5 Hiring Mistakes I Learnt From!!

 

‘To err is human’ and we all commit mistakes.

One who learns not to repeat is smart, but those learning from others mistakes are by far SMARTER.

 

Life is all about exploring more and stretching your boundaries , so what goes hand in hand are the Mistakes. I wonder If I would have ever achieved all I have today had it not been my mistakes.

My on the job journey off course had its own share of goof ups and wrong choices. But then what came out definitely turned me into a better professional. However as they say why ‘Reinvent the Wheel’ here is what you can surely take your ‘NOT TO DO’ lessons

Whether its startup or established brand, we all have our favorite hiring sources and likewise I had a special affinity to employee referrals. Courtesy our lucrative referrals policy never had dearth of profiles and off course it all seemed very rosy initially. But reality stuck when we started having group exits and office politics shaped up the bad way. I realized that the referrals resulted in favoritism and pre conceived expectation. So the miss was of not exploring wider variety but limiting the choice by focusing more on one source or channel of hiring

Interview panel plays a very important role in the recruitment cycle. You can’t hire best if you don’t have the best one to do the cherry picking exercise. However many times we end up hiring wrong people only because we ourselves are not sure about whom to hire. It’s true that interviewing is a skill and that judging in couple of interactions whether the candidate will fit the bill or not, can be an uphill task. So only where a panel should have a capacity to evaluate technically and also maturity to foresee the cultural fitment and personality alignment within the team will be able to identify the right talent.

Hire always with open mind and when I say that my intension is towards diversity. Mostly we assume a particular section of population only would be a right match for a profile. However it is the result of our stereotypes, which we keep carrying irrationally. And at times like this when we get to re visit it’s important that we let our options always open towards the various talent segments. Not only would this bring more variety of thoughts but also give a good mix of population which ultimately will contribute towards healthy environment and culture.

Let numbers so talking. The best way to measure hiring transactions is to follow a well structured dashboard. A well defined TAT for each recruitment destination will surely help to track the process and its closure in the estimated time frame. Mostly due to unavailability of required data or a measurable data we keep procrastinating important decisions which can help close position in a much faster speed.

Selling is part of recruiting but don’t rub it too much. Mostly in the heed to hire the brightest and not to lose to the competitors recruiters try hard to convince the candidate. However this when can make the candidate join but any overselling can result in a false assumption or a promise can be fatal for the entire hiring process. A recruiter has to come out of the myopic vision and make sure to create a pull story to be attractive enough but not misguiding.

Here is how I learned with my own experiences and the journey of exploring the domain is still on. Do share your experiences in the comments so I can too learn from your mistakes J