If you’ve been paying attention to the Hire Value Inc. Blog over the past three years, you’d know that finding the right fit for your company requires a “tango”. In other words, it’s a dance that takes two. You can’t simply expect to sit back and have job seekers flock to your company whenever you post a job. It’s your job to take the lead by presenting your opportunity as the most attractive place to work.
Employers who get lazy and neglect their employer brand end up making huge mistakes in how they advertise their jobs. Here are three:
1. Making candidates fill out multi-page forms
We all love when the customer service we receive is quick and efficient. No one likes waiting. With attention spans relatively short, in today’s world, it can be a lot to ask a job seeker to have to sift through page after page of your application form. This is especially true for online applications. On SHRM.org, Dave Zielinski reveals that a CareerBuilder study found that 60 percent of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity.
“What can recruiters do to increase the odds of applications being completed via mobile devices or on desktops?” he asks, “Experts say the first steps are to remove ‘nice to have’ questions that aren’t required upon first contact with candidates and to limit the number of screens people have to navigate. The idea is to balance what’s convenient for recruiters with what’s user-friendly for applicants.”
2. Posting a 3-page job description with a core competency list.
How is anyone supposed to know what you consider to be “core competency”? Every company is different. Just as job seekers are expected to cater their cover letters and resumes to the posting they apply to, your job advertisements should be clear about the exact core competencies expected in your applicants.
There is a long list of core competencies that can appear in a job description. The most common are; analytical thinking (which calls upon candidates to apply logic to solve problems in order to perform their jobs), conflict resolution (being able to demonstrate an ability to resolve differences and maintain work relationships) and management skills (the possession of financial and people skills, as well as the management of information).
3. Making applicants take a test before they can even apply for your job.
We admit personality counts for a lot. After all, the purpose of interviewing is to select candidates who show they can work well with others and mesh nicely within your company culture. It’s not so much about the assessment, it’s all about when in the hiring process you do it. Author, Neel Doshi believes there’s a lot of potential danger in personality tests.
As Anisa Purbasari Horton of FastCompany.com reports, Doshi believes that the biggest problem with such tests occurs when companies “weaponize” them. “That is – when the ‘results’ of their test is used for justification on their progress (or lack of) at the company, whether it’s getting a promotion, being tasked with important assignments, or getting the green-light to lead an ambitious project,” she informs.
For more expert recruitment advice, contact Hire Value Inc. today!
