5 Mistakes That Hiring Managers Make

Everybody makes mistakes and hiring managers aren’t the exception. Mistakes within the hiring process are often amplified by the fact that they can be highly costly. These costs can include money, time, disruption of culture, and productivity. As a hiring manager, it’s important to learn from mistakes and perfect the hiring process over time. These are the 5 mistakes that hiring managers make.

Many hiring managers are looking for the “perfect” candidate, the superstar. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the perfect candidate doesn’t exist. Hiring managers often hold out for the perfect candidate and don’t consider any others. There are some great, qualified, experienced candidates out there, but no candidate will ever be perfect.

Hiring managers have the pressure of building great teams that can either make or break a company in the long term. This can result in hiring too fast or too slow when under that pressure. It’s important that they don’t get drawn into hiring the first good candidate that walks into the door without doing the proper due diligence. In contrast, the pressure of getting the right candidate can make hiring managers take the process too slow and they lose out on good candidates.

It’s common knowledge that culture fit is key when looking for a candidate. Sometimes, when a highly experienced candidate comes in, hiring managers get excited and look right past the culture fit. This then becomes a problem in the team dynamic that has already been established. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Other times, hiring manager rely solely on culture fit and they get a great, friendly person that doesn’t bring much benefit in terms of skills or experience.

When a hiring manager does the hiring process alone, it can be risky. It’s important to get another set of eyes and ears in the interviews and other stages of the hiring process. By bouncing feedback on candidates off other members of the team, hiring managers can ensure they are getting the best fit for the company.

When a hiring manager finds what they think is the perfect candidate, sometimes they skip the reference checking and go straight to making an offer to the candidate. References can be tedious and take time but it’s vital to get the view of a candidate’s references, especially previous managers and coworkers. No matter how rushed a hiring manager is, it’s important that they check references.