Sharpen Hiring & Recruitment Processes

In an article from Frank Connors and Rich McGourty, authors for Talent Management.com, recruitment issues are singled out and addressed. The quantity of applicants versus the number of job availabilities do not match, therefore, hiring and recruiting departments are having a hay day with finding the right candidate for the job. This whirlwind in the hiring department also means that the top-talent applicants don’t always surface in the aftermath of the storm.

Let’s consider the first thing that an HR department has to deal with once they post an open position on a site such as Monster or Craigslist – the massive downpour of resumes. Some position openings gather 400+ resumes, and that is a lot of work for any HR department to sort through. Many organizations simply do not have the fiscal budget, man power or resources to sort through a similar amount of resumes. Hiring managers can also create meticulous criteria for candidates to fulfill, but this also requires time and resources.

In response to the recent economic state, many organizations have simply scaled back their hiring departments and utilized fewer people to embody more responsibilities. Hiring and recruiting have been put on the back burner, and seem to be forgotten … at least for now. While hiring practices are in such a funk, talent managers need to pay special attention to what social scientists Russo and Schoemaker call decision traps. Four such traps from their book, Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making and How to Overcome Them, are noteworthy for hiring practices today:

The Anchoring Trap: Recently, talent managers have struggled to assess candidates who have been laid of from previous jobs. These difficulties also apply to those who have been unemployed or underemployed for extended periods of time. Click here to read recommendations for this trap.

The Status Quo Trap: There is a strong pull to maintain the status quo because breaking from the status quo means taking action. When we take action, we take responsibility, thus opening ourselves to criticism. Click here to read recommendations for this trap.

The Framing Trap: If the request [of how urgent it is to fill the position] is re-framed to balance urgency with the need to hire the superior candidate, the talent manager can pull back from making what might have been a bad hire. Click here to read recommendations for this trap. (at top of page.)

The Sunk Cost Trap: The sunk cost trap in hiring is triggered by a combination of fatigue and reluctance to admit a mistake. Click here to read recommendations for this trap.

Your organization’s leaders do have the power to integrate better and better talent into the company. It takes time and consideration with such a vast talent pool before them, and with the monumental volume of applicants on top of the traps set to let the wrong hire on-board, there will be some difficult situations to deal with. Arming hiring managers with the knowledge of the pitfalls during chaotic hiring times will strengthen their ability to weed out the no-go’s and hire the top-talent needed to propel your organization into a successful future. Click here to read the full article.

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