TOP 5 MISTAKES MADE BY HIRING MANAGERS
Last month, we discussed how, over the years, the team here at DAM has encountered job seekers of all flavors. And we focused on the top five mistakes made by job seekers.This month, the spotlight is on employers!
Like the vast number of job seekers DAM has represented in the past, we have also assisted hundreds of employers in their hiring efforts over the years. As you might imagine, they aren't perfect either. I've run out of fingers and toes counting up the times I've sat dumbfounded listening to my candidates give me the play-by-plays on the interviews I've set up for them.
In the spirit of sharing, behold! Here are the top five mistakes made by hiring managers during and leading up to the interview process:
1. Establishing A Solid Interview Process Pipeline. By all accounts, there is a talent shortage in the video game, visual effects, and electronic entertainment industries. Major universities and vocational colleges have been adding a variety of different courses into their curricula to accommodate the growing demand for creative and technical talent. The key point to note here is that it's a talent shortage, not an applicant shortage.
It's safe to say that just about every company could use a little help streamlining their candidate flow processes and maintaining accurate contact databases, with others needing complete and utter overhauls. Quite frankly, if you can't answer in the affirmative to the following statements, your company is letting qualified talent slip through the cracks
- Starting with the date of the applicant’s initial resume submission, I can easily run an out-of-state applicant through my interview process and extend a formal written offer within 30 days.
- I’m able to review strong applicant resumes the same day they are submitted.
- I have the ability to opportunistically hire an applicant even if I don’t have an open job requisition.
- I have the ability to get feedback from every co-worker who’s been involved in the interview within 24 hours.
- I stay in touch with applicants in which I’m moderately or highly interested on a weekly basis during the interview process.
- I have an employee referral incentive plan established and market it internally at least once a month.
- I can get professional reference checks completed within 72 hours.
- I know how to effectively and proactively deal with counter-offers.
- I have the ability to re-counter a counter-offer with something tangible.
- I have at least some compensatory flexibility to hire someone I want if something a little extra is needed to turn an undecided applicant into a decided one.
- Read through every line of the candidate’s resume and jot down your thoughts, questions, and criticisms in the margins before the interview starts. If you’re constantly relying on the resume during the interview to formulate your deeper questions on the fly, you’re unprepared and probably not coming across all that well.
- Never miss a scheduled phone interview. To take your call, the applicant has likely had to walk outside to avoid detection and you’re leaving them standing in the parking lot looking like an idiot. And for the poor non-smokers, well, they can’t even light up to create a believable subterfuge.
- If you’re going to put a candidate through the rigors of a 4-plus-hour in-house interview, then have the common courtesy to take the poor sap out for a meal of some kind after it’s over. Try to think of it from the applicant’s perspective for just a second: I’ve just lied to my boss and burned a vacation day to entertain the possibility of working with this company, I’ve told my life story six times today already, forgotten the names of three of the six people with whom I’ve met, and my mind is mush. Do you really want to send them off like that and tell them that you’ll be in touch?
4. Make the Applicant Earn It. It’s human nature. People always want what they can’t have and people always revere more what they’ve earned than that which they’ve been given. If a candidate expects an offer at any time during the interview process, you have lost control of the interview process. Candidates should be hoping to receive an offer, pretty sure they’re going to get an offer, or be cautiously optimistic about getting an offer. You’ll want candidates jumping through a few reasonable hoops to prove their interest while simultaneously giving you more insight regarding their character, communication and writing abilities, ability to take direction, and work quality. Furthermore, this will keep the applicant focused on your company instead of one of your competitors. Here are some suggestions for making them earn it:
- Give them a homework assignment after the first in-house interview … nothing overly involved like a programming, art, or design test but, instead, something like a one-page essay about why they think they’d be a good fit for your company.
- Make them provide you with additional work examples (even if you don’t really need them).
- Ask them to ask three of their industry colleagues what they have to say about your company without pulling any punches. This particular exercise will also put you in a position to address the concerns of third-party influencers from which your applicant seeks counsel.
- In a hopeful and non-condescending way, frequently question their level of experience as it relates to the position and even other candidates you may (or may not) be looking at. Make them prove to you, whether verbal or written, why they are a good fit for the position.
- Use various homework assignments as outlined in the “Make the Applicant Earn It” section of this article to open the path to two-way communication and feedback between you and the candidate.
- Schedule firm post-interview follow up calls, particularly if you know it’s going to take some time to move things along internally.
- Put expiration dates on your offers that are no longer than one week out.
- Schedule one or two firm follow-up calls after the offer has been accepted and before the actual start date to ensure that everything is still on track. The interview process isn’t over until the applicant starts and some may argue that it’s not over until the applicant has been with the company for 90 days.
- If you’re not planning on hiring the applicant, tell them immediately. As tough a call as this may be, the applicant will ultimately appreciate your candor and will have nothing but positive things to say about their experience during the interview process and the people with whom they met.
The interview process should be a progression in which the excitement and trust levels on both sides steadily increase. Blips in this progression resulting from poor communication (internal and external), missed appointments, and/or a premature offer can skew things in a direction that’s out of the hiring manager’s control. A strong hiring manager will maintain complete control over the entire interview process starting with the job description that’s posted to attract applicants. The key for this heightened level of control to be effective is the perception that no effort to control the process is actually occurring. The strong hiring manager puts the burden of control squarely on the shoulders of the applicant by setting reasonable expectations and making considerate demands. This will keep them engaged, excited, and eliciting insight into some of the intangibles not so easily discerned from a resume.
For the more bullet-point oriented readers, here is a brief list of red flags you should always try to avoid:
- Giving applicants too much leniency on basic professional tenets, meaning punctuality, completing assignments on time, and accurate and thoughtful communication (both written and oral). Each hiring manager will have their own tolerance thresholds, so all they need to do is identify those thresholds, stay true to them, and direct their subordinates to do the same.
- Missing a scheduled phone interview. While most applicants will be gracious, the hiring manager has still gotten off on the wrong foot and lost professional leverage for being scattered and unorganized.
- Treating every applicant the same. Every single applicant is different with varying professional and personal aspirations, ambitions, and desires.
- Reactively updating your applicants. If the applicant or the recruiter is constantly following up with you to see where things stand, you haven’t effectively managed their expectations.
- Making premature offers. I’m hoping that Bristol-Myers Squibb will come out with a pill for this soon. If you’re not 90% sure the applicant is going to accept your offer, you should wait to extend it until you are.
Salary negotiations are a dance. There are times when the sparks fly and you're making out with your dance partner right there on the dance floor. And, sadly, there are other times when you're stepping all over each other's feet.
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