10 Recruiting Mistakes You Should Avoid

An Assortment of Snafus from Top Talent Leaders - and Lessons Learned

Ever made a recruiting decision you regretted?

You’re not alone.

Even the most experienced recruiters have watched candidates withdraw, forgotten to prep their interview team, or made the wrong hiring decision.

We asked 10 talent leaders to reveal their biggest recruiting mistakes to us.

In the following slides, we share their missteps along with the powerful lessons they learned.

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1WeQWae

Forcing a bad fit.1.

Mistake “I worked with one

candidate we knew wasn’t a culture fit. I recommended we not hire the person, but

we did. They ended up leaving after six months, leaving the project in a shambles, and it was a detriment to morale.”

Chris ShawDirector of Talent, Meteor

Learning “Never force a bad fit, even if you can. They WILL fail, and it’s a matter of when, not if. You end up losing customers or the faith of hiring managers over it.”

Celebrating the wins and overlooking the losses.

2.

Mistake “Only celebrating or

recognizing the team when we hire someone.”

Betty TsanHead of Talent, Coursera

Learning “Recruiting is a journey. If we focus

just on the wins, we lose sight of how much effort our sourcer has put in to compel passive candidates to talk to us, or how many times our recruiter had to pick hiring managers off the

ground, dust them off from the heartbreak of a declined offer to

start again, before we find The One. Recognize the efforts, console the losses, be resilient, and then also

celebrate the wins.”

Not anticipating a counter-offer from the candidate’s current company.

3.

Mistake “A couple times, I didn’t ask

about the counter-offer. When offering a position to

your candidate, the excitement can cloud your

vision- taking you back from the actual process and

diligence of the offer stage.”

Sabrina OldhamHead of Recruiting, Tune

Learning “It's important to help the candidate

think through that counter-offer, preparing them for how that

conversation will sound. Directly asking them about it can only help

the situation on both ends. I've learned to always have an open

conversation throughout the entire process and be the best coach

possible through the offer stage.”

Dragging out the hiring process.

4.

Mistake “Designing a long, complex interview process to hit every dimension of our

evaluation criteria, only to realize too late that no candidate ever made

it to the end. This led to making concessions after letting the broken

process go on for too long, which ultimately led to weaker hiring

decisions and a smaller candidate pool to choose from.”

Anik Das

Director of Talent, LevelUp

Learning “‘Fail fast,’ and change your process

as soon as you realize it is not working. As an example, if your

target hire date is 8 weeks out, and your aggregate interview process

takes 5+ weeks, it is too long. Decide in 2 weeks if your interview process is working or failing, and iterate for the remainder of the

time.”

Stopping at the signed offer.

5.

Mistake

“Assuming the recruiting process is over once a candidate has signed

the offer letter. In reality, the recruiting process is not over until

your candidate has actually started his or her new position. In the past, I have had candidates renege on an accepted offer because I did not

maintain the relationship after the offer acceptance.”

Tenzing BhutiaRecruiting Manager, Quora

Learning “I learned that it is equally important

to maintain a trusting relationship with your candidate after the offer acceptance, as it is to build that relationship in the initial stage of recruiting. The core component of recruiting is the ability to build and maintain relationships with people, and this principle has to be applied and practiced at every stage of the

recruiting life cycle.”

Allowing interviewers to ask identical questions.

6.

Mistake “An engineer came in for an onsite, and his scores were great! Looking at feedback to move the candidate to reference checks, I realized every interviewer asked the candidate the

same question from our question bank. The candidate never said a

thing and I was mortified.”

Alex Lebovic

Director of Recruiting, GrandRounds

Learning “Make a plan, and make sure you're creating areas of specialization with corresponding questions. Oh and,

communicate that to your interview team. No one is a mind reader. At Grand Rounds, we now do a pre-onsite email to the panel to make sure we're all on the same page.”

Hiring the most tenured over the most talented.

7.

Mistake “I once passed over a young pro who

was awesome but he was under another who had “put in” more time and performed decently. The young person took off to our competition and within a very short period of

time reached levels we would have died to have.”

Tim Sackett

President, HRU Technical Resources

Learning “Tenure and loyalty to an

organization is important, but never pass up noticeably better talent

when you’re promoting. Rewarding tenure and loyalty over better talent just lets your best talent, with less

tenure, know they should start looking to go someplace else. If all

things are equal, go ahead and reward tenure. If someone simply has more top-end potential, you

need to give serious attention to the decision you’re about to make!”

Losing touch with a candidate.

8.

Mistake “Not setting up another

touch point with a candidate that was deep in the

interview process. We wound up losing the candidate after

he went dark.”

Amanda Bell

Director of Recruiting, Lever

Learning “As a recruiter, it’s so important to

own the process and set up frequent check-ins. By connecting regularly

with your candidate, you are guiding the process and can then pivot as

necessary, but you need to have the important information first—are they

interviewing elsewhere? Do they have concerns about the company or role? Make sure each communication ends with setting up the next one.”

Ending the interview process unexpectedly.

9.

Mistake “We ended an interview early because it wasn’t

going in the right direction. In hindsight, it may not have been completely clear to the

candidate that this was a potential outcome. The individual rightfully got

upset, even argumentative.”

Andrea GarveyHead of Recruiting, Intrepid

Learning “We've changed our prep materials to make it clear that interviews are subject to change or end ahead of

schedule for any number of reasons - a change in schedule or availability of interviewers, when it's clear it's not a match, etc. It's an extremely

rare occurrence which happens maybe once a year, but expectations are set ahead of time in 100 percent

of cases now.”

Giving the hiring manager the driver’s seat.

10.

Mistake “When I started working

internally with hiring managers, I was a glorified

order taker. I would beat myself up and try to find the

impossible profile. I was a ‘yes’ man to my hiring manager, but it wasn’t

improving the process.”

Stacy ZaparFounder and CEO, Tenfold

Learning “Over time, I learned to ask

questions, to really push back and have those tough conversations so

that I could be a true business partner in the process. By making it

a partnership, you can add much more value. You should consistently

hold weekly hiring manager meetings and challenge them to

show up with feedback and insights. In return, commit to arriving at the

meeting with six or seven resumes.”

The only crime in making a mistake? Not learning from it.To avoid... ...check out this resource

1. Forcing a bad fit Train your interviewers

2. Celebrating wins, overlooking losses Recognize your recruiting team

3. Losing to the counter-offer Act quickly after the counter-offer

4. Dragging out the hiring process Optimize your recruiting workflow

5. Stopping at the signed offer Welcome new hires the right way

6. Letting your team ask the same questions

Use Lever’s interview kits

7. Hiring most tenured over most talented Retain top talent

8. Losing touch with a candidate Take advantage of Lever Nurture

9. Ending the interview process unexpectedly

Communicate throughout the hiring process

10. Giving hiring managers the driver’s seat

Sync early with hiring managers

For more on Lever, visit www.lever.co.