Hiring horrors: Recruitment mistakes all HR should fear

So-called “bad” hires cost a business time, money and resources – that much we all know. But what exactly makes any one new recruit a poor choice over the long term? Experts today say the definition of a “bad” hire can change over time – and is certainly doing so at the moment. With the impending talent shortage on all recruiters’ minds, the chances, not to mention the potential costs, of a hiring mistake are growing fast.

Many years ago, hiring managers could easily get away with less-than-perfect selections. Workers tended to stick with one organisation for many years, sometimes even their whole careers, and promotions and career development opportunities were assessed in terms of time served, not necessarily competency or potential. Now, the more enlightened way of looking at staff and getting the most from them places much more pressure on HR to get the fit right from the earliest possible stage.

“It’s very much everywhere, and not just in banking,” Paul McGrory, head of Resourcing, Asia Pacific, Group HR, Royal Bank of Scotland, says. “High quality candidates are scarcer.”

What’s more, it can be very difficult to measure recruitment success – since even several years down the track, a seemingly “good” candidate can turn into a problem employee. Eliminating those easy-to-make mistakes from HR’s hiring toolbox is the first step to dealing with the new talent landscape.

Short-term fixes that don’t

Matangi Gowrishankar, HR Director, Asia Pacific, BP Lubricants, says there are many mistakes that can lead to a “horror” hire. But many of them are symptoms of the same basic problem. “The big one (mistake) is that we hire for today,” she says. “We ought to be hiring for at least tomorrow, if not next year.”

She says many line managers and recruiters get fixated on the immediate gaps that need to be filled. Certainly competency and ability to do the job hired for is an important consideration, but organisations also need to look at the wider issues involved. How the recruit fits in to the culture of the organisation is important for long-term retention and productivity, and HR also needs to consider the recruit’s ability to progress in their career.

“It’s a classic conundrum that many managers get into,” Gowrishankar says. “Line managers are so worried about filling the position today (that) they’re not seeing people for their potential to grow.”

Without this important criteria considered, new hires can sometimes begin to lose engagement and enthusiasm just one or two years in to the recruitment, becoming what Gowrishankar calls a “miss-fit” within the organisation.

“Once the shine wears off, (we learn) the recruit doesn’t have the values, the beliefs and the behaviours required,” she says. “Sooner or later the line manager will say they have a performance problem.”

McGrory says the challenge begins at the very outset of the hiring process. “Getting the wrong brief (from the line manager) can be a big mistake,” he says. “Recruiters will then often focus purely on job title.”

HR, recruiters, and managers need to work closely together to ensure they know exactly what they want to find before any selection takes place. “If you get the brief wrong – you have got no chance of finding a star.”

Avoiding “shifters”

Another symptom of the natural urge to hire with only short term goals in mind can be an over-reliance on strict experience requirements. Obviously, employers need their staff to be competent in their jobs but Gowrishankar warns that competency can’t be measured solely on what is in a candidate’s résumé.

What’s more, previous experience of a particular job should inspire HR to question why the candidate is looking to shift sideways to the same role in a different organisation. These “shifters”, can often represent the more mediocre end of the talent pool – candidates that merely move between roles of the same level without the enthusiasm or potential to take the next step up the ladder.

Joanne Chua, Manager (HR division), Robert Walters, says this is a common problem in the Asia region – with many employers advertising for candidates “who can hit the ground running” without the need for internal training. She says this increases the chances of hiring mediocre talent but it can also lead to bigger issues down the track. “It is also true that the candidate is highly likely to become bored with the responsibilities of a similar role after six months,” she notes. “This would eventually result in a staff retention issue.”

Chua advises HR to look closely at all candidates, including those who may not have direct experience in the role on offer. "Candidates who do not have well-known multinationals listed on their résumés have a higher chance of getting written off, resulting in firms missing out on what could be a top talent and a great fit.”

Stick to your guns

Most HR departments, and by extension their organisations, already know the way to avoid these types of problems. As all the HR textbooks will state, there needs to be a clear hiring process that assesses candidates against a range of criteria, including cultural fit and potential for leadership. Both HR and line managers need to work together for an end-to-end solution that critically evaluates the written job description, selection criteria and the candidates.

The problem is that far too often, this simply doesn’t appear possible. The immediate needs for skills in a particular field outweigh the time and resources required for a drawn-out assessment process.

Gowrishankar acknowledges this a common problem; but she says HR needs to take leadership on these issues and “own” the process. Where a candidate falls short – particularly on those softer skill areas – HR needs to hold out for someone that truly does fit with the organisation’s requirements. “We have to learn to say ‘no’,” she says. “HR needs to live by the leadership frameworks it has developed and the values (the organisation) holds high.”

It’s still not an easy thing to do; but Gowrishankar says it’s a case of practice makes perfect. “Line managers and HR have to have the discipline to follow the process and not take shortcuts.”

She says it takes at least two years of rigid discipline before a hiring process like this can be come embedded into the organisation, as was the case when BP India moved to streamline its recruitment strategies in 2007 (see sidebar).

McGrory agrees. He says a quality and careful hiring process is what breaks the constant “merry-go-round” of talent, particularly in the banking sector. Candidates need to see that the hiring process is taken seriously, in order for the best to really become inspired by that organisation’s message. “There’s got to be more to it if we’re going to get (and keep) good recruits,” he says.

Delegating the task

Many organisations will look to solve the risks of “hiring horrors” by engaging a third party recruiter. But this can simply shift the responsibility to another entity, doing little to change the way hiring actually happens. Working in an industry that uses third party recruiters as a key resource, McGrory says the internal team should still have much to do.

In particular, it needs to be the conduit of constant communication between the line managers and the external recruiters. “Often the manager doesn’t know what he of she’s actually looking for,” he says. “All parties need to talk about the job requirements.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland achieves this by keeping its third party recruiters “very close” to the internal resourcing team. It uses a reduced number of “A-List” recruiters, just a small number for every business area (investment banking, for example) and maintains one-on-one relationships between those recruiters and the heads of the relevant departments. “That close relationship builds (both) trust and capability,” McGrory says.

Importantly, each of these heads remains actively involved through each stage of the recruitment process. As one such executive (leading the resourcing function), McGrory himself takes on this duty. “You’ve got to practice what you preach,” he says. “I spend 60% to 70% of my time interviewing and finding people for my own team.”

Hire well, but hire fast

Having a dedicated and deliberate hiring process certainly helps organisations to hire the best of the best – but that’s not the end of the discussion. Today’s competitive talent market means HR needs to not only refine its systems to ensure it is finding only the best staff, it also needs to ensure those “stars” are ready and able to accept an employment offer.

“That’s another big mistake employers make,” Gowrishankar says. “Taking forever to make a person an offer!” If all these processes and deliberations take too long, the best of the best will often have already found a home elsewhere by the time the offer comes. It sounds like an unsolvable conundrum – to hire well or to hire fast – but experts say that both are possible if a recruitment exercise is well planned in the first instance.

Recruiters, HR and line managers all need to have a clear and common picture of what they are looking for; so that when they find it – they can pounce with confidence.