Three Mistakes To Avoid When Recruiting For Your Enterprise Aside from ensuring that their recruiters are actively measuring and looking at hiring KPIs like time-to-hire and ratio of confirmed hires, leaders should also be wary of avoiding common mistakes that lead to bad hires.

With the growing competition among companies and organizations of all sizes and industries for top talent with the most relevant skills, securing great hires is becoming more challenging. Aside from ensuring that their recruiters are actively measuring and looking at hiring KPIs like time-to-hire and ratio of confirmed hires, leaders should also be wary of avoiding common mistakes that lead to bad hires.

Here are some common mistakes and how you can avoid them in your enterprises:

MISTAKE #1
FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON CVS
If a candidate's CV was the sole determinant for their success at the job, then why should employers bother with other stages of the recruitment process, such as interviews, tests, and assessment centers? The CV, although crucial, is only a starting point of the candidate selection process. But, unfortunately, many employers fall for the trap of turning down candidates too early, and solely based on their CVs. This can speak volumes on how little time some employers are willing to devote in the selection stage of the hiring process, and ultimately lower their chances of hiring their best possible candidate for the job.

Some employers dismiss candidates early on in the selection process, because their CVs were missing a specific keyword, or because the candidate didn't go to a reputable university. Regardless of what the reason might be, understanding a candidate's true potential solely based on their CV is quite difficult and rare. Now, no one disagrees with the fact that a candidate's CV plays a pivotal role in the recruiting process, and that employers should thoroughly review each candidate's CV before going forward with their job application. Nonetheless, a CV should ideally be coupled with other factors that can help highlight the strengths of a candidate. Likewise, a CV can look incredibly well-written and well-organized, without accurately reflecting the candidate's skills and experience. Bayt.com's video assessment platform, Evalufy, uses the latest AI technology to help employers not only put a face and voice to their candidates, but also put them to the test, and hire based on competency. This can help employers understand each candidate's potential beyond their CV, and ultimately make a thoroughly assessed decision, while avoiding the risk of a bad hire. For Bayt.com's internal recruitment process, we've found video assessments to be a fantastic way to get a holistic view of a candidate's skills, right at the screening stage. They help us make quantifiable decision, and also give all suitable candidates a fair chance.

Related: AI: The New Engine Of HR

MISTAKE #2
LOOKING ONLY FOR "THE ONE"
Some employers set stringent requirements and characteristic that they choose to identify an ideal candidate for a job role, especially for educational degrees and years of experience. This can serve as a major drawback in an employer's search for top talent, because they can miss out on the many other worthy candidates that might even be more qualified for the job, but miss the mark on what the employer has strictly identified as fit. Instead, employers should take a holistic approach when it comes to identifying an ideal candidate. Having some minimum requirements combined with previous hiring data is a great place to start. However, employers should go beyond that, and focus on hiring the right culture fit. Skills can always be taught, but character cannot. If an organization has not defined a perfect cultural fit, they can consider where the organization is headed, what challenges they might face in the future, how the nature of the job may change, and what skills are needed to address the upcoming journey for the organization. With such an approach, employers might find themselves in need of reevaluating the job design and description, key requirements, and essential qualifications to look for. Along with that, adopting a forward-thinking mentality that focuses on potential and long-term growth of the candidate can be key in this area.

Related: Attracting Top Talent For Your Company

MISTAKE #3
FORSAKING CULTURE FIT
Relevant to mistake #2, but important enough to expand on, cultural fit is essential. An organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that govern how people behave in a company. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization, and dictate how they act and perform. Unfortunately, many hires struggle due to culture misfit, where they do not fit in with the team, they are not aligned with the values and goals pre-established, or their personality and workstyle is not compatible with what the company offers. A great way for employers to start seriously considering culture fit when hiring is to, firstly, define their organization's culture, and make sure that it is visible and communicated regularly. Some employers do this by developing a strong online employer brand that can be viewed by potential job applicants. By announcing their organizational culture to potential applicants, it is more likely that employers will receive candidates who truly share their core values and principles and are able to smoothly assimilate.

Another step that employers can also adopt when looking at the right culture fit is implemented during the interview stage. Now, depending on the employer's hiring process, several employees of their organization may be involved in the interviewing process. It is important that they all have a firm grasp of your organizational culture, in order to ensure the interviewee is a good fit.

Having said that, there are certain questions that employers can ask during an interview that can also help determine the cultural fit of a candidate. These include asking the candidate what they know about the organization's values, their familiarity with the mission and vision that the organization upholds, and their knowledge about the pillars that the organization was established upon. Comparing the candidate's own values and traits is then required. An additional method that employers can deploy during the interview is to ask the candidate what they would do in certain situations or moral dilemmas to delve deeper into their thought process, personality, and ethics.

At Bayt.com, we prioritize hiring candidates who reflect our values as an organization. Even our annual appraisals are designed to measure people on how well they've reflected our values during the year. We find relevant talent by asking behavioral questions during the interview process, as well as by adopting an internal referral system for current employees, where they can nominate friends who believe will be a perfect cultural fit at Bayt.com.

Related: In For The Long Haul: Building A Strategy To Attract (And Retain) Talent At Your Enterprise