Recruiting the right people for your business is extremely important if you want to thrive. You can easily assume that putting out a job advert and hiring some staff is the easiest task you’ll ever do. After all, how difficult can it be? You list some key requirements on the application, and then pick the most suitable candidates – job done, right? 

Not necessarily…

You see, these three recruitment mistakes are extremely common and could ruin your business by ensuring you hire the wrong people. Learn how to avoid the mistakes, and your business will be allowed to grow and succeed!

Focusing Too Much on Skills/Experience

It’s common to place a massive emphasis on individual skills/experience when hiring. The premise is simple: individuals with skills and relevant experience will be better than those without, correct? 

Unfortunately, taking this approach means you can miss out on some exceptional talent. As former business owner Catherine Lucille Hlavenka notes, many skills can be learned, and you should care more about personalities and work ethics. Look for people that fit the culture of your company and that you will get along with. Hire people that show the drive to work hard for your business. Someone may be experienced and skillful, but if they’re lazy and hard to work with, they’ll drag your company to the ground. 

Creating Non-inclusive Job Descriptions

Nobody does this on purpose as you want to be as inclusive as possible. However, you can subconsciously write job descriptions that exclude certain members of the working population. Specifically, many job adverts include very masculine words or phrases that suggest the role is suitable for men only. In turn, any female candidates are put off because they feel as though they won’t get the job. 

So, focus on writing inclusive job adverts and descriptions. Here’s a really good article that explains how you can do this. 

Neglecting to Onboard

The onboarding process is such a vital part of recruiting staff. Nevertheless, many small business owners forget about it! They simply hire individuals and expect them to start right away. Most of the time, this will be damaging for your business as you have new hires that don’t really know what they’re doing. So, mistakes can be made that set you back and cost money. 

Onboarding is essential to ease your employees into your company. You train them how to use equipment or software, you teach them more about their job, and you give them a chance to settle in. As a result, they understand their role and can perform much better from the word go. 

Making these recruitment mistakes won’t be the end of the world, but it will be costly. It’s incredibly expensive to try and remove an employee that doesn’t fit your company and hire a replacement. This is why it’s critical to make the right decision initially. Avoiding these mistakes will help you do that. You can find the best candidates for every role in your organization, putting you on the path to success.