Mostly things go well in a recruiting process, but sometimes the recruiting fails. Anyone can make a mistake. Sometimes both parties simultaneously make mistakes in the process. When so, the mistakes can “compound”, increasing the likelihood of a bad outcome in the recruiting process.
One can analyse this in many ways. Here I approach this issue via two checklists, one for the candidate and one for the hiring manager. Each point in the checklists below has to be broken down and analysed more thoroughly, in detail, to get the whole truth. There seldom is only one reason for what happens. (In my Author’s Blog articles, I address and analyse many of the issues mentioned in the checklists.)
Keep it simple, do your homework and pay attention to the factors in the checklists – chances are things go well. Ignoring the factors below most likely does the opposite.
Both parties need to understand how the other party is thinking and doing. Getting inside anyone’s head and seeing what they are thinking is impossible. However, actively and purposefully paying attention, and having this checklist in your mind when you interact, makes you more observant and receptive to “danger signals”, telling you something may still need to be checked out before you make any decisions. Not thinking this is important is taking unnecessary risks and remember, both can make mistakes.
My two top-ten checklists for why a recruitment may fail:
These two lists are almost like a mirror image, the text almost identical, but the perspective and, thus, the meaning of a point on the checklist mean different things for the candidate and the hiring manager.
The Candidate Checklist:
- Not knowing what you want in the first place.
- The expectations vs the job were too rosy, inaccurate, or downright wrong.
- Your ambitions were not up to your potential and skills, reaching for the wrong job.
- Not understanding or misinterpreting the company’s/superior’s expectations vs you.
- Giving a too-exaggerated, inaccurate or, at worst, false presentation of yourself.
- Letting your emotions cloud your judgement this leading to a wrong decision.
- Letting other people’s opinions decide your job move against your preferences.
- Failing to recognise the impact of potentially wrong person chemistry.
- Not understanding the impact of company culture, values, and leadership style on you.
- No reference check of the hiring company, organisation, superior, or team.
The Hiring Manager Checklist:
- Not knowing what you want in the first place.
- The expectations vs the job were too rosy, inaccurate, or downright wrong.
- Misinterpreting the candidate’s potential and skills, reaching for the wrong candidate.
- Not understanding or misinterpreting the candidate’s expectations vs the job.
- Giving a too-exaggerated, inaccurate or, at worst, false presentation of the job.
- Letting your emotions cloud your judgement this leading to a wrong decision.
- Letting other people’s opinions decide your hiring decision against your preferences.
- Failing to recognise the impact of potentially wrong person chemistry.
- Not understanding the impact of company culture, values, and leadership style on the candidate.
- No reference check of the candidate.
The checklist points are not just academic talk or theory. After 30 years in executive search and meeting and interviewing thousands of candidates and clients, I know that mistakes happen in recruiting processes, leading to wrong recruitments. Afterwards, regardless of whose fault the failed recruitment was, both parties still suffer just the same and finding the guilty one does not make anyone any happier.
Whatever we can do to minimise the risk of landing the wrong job/hiring the wrong person is worth the effort.
This is, after all, very basic recruiting best practice. All points are important, but perhaps the first is the most essential. If you don’t know what you are doing, there is a slim chance you have what it takes to pay proper attention at the other checkpoints. But once you understand what you are doing and why, the rest will usually follow.