Recruitment horror stories can happen at any time during the year - whether it's Halloween or a regular old Tuesday. Candidates and recruiters alike suffer from hidden issues in the recruitment process. From the candidate's perspective, it can feel really awful to put a lot of effort into a job process, only to be left in the dark. From the recruitment side, imagine hiring your top choice only for them to quit within 3 months.
What is a recruitment horror story?
A recruitment horror story is a situation in which a candidate suffers due to an issue in the hiring process. This experience can take an emotional toll on candidates and damage a company's employer brand. Many recruitment horror stories can be prevented by focusing on the root of the problem. This article aims to provide advice that will help hiring managers and recruiters to solve common recruitment problems.
🍭 Trick 1: Don’t ghost your candidates, or they’ll come back to haunt you
Ghosting candidates is a real issue in modern recruitment. From a job seeker’s perspective, it can feel frustrating when a recruiter suddenly goes radio silent. A lack of communication can lead to a disappointing candidate experience. This ghosting can leave a lingering impression on your employer brand when disappointed candidates vent these feelings online. In this way, these candidates can indeed “come back to haunt you.” How can you avoid ghosting these candidates? Make a consistent candidate communication strategy and leverage tools like an ATS system to schedule candidate touchpoint activities.
🍬 Trick 2: Always clarify expectations about the role
No one wins when a new hire joins your company without accurate expectations about their new role. Misunderstandings in job expectations can have several different causes — such as an unclear job description or unclear communication with the candidate. At Recruitee, we work together from the start of the hiring process. This helps keep everyone on the same page and allows candidates to meet the team so that they can get a more accurate impression of the role and the organization.
🍭 Trick 3: Hire for growth; stop waiting for the “perfect” candidate
When a top performer leaves your company, it can be hard not to want to replace them and all the good qualities they took with them. However, using a past performer as an ideal when hiring a new candidate can lead to an anchoring hiring bias. This happens when a recruiter falls into the “ideal candidate” mindset. Waiting for the “perfect” candidate to fill the role can mean the position is left open for far too long. This means that plenty of candidates who could grow into the role in their own way, with their own unique qualities and talents, might be overlooked. Hire for growth instead!
🍬 Trick 4: Avoid hiring bias; hire collaboratively
Unfortunately, some recruiters fall into the trap of continuously hiring people who are just like them. He is suffering from similarity bias (also called affinity bias). In hiring, this is an unconscious inclination towards people with who we share something in common with such as interests or backgrounds. This might lead to the exclusion of candidates who don’t “fit the mold.” At Recruitee, we believe that hiring collaboratively is one solution to overcoming hiring bias because it encourages teams to work together instead of relying on one individual recruiter.
Bringing these recruitment tricks to life
In the spirit of Halloween, we gathered four of our Recruitee team members together around the (virtual) campfire to tell recruitment horror stories. Although some creative liberties might have been taken in the retelling of these tales, the recruitment issues they bring to life are real.
Here are four spooky stories that could keep you up at night, but don’t worry — we are here to share the solutions so you can avoid any nightmares!
In conclusion: candidate experience is key
In today's day and age, the power of online word of mouth is strong. If you fall victim to one of these recruitment horror stories, the damage to your brand reputation may quickly follow. So, on Halloween and every day of the year, it's important to treat your candidates to a positive candidate experience! This will ensure that you create a strong employer brand that will draw in quality talent.
