5 Post-COVID Hiring Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making

Mistakes. We all make them. And HR and talent acquisition is no different.

If you’ve been in the industry for any length of time, you’ll no doubt know the classics:

Relying heavily on first impressions
Not collecting candidate feedback
Asking cliche questions that don’t relate to the role

However, things aren’t the same.

COVID has changed the game.

And as a result, hiring in a post-pandemic market is a different task entirely.

The sad news is that if you’ve fallen back into your traditional hiring process, odds are that you’re making a number of hiring mistakes that aren’t just hampering your chances of attracting top talent -

They’re also hurting your bottom line.

In this article, we’re giving a rundown of our top 6 post-COVID hiring mistakes that are being made by unwitting talent acquisition professionals right this minute. Are you guilty of any of them? Read on to find out.

1. Farming out vacancies to hordes of hungry agencies

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition.

It’s common for hiring managers to think that the more agencies working on a vacancy, the better the odds of finding the right person.

Right?

Herein lies our first mistake.

This scenario isn’t a campaign for the best candidate.

It could end up as a race to the fastest hire - and it all hangs on who submitted the CV first.

With a multi-agency approach, the recruiters you’re working with aren’t incentivised to find the strongest fit for the role, they’re incentivised to find the fastest candidate they think they can get past the post before their competition.

If you want to grow as a business post-COVID, your hiring strategy needs to focus on quality over quantity. Cost, speed and quality are all desirable attributes, but a multi-agency approach is unlikely to give you all 3.

The solution: foster close-knit relationships with fewer recruiters who align with your business values and who you trust to deliver on their promises - without cutting corners.

2. Missing the mark with your brand messaging

It doesn’t matter if you’re manufacturing makeup or engineering global infrastructure -

Every brand needs a voice.

Your brand voice is how clients and candidates alike understand your overarching value, the mission you’re on and the values that you embody.

Building your brand messaging is all about communicating this to your audience effectively - and if you miss the mark with it, you run the risk of:

Losing visibility in your industry
Lacking the appearance of industry expertise
Hampering candidate lead generation

If you haven’t ironed out your brand messaging, you’re creating a problem that could have a knock-on effect in everything from talent acquisition to top-line revenue.

The solution: Consider your history, culture, goals, services, and your target customer. Use these points to speak to both what you do and your key audiences.

3. Copy-pasting the same interview process for every role

Fact - the standard interview process is inherently flawed.

It’s true. When you fire the same cliche questions at candidate after candidate, you’re testing their social skills, not their aptitude for the role.

The result?

You miss out on potential perfect fits because they’re never given the chance to shine, starving your business of invaluable diversity in the process.

The solution: Consider skills-based interviews that give candidates the ability to showcase what they do best. To prevent wrong first impressions from poisoning the candidate pool, you can also conduct first-stage interviews via an online survey, removing any potential for bias.

4. Sticking with the same old software

Managing large recruitment campaigns is no easy feat.

Tackling it in a vastly different post-pandemic landscape with outdated recruiting software is something else entirely.

Time will be wasted on tedious, repetitive tasks, and your social reach will suffer.

Fewer candidates will see your vacancies, and candidate quality will sharply decline.

The solution: if your current system is lacking the functionality your TA team needs to thrive, it’s time for an upgrade.

There are myriad technologies to help you boost your candidate and hiring manager experiences. To find out how to exploit technology in the post-pandemic world, read our latest guidance here.

5. Bungling your redundancy messaging

If you, like many other employers, had to make redundancy decisions during lockdown, current employees and prospective candidates are going to have questions -

and you need to give them answers.

They will want to know what happened during the lockdown, how your market is performing and the outlook for your business.

An uncertain answer to these questions won't just make it harder for you to attract key talent -

It poses the risk of you losing your team’s most valuable members to your competitors.

Although they might not voice it, if your team members are worried about their future, they might start looking for the door.

They need reassurance.

And to give it to them, you need to get your story straight about the future of your company.

The solution: Be prepared to have frank discussions with current and prospective team members about the decisions you made and why you made them.

If your market is starting to rebound, add optimism to your explanation, stating your growth plans for the business year ahead. You should also detail any processes you’re putting in place to mitigate any future issues, such as shorter probation periods.

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