to gaining qualified applicants. The message you want to get out into the marketplace needs to be focused on what is in it for the applicant.
A good place to start is to look at the company’s top performers. Where did they start? What experience did they bring to the company when they started? What has your company done to help them learn and grow? This is your current target. Ideally you will want to search for hires you have made in the past year. Take time to ask yourself, does the experience and background align with the requirements you have stated in your job description.
Ask your top job performers the following questions:
- What drew your attention to our company?
- What do you like about working here?
- What needs does our company meet for you?
- What makes you want to stay with our company?
Write an engaging job description with answers to these questions. If you learn that employees stay at your company for job stability, mention that in your job ad. If you offer on the job training, mention that in your job ad. If you must include hard requirements make sure they are actually hard requirements.
Keep having conversations with your employees. Keep adjusting your messaging, not adding job requirements. Soon you should be able to close the gap and meet your applicant goals.
