Why is it so hard to find the right candidate? Some industries don’t have enough experienced workers to fill available positions but for most, the companies are to blame for their poor recruitment results.

Check you aren’t making mistakes in job role advertising, CV review, psychometrics and tardiness in making the job offer. It could be costing you the best candidate that becomes your star performer.

Not Casting the Advertising Net Wide Enough

If you don’t advertise where your candidates are looking, you aren’t fishing in the biggest pond. One ad on LinkedIn or on Seek may not be enough, particularly in a tight job market.

Think if there are other places you can advertise or approach potential candidates. Your industry will determine where to advertise. Some companies have the most success with an ad in a trade publication, for others it’s asking employees to spread the word, LinkedIn searches or promoting the vacant position on social media. The few extra applications you receive could contain the dream employee.

Some organisations feel inundated with applications, so they cancel the online ad or stop looking at applications that arrive during the last week of advertising. What they don’t realise is the perfect employee could be in the application that didn’t get looked at.  

Your best candidate may not even be looking for a new job, so they aren’t monitoring job boards. Recruitment agents have access to a database of workers they have had contact with in recent years. If your job ad doesn’t attract the right candidate, contact a recruitment agent.

Missing the Right CV

CV’s aren’t uniform. It takes time to familiarise yourself with the format of each CV. If you aren’t a recruitment agent who can review a CV in an average of six seconds, you need to spend time on each one so you don’t miss the gold.

Small business owners often have a full workload without adding recruitment to the list. They try to skim the pile of CV’s but without experience, it’s hard to do. There is the risk of CV’s that should have made the interview pile are declined because the owner didn’t have time to read it more carefully. Time-strapped business owners should either outsource the job to an experienced recruitment agent or be careful during this part of the process to ensure they don’t weed out the wrong candidates. 

Not Using Psychometric Assessment

Screening for skills alone isn’t enough in today’s workforce, you need to know a little about the candidates’ personality traits too. But it’s difficult to do without the help of a psychometric insight. If you want to know which candidates have the potential for growth and success because they are a good cultural fit, a psychometric assessment is needed.

According to Dr Jacob Hirsh, an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, ‘research nonetheless indicates that tests of personality and cognitive ability are among the most effective predictors of workplace performance outcomes.’  

Replacing an Employee Not Filling the Role

Some employers make the mistake of looking for someone similar to the person who left the position. The past employee is in mind when writing the ad, CVs are compared to their work history and bias comes into the interview process.

Being open minded about what the right employee can ensure you don’t skip a future all-star. You might want five years’ experience but maybe you should consider a quick learner with two years in a similar role and is the candidate with 25 work years under their belt really over qualified?     

Taking Too Long

The best candidates don’t look for a job for long because they are quickly taken out of the market. If you take too long to interview or you procrastinate in making the offer you risk another organisation beating you to it.

Once you have posted the job ad for an important role, make recruitment your priority. You might have to put off other work or delegate to someone else to free up enough time to find the right candidate.

Contact interviewees and conduct interviews as soon as possible. If you have a standout performer from the interviews, make a job offer quickly. In a survey by recruitment firm Robert Half, 23% of respondents said they lose interest in a firm if they don’t hear back within one week of the initial interview. A further 46% said they lose interest if they don’t receive an update one to two weeks after the interview. 

If you need to turn the tables in your favour and find candidates perfect for the role, check out Matchd. The sophisticated software ensures it finds the hidden gold and reduces recruitment time. For more information, see matchd.com