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9 Horrific Hiring Mistakes

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Hiring is a science and an art if you approach the process properly. Here are 9 common mistakes made by large and small companies, and how you can avoid them.

JOB DESCRIPTIONS: Poorly written job descriptions will yield poor results. “Poorly written” could be defined as grammatical errors and misspellings, but I am referring to generic job descriptions or unspecific, misleading job descriptions. Investing time in the writing of accurate, unique job descriptions will help job-seekers determine if they are a job fit for the position.

 

INTERVIEW TEAM: Depending on your industry, the interview process will vary. Just remember: if the team of employees interviewing the candidates are not on the same page, the candidate will know, and you could lose the right candidate. Take time to prepare for the interviewing process as a team. This will keep everyone on the same page and ensure that necessary topics are discussed.

 

BAD BEHAVIOR: The interviewer must be on best behavior. The candidate’s time is important too. Don’t expect a highly qualified professional to wait an exorbitant amount of time for you–especially if they arrive early. The interviewer should be conscious not to: speak poorly of the company or other employees; take personal or professional calls during the interview; or multi-task in any fashion while conducting the interview. It is also important to dress appropriately for the interview and please, for the love of Human Resources, don’t eat lunch while interviewing potential employees.

 

FOLLOWING UP: It’s simple. If you are not following up with candidates, you are getting a bad reputation in the world of job-seekers. Applicant Tracking Systems like HireCentric make it easy to send a customized email to applicants that thanks them for their interest and lets them know if the position is a good fit for them.

 

RESPECT: Another simple thing that can easily be forgotten by interviewers is to respect others. Repeating the same questions can be monotonous,  a particular trait of the candidate could be one of your personal pet peeves, or perhaps you just have stress in your personal–none of that gives you the right to look down on candidates. Don’t treat candidates poorly. You will likely be interviewing some time again in your professional life, so remember the Golden Rule.

 

COMMUNICATION: During the pre-employment screening process, you may find yourself engaged in conversations via phone, email, or face-to-face. Use these opportunities to assess the candidate’s communication skills. You will likely discover how this person would fit your company culture–before the final hiring stage. Ignoring communication skills, or lack thereof, can be detrimental to your current work environment.

 

IGNORING WARNING SIGNS: Similar to ignoring queues on communication skills, ignoring a candidate’s negative tone or personality traits can ruin your work environment. During the prescreening process, you should take notes on personality traits that will enhance or spoil your current environment. A candidate with less education and experience may be a better fit than an experienced “Mr. Negativity”. Job-shadowing in the final stage can also help to ensure that you hire the right person.

 

REFERENCES: Not checking references may be a time-saver today, but it could prove to be a costly mistake. Checking references will verify the dates of employment and daily tasks indicated by the candidate on their resume. Getting insight on work ethic, weaknesses, and attendance can also be helpful when making a final decision between a few, seemingly great, candidates. References that don’t say much versus a reference that raves over a past employee can be a tell-tale sign of who you want on your team.

 

SKILLS TESTING: Making good hiring decisions is all about having the best data. From cognitive and skills-based assessments to behavioral and interest-based evaluations, hiring managers can gather enough data to get a strong sense of an applicant before they even meet for an interview. Applicants fill out these assessments on their own, and the software automatically scores and evaluates the assessments, providing an in-depth picture of every candidate without adding any work on the shoulders of hiring staff. Assessments can be administered as part of the application process to serve as an early round of evaluation. This can help flag potential employees who may be a poor fit and identify “good fit” candidates based on criteria not typically gathered through a traditional application.

 

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5 Steps to Zip-Line Talent – Applicant Tracking System

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Ever zip-lined? If not, you should. It’s fast, fun, and–thankfully–safe.

This fall, the ExactHire team took to the treetops of Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis for a Go Ape! zip-line adventure. Over 2,300 feet of cable tied between 39 waypoints  provided thrilling “zips” across heights of more than 40 feet. The trip was part of ExactHire’s incentive program that rewards our team for meeting quarterly performance goals. Now that’s a nice benefit!

And since we’re in the business of helping small- to medium-sized companies leverage technology to hire top talent, we can’t help but draw some inspiration from our adventure. So what can you take away from a zip-line adventure that can be applied to tracking job applicants?

Well, with a little bit of reflection–and some admittedly forced metaphors–here are five steps to “zip-lining” your talent through the hiring process.

HireCentric Applicant Tracking System

5 Steps to Zip-Line Talent

 

1. Safely get them hooked up.

You may be wary of embracing a digital storage solution. But ExactHire’s HireCentric applicant tracking system ensures that you’re in compliance with EEOC and other Federal employment regulations. Additionally, all personally identifiable information is stored on a separate server and hosted on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) pages. HR administrators may access applicant information on these SSL encrypted pages only after logging in with a unique username and password. Learn More About Our Security

2. Clearly tell them where they’re going.

HireCentric gives you the capability to pre-screen applicants by customizing minimum criteria for each open position. If applicants don’t meet that criteria, they can be filtered out from consideration, leaving you with a more manageable list. But more importantly, applicants–qualified and unqualified–can now quickly receive an update on their status.  Learn More About Pre-Screening

3. Quickly send them down the line.

All of your applicants are safe and secure inside your database. You have quickly filtered out the unqualified applicants and notified them of their status. Now you’re focused on only qualified applicants. But great talent won’t wait around forever, so you need to quickly zero in on your ideal candidates. HireCentric makes it easy to share candidate information with other stakeholders at each stage in the selection process. This leads to quicker, more informed decisions and, ultimately, better hires. Learn More About Sharing Candidate Information

4. Kindly prepare them for the landing.

Your hiring team has come to a consensus on the top candidates. You’ve completed phone interviews, and perhaps the candidate has even completed an online assessment. Now you’re ready to bring the top candidates in for an interview. Through the use of customizable email templates and status codes, you can ensure that all candidates are up-to-date and engaged at every point in your hiring process. This means that no candidates slip through the cracks and that every applicant feels informed and appreciated. Learn More About Applicant Management

5. Leave them smiling.

By using HireCentric, you have effectively “zipped” your pool of applicants through your hiring process. With branded online applications and email communications, your company has provided a personalized look. With efficient management of your candidates through the hiring process, you have lent a personalized touch. You’ve avoided the “black hole” experience that so many other companies leave with applicants, and though you could only hire one candidate, they all walk away with the impression that they were treated with fairness and respect. And if there’s an opening in the future, you now have a strong applicant pool to re-engage. Request a Full Demo of HireCentric applicant tracking system

 

Email Your Network to Find Applicants — Avoid This Mistake

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Referrals that come from your network are likely the most reliable and best-suited for your needs.*

*There is always an asterisk, isn’t there? If you are selective about who you request referrals from, their recommendation can be well-suited for your needs. This applies to appliances, restaurants, and yes, even applicants. Let’s focus in on recommendations for applicants.

How You May Email Your Network Now

We’re seeking talented individuals. We spend time putting together a glamorous job description. We make sure the job is published on our website through our applicant tracking software. We then scour our contact list for those in our network that are the “connectors”–to borrow a term from Malcolm Gladwell. Now we email our selected list of connectors.

“Hi! We have a position available. Let me tell you about it, and if you know of someone who would fit, please send this to that person. Tell them to email me at xyz@mycompany.com.”

Congratulations! You have now created more work for yourself.

Improve How You Email Your Network

This is one of the big mistakes made when emailing our networks, especially when we’re in a hurry. The basic improvement is to switch out your email address for the url of the online employment application. Rather than manually entering in an applicant’s information after you receive it via email, have the applicant enter the information in directly themselves.

Usually, you track applicant sources with applicant tracking software. Then, you can even run reports based on those sources. ExactHire ATS does something even cooler: it allows you to customize the referral information into a unique link. By using our job listing promotion tools, you can enter specific text to create a customized link.

For example, I might enter “RShuck Professional”, and then “RShuck Personal” on another, so that I generate two links to send to two different batches of contacts. When the referred applicants apply, their sources will appear in our ExactHire applicant tracking software as having come from RShuck Professional or RShuck Personal.

If you are so inclined, you could send out individual links to your contacts such as “RShuck to JTimberlake”. In this way, anyone who received JTimberlake ‘s link could apply and it would be tracked back to him as being the “connector”. This is extremely valuable when seeking applicants for hard-to-fill positions, especially when trying to offer a bonus for the referral.


For more information on how to engage applicants using custom links: ExactHire clients can visit our Knowledge Base, and prospective clients can schedule a quick consultation.

 

Image credit: Networking by Ricki888c (contact)

Choosing an Applicant Tracking System – Best of Breed vs. Single Source

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An issue that comes up quite frequently in my discussions with potential new ExactHire customers is whether it makes sense to purchase a stand-alone applicant tracking system (ATS) or utilize those capabilities within their existing payroll/human capital management (HCM) solution. Admittedly, I have a biased perspective on this. Despite that, below is a brief list of the pros and cons for each option, based on feedback from others over the past few years.

Single Source (Integrated with Payroll/HCM Software)

Pros

  • Single sign-on from existing solution
  • Core applicant information (name, address, phone, email) passes through automatically upon hire
  • Potentially lower cost (often discounted if purchased with the rest of the payroll/HCM solution)

Cons

  • Key features and functionality may be missing
  • Provider’s development budget for this part of the solution may be limited, with more focus on the core aspects of the solution
  • Implementation and support may not receive the same attention as the other core aspects of the solution

Stand Alone Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

Pros

Cons

  • Separate vendor for support needs (compared to one vendor with HCM)
  • Can be more expensive (ATS pricing varies based on several factors)
  • No ability to automatically transfer core applicant information (name, address, phone, email) to payroll/HCM solution – though may be available via custom integration

There are certainly more factors to consider than what I’ve represented here. Things such as the size of your organization, number of people involved in your hiring process, the amount of hiring you do, your relationship with your current payroll/HCM vendor, whether that vendor offers applicant tracking, etc. are all items you should consider as you weigh options for your organization.

Ultimately, there isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question. The unique aspects of your organization and the factors mentioned above will drive you to the best option for your needs.

To learn more about ExactHire’s applicant tracking software (ExactHire ATS), please visit our resources section

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Hiring Process Hurting Your Employer Brand?

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Your marketing team has worked hard to ensure that marketing campaigns communicate exactly what your company promises to be–your company brand. So hard in fact, that people are listening and business is growing! Now your company needs to be on top of their game as they seek to attract and hire the right people–your employer brand.

When hiring–especially when hiring aggressively–the perception of your employer brand can start to go one of two ways: your employer brand is knocked as contrived marketing fluff; or embraced as an authentic representation of what your company is, who your people are, and how you seek to do business.

Frequently, the people applying for jobs at your organization are also the people most familiar with your company’s brand–and many times they are direct or indirect customers. They’ve received your marketing. Now, through the hiring process, they get to pull the curtain back and really see what’s going on. It’s important that you meet their expectations.

Delivering On Your Employer Brand Promise

Let us pretend that your company brand stands for integrity, prompt communication, truthfulness, and transparency. You’re on the hunt to hire people who exemplify those characteristics. As you begin the hiring process, you portray these characteristics yourself by outlining the stages of the hiring process and roughly how long each stage will take. Even if you were to reject an applicant at this stage, your employer brand has been upheld by communicating and being truthful. On target so far–your marketing department is loving this!

But the next thing you know, massive chaos has broken out across your organization. Maybe someone quit unexpectedly, or you’ve had a benefit provider change rates on you, or…chaos of whatever type. It’s all you can do to keep yourself from drowning, let alone notify individual applicants that the next stage in the hiring process has been delayed!

But you stay cool, and you find the few minutes it takes to update your applicants. Maybe it’s just a generic, automated email that’s sent out to all applicants remaining in the hiring process, but this simple effort supports your employer brand image. The applicants thank you, and the marketing team does too.

Breaking Your Brand Promise

But let us examine what might happen if you did not take those few minutes to send an update to the applicants.

Scenario 1: Your potential new hire may not trust you to be timely, transparent, or communicative– and that mistrust could remain once they’ve been hired as part of your organization.

Scenario 2: The applicant could assume that they weren’t selected, and that you–uncomfortable with confrontation–just didn’t want to break the news to them. This might lead them to take a position elsewhere.

Scenario 3 In the worst possible scenario, the applicant tells everyone they know about their negative experience thus far with your company, severely damaging your brand image. If you think this is hyperbole, think about a company that is hiring aggressively:

20 positions X 50 applicants = 1,000 brand promises broken

1,000 miffed people X 300 followers of miffed people = 300,000 people who now have a bad perception of not only your employer brand, but perhaps your overall company brand as well. Ouch.

What’s the Good Word?

Word-of-mouth is the oldest and still the hottest marketing tactic–good, bad, or otherwise. Your hiring process will likely touch a lot of people and generate conversations about your  company. These conversations can either tarnish or reinforce your brand. Ensure a positive experience for your applicants–don’t keep them in limbo. By staying true to your employer brand, you will strengthen your company brand.


Looking for hiring software tools to improve and maintain your organization’s employer brand? Visit our resources page for more information about our applicant tracking system and pre-employment screening software, or contact us today.

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The Hiring Process: Are We There Yet?

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The hiring process can be difficult for both the applicant and employer. Just as an anxious child awaits the end of a long road trip, both parties are asking, “Are we there yet?”

Invest Time in Saving Time

Streamline Your Hiring Process

Wasting time is expensive. And if your company spends too much time and effort hiring, you’re wasting money–especially if you end up hiring the wrong person. But it doesn’t have to be so difficult, and it doesn’t need to carry a hefty price tag.

You’ve heard it before: work smarter, not harder!

An Applicant tracking system can streamline your hiring process and save you time by reducing the time spent posting positions, reviewing applications, contacting applicants, and getting hiring approval from corporate.

Work Smarter

Applicant Tracking Systems Create Efficiency

  • List a job once and post it on any job board you want with a few clicks.
  • Manage the hiring process for all open positions from one site.
  • Invite managers to add notes and feedback at any point in the hiring process.
  • Eliminate unnecessary sorting and sifting through applicants by adding a filter to remove candidates that don’t meet the basic qualifications for the position.
  • Create a set of specialized questions for each position and attach scoring values to fast-track your efforts at finding the perfect candidate.
  • Build email templates for status letters, thank you’s, interview requests, testing requests, and any other email you regularly send to candidates.

Cut Through Red Tape

Speed Up Job Requisition

  • Streamline the requisition process by having the applicant tracking system automatically notify the next approver in line.
  • Hiring managers can check on the status of a requisition by logging in–no distracting follow-ups.

We’re Here!

ExactHire Can Help You Streamline The Hiring Process

Learn how ExactHire applicant tracking system can help your company work smarter. Visit our resources section or contact us today!

Image credit: In The Distance by Angus McCrae (contact)

When Should I Buy Applicant Tracking Software? – Whiteboard [VIDEO]

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If your organization has never used an applicant tracking system before, you might be curious about the telltale signs that it might be time to buy applicant tracking software. In today’s Whiteboard Chat, Jeff Hallam shares his insight on the most obvious indicators that it may be appropriate for a small- to medium-sized business to implement a recruiting software solution for the first time.

Video Transcript:

Hi there! Today we’re going to take a look at something that comes up quite a bit as I’m out talking with organizations. And that usually kind of revolves around, for those who aren’t already very large…how do I know if I’m large enough; or, how do I know when the time is right for me to need an applicant tracking tool?

And so today is really just designed to give you some helpful things to keep in mind or some considerations so that you’ve got some warning signs to consider as to when might the time be right for your particular company. So, the obvious one is if you are doing more hiring. And there is no set benchmark, there is no set number of hires. If you hire more than this or fewer than that, it is or isn’t right for you. More often what I find is that it’s relative. It’s relative to what we’ve done before, it’s relative to what we’ve done up to this point, and so for everyone there seems to be this line of demarcation that once we cross that, this becomes a lot more problematic than it has been prior.

So as you continue to grow and you have more openings out there, that is almost always going to be a surefire way to help you kind of keep that in mind. Secondly, if you are seeing instances where candidates are applying, and you’re finding yourself kind of scratching your head and saying I think I’ve heard of this person before. Or, I think we considered them before. Or, other people are looking at the resume and saying “oh, we’ve talked to this person prior.” That’s almost always a good sign if you don’t have a ready way to keep track of that, and if you think about an Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Outlook folders, or worse yet even just a stack of resumes you might be keeping in a file folder somewhere…that becomes really difficult to cross reference when you have more than a handful of those in there. So again, that’s almost always a good way to know that if that’s happening with more frequency, that means you probably have more openings, you’re getting more candidates. It might be time to look for a more effective way to keep track of those folks.

This is one of those things that comes up a lot…this need to involve hiring managers. So, when you find yourself at a point where it’s becoming more cumbersome to let hiring managers weigh in on certain candidates, it’s becoming more difficult to track and log what their feedback is…who we interviewed, who did we not, why do we not want to interview them or why do we want to interview them…again, that’s typically where Outlook spreadsheets, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook subfolders I should say…those types of things become very difficult to share bits and pieces of with hiring managers who are only focused on a certain opening. So, in other words if I have three openings and I only want Manager One to see this list of candidates, Excel and Microsoft Outlook folders aren’t really designed to do that in a very efficient way.

So again, as you’re finding yourself getting to that point, others are getting involved, and you want their input…almost always going to be something that will tip your hand that it might be time to look at a solution like ours. And then finally if your applicants are hearing crickets. And again, just by way of notice, that is a cricket. The idea here as much as we make light of it is that can be problematic at two different levels…so certainly it can be problematic if you have good candidates and you want to move them along in the process but you’re not getting to them quickly enough. Those folks, if they don’t hear a response very quickly, they’re likely moving on to the next opportunity. And you certainly don’t want to lose access to them. So that’s what we mean on the one side of the fence when we talk about them hearing crickets.

On the other side of the fence though, are the people that you are clearly not moving forward with. When you don’t have an automated tool like an applicant tracking software piece available, it becomes very difficult to keep applicants up to date with where they are and communicate with them effectively. And so even though you may not be worried about them as a potential hire, you don’t want to give those folks incentive to speak poorly of you out in the employment marketplace. Certainly we all have a brand to our potential customers, but that branding also extends over to the employment side of things. So, whether you are talking about your better applicants or your not so good applicants, having a ready way of keeping them apprised of where they are, what the next steps are, and where they fall in that process…is going to be very critical to making sure that you maintain a good presence in the employment brand space out there, and avoid giving people incentive to speak poorly about you to others. So again, hopefully this has been a nice help just to give you a few quick indicators. These aren’t the only ones by any means, and they may not be the exact ones for you…but certainly something to keep in mind as you continue to grow and your business gets to points where you might be considering something like this.

For more information about how ExactHire’s HireCentric applicant tracking system, please visit our resources section.

Applicant Tracking Systems for Not-For-Profits

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Applicant tracking systems (ATS) can be appropriate for many different industries and many different business sizes…the right system for your organization will depend on the unique needs or your business as features will vary depending on the software application. In this blog, I would like to focus on how applicant tracking software can be beneficial to a not-for-profit organization.  Many think that a nonprofit means that an organization has little money or no budget, this is not necessarily true. Not-For-Profits are run similarly to many other organizations when it comes to their financial controls and hiring processes.  Most however, do a have strict set up guidelines and a board of directors to monitor and regulate key business decisions.

Here are several reasons why Not-For-Profits would benefit from having an ATS:

Applicant tracking systems make hiring more efficient

Often, these organizations run pretty lean on manpower so it’s important that every aspect of their processes are efficient. This is no different when it comes to hiring. Using an ATS will help quickly launch new job postings with minimal manual effort; as well as, sort out applicants that best fit the needs of the organization based on custom filters that may be predetermined by the organization.

Having the right software makes hiring less costly

It’s no secret that hiring a new employee can be costly so it pays to make the correct decision the first time around.  Our applicant tracking software is especially budget friendly to nonprofit organizations and is suited well for small- to medium-sized companies.  Hiring right the first time keeps costs down, as well, and allows HR staff to spend less time re-training and on other busy work activities that cause an organization to be less productive in the long run.

Leaves applicants with a positive impression

Using ATS software allows you to have a streamlined and consistent hiring process. This is a bonus for your employment brand, as well. More specifically, your jobs portal will make it easy for applicants to search for available positions and then apply in a consistent, standardized manner each time. You may even include an FAQ page on your career site to answer common questions so that your potential applicants know what to expect from your hiring process. Your company, big or small, will be seen as professional and attentive to the needs of its applicants and employees. That’s a huge plus when you want to create a working environment that is engaging to employees who are passionate about the mission of your nonprofit organization.

Grows your passive applicant database for future reference

Any applicant that has applied to a previous job in your application will be stored and may be easily referenced by searching for items such as name, email, phone, and various keywords. If you are trying to source candidates for a specific position, you can always search your database of previous applicants to see if one of them fits well with the needs of the new job.  Contacting those people that were finalists for previous jobs can be a great way to reduce your time to hire for critical positions for which you need to make hiring decisions quickly.

These reasons are all noteworthy for not-for-profit businesses, but can certainly be applicable to other industries, as well. As with any potential change to your recruiting and hiring process, keep your company culture top of mind when implementing software tools and designing screening process steps to make the overall experience a positive one for the candidate and the company.

For more information regarding our HireCentric applicant tracking software and our other hiring software solutions, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Tick Tock – Time is Ticking Off Your HR Workday Clock

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How many times have you caught yourself saying, “If only I had more time…” If you had an extra hour, two hours, a full day or whatever the amount of time, how would you spend it? In the world of Human Resources, it is not difficult to feel as if one’s wheels are spinning during the workday. HR representatives have a full plate of roles and responsibilities. Regularly we are told, “Here is a vacant position. Fill it.” Filling vacancies does not happen with a snap of the fingers. Positions need to be filled yet we need time to recruit and then screen the candidates that have applied for those positions before those stellar candidates choose employment with another organization. Compliance policies and laws, paper resumes, electronic resumes, this recruiting tool, that publicity source, social media, phone screens, personal interviews–eeeek! How can one person or even a team effectively stay organized to complete these tasks in efficient detail in order to seal the deal on hiring the cream of the crop? Maybe Superman can save the day?!?

Since time is a resource that is very limited, and HR professionals wear many hats on a regular basis…finding tools and tricks that allow them to be more efficient and productive is a big priority. One such tool is Software as a Service (SaaS). In the context of the HR realm, these web-based solutions help streamline detailed tasks in an efficient manner so an individual or team can effectively maneuver through the recruitment, hiring, and/or onboarding processes, for example. ExactHire’s HireCentric applicant tracking SaaS solution can centralize the Human Resources functions representatives strive to successfully complete on a daily basis.

Here are five examples of how HireCentric can boost your organization’s HR efforts and save your staff members time:

Web-Based Accessibility

HireCentric is available wherever you have Internet service. Talk about convenience–there is no need to go to the office to access a candidate’s file because it is right at your fingertips. Also, if you are traveling for work, you can keep abreast of the vacancies and the candidates applying for those roles so when you get back to the office, you will not need as much catch up time.

Job Templates

In HireCentric, you can create job templates that make it easy to create multiple current and future job listings. Create a library of customizable templates so you do not have to recreate a job description over and over.

Applicant Correspondence

In HireCentric, you can create email templates to help you communicate with your candidates quickly and easily – but without sacrificing personalization. All candidate contact information is centrally located to make it easier for you to call or email. You can send an email to one or to many candidates with a click of the mouse.

Ongoing Process Improvement

With HireCentric, evaluation is ongoing. In the Reports tab, you can run a variety of reports to help you identify the data you need for internal and external reporting. Within the ATS, there are nearly two dozen unique reports available for use, and if that is not enough, you can create a customized report that meets your needs. Also, it can be integrated with some of ExactHire’s onboarding and employee assessment tools.

Standardization & Compliance

HireCentric offers you tools for tracking activities so that you may be compliant with Affirmative Action Planning, Equal Employment Opportunity and even your own company guidelines. In addition to creating your own unique applicant disposition status codes, you may input screening questions that are consistently asked when applicants apply for various positions to help you identify the candidates who do meet minimum basic qualifications.

In a work environment where time is money and money is time, a company must be fiscally responsible. If your company is not using HireCentric, it is time to take a look. Time is ticking by. Who needs Superman to save the day? With HireCentric, you can be the time saving hero to your organization!

Image credit: 52 Weeks of Photos- Week 42- Time by Louise Docker (contact)