Not Knowing What You’re Looking For: You can’t hit a target when you
don’t know what it looks like. Define what you’re looking for by writing a job
analysis that spells out the mental and physical capacities, attitudes, personality, and
skills you need.
Not Thinking Outside the Box: In these days of near record low
unemployment, it’s a safe bet that all the good people who want to work are working.
One overlooked source of candidates is all the good people who’ve left the company.
The grass isn’t always greener on the other side and they may want to come back.
It’s worth a call.
It’s Too Easy to Get the Job: Do you simply collect resumes and
applications and hire the person who interviews best? By taking the path of least
resistance, you’re saying you just need a body to fill the position. If you
don’t value the position, can you expect the person you hire to hold the job in any
more esteem than you do?
Not Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: It’s been proven that if you make
a hiring decision based solely on an interview, you might as well have flipped a coin.
There are many validated tests on the market that can identify the capacities, attitudes,
personality traits, and skills you need. The real beauty of testing is that it uses the
applicant’s time, not yours.
Talking Too Much: I have witnessed far too many interviews where the applicant
sits smiling and nodding her head, while the interviewer goes on and on about the company,
his job, his department – even his family. As a rule of thumb, you should make sure
the applicant does at least 80 percent of the talking.
Never Mind the Applicant, How Competent Is the Interviewer? Have you ever
noticed how much shelf space is given to how-to-find-a-job books at the bookstore? I can
usually count 50 titles as compared to the one there might be on how to conduct a
productive interview. This is because the applicants are buying the books and studying;
the interviewers aren’t. Interviewing is a skill and interviewers need to be trained.
