Common problems of recruitment and selection need to be solved before they grow in size, but how do you do it?
Problems of recruitment and selection are inevitable. No matter how much the process is polished, they will continue to be committed. However, this is not an excuse to stop finding solutions or slow down continuous improvement. Locating new talent would come into play.
Despite the difficulties posed by the search for talented candidates, they must be addressed in a constructive, positive and active manner to put them on the path to success in hiring. But to achieve this, we must first know what we are facing. Errors in recruiting and selecting personnel are very varied and come from all types of sources, so you must act with caution.
Throughout this entry, we are going to explain some recruitment and selection problems. In addition, at the end you will discover a guide with the effective solution for the most common ones.
Table of Contents
9 Problems in recruiting and selection
The problems of recruiting and selecting personnel are the result of the existence of some difficulty or lack of experience in managing these processes. Nowhere is it written that it was easy to find the most talented professional. Unfortunately, this is scarce and, furthermore, we do not know precisely where it is located.
Likewise, the existence of errors that are not corrected will lead to problems in hiring personnel or limitations in selecting people, which would increase in severity. Therefore, the Human Resources department would lose its strategic component, since it would not be completely reliable. So, to save the associated costs, it is advisable to take these failures into account.
1. Recruitment problem: offering false job expectations
Candidates, especially the most interested ones, pay close attention to job offers. If it contains false job expectations, the idea they will leave in the reader, will be unreal. If they reach the end of the selection process, it can affect whether they accept the position, and if they do, they may even feel deceived by the company, which will affect their performance or they may want to resign.
This also extends to job growth possibilities or any data we include. It is necessary to opt for honesty, since it will be insinuating that perhaps the company has something to hide. If this attitude continues, the vision of the company as a contracting brand will be negatively affected. As a consequence, it will be more difficult for us to attract talent, which will lead to more serious problems.
2. Unattractive offers, one of the recruitment and selection problems
Along with the previous mistake, an unattractive offer is problematic. On many occasions, important elements are eliminated, such as salary or job responsibilities. There is also a tendency to give vague information about the company, not making clear the requirements or whether previous experience is necessary.
Although it is not about designing the perfect offer, we do have to offer a job description with the most essential aspects and present them in a way that is as useful as it is informative. You should also not include too much information, since the candidate could feel overwhelmed and back out.
It is easy to avoid these mistakes, recruiting consultants is of great help.
3. Lack of personnel in the Human Resources department
This is one of the overlooked causes of poor recruitment and selection. The people closest to the position or positions offered do not participate, even though they are the ones who best understand its characteristics and peculiarities. For example, your coworker or the head of the department in question, who can provide valuable information, is left out.
It’s a small mistake, but it has profound ramifications. These people are capable of making a better pre-selection of candidates. By not including them, the capacity for analysis and selection is lost.
4. Searching for a perfect candidate, a common recruitment and selection problem
One of the risks in the recruitment and selection process is looking for only perfect candidates. It must be made clear that such a profile does not exist and, in fact, applicants should not be expected to fit each and every one of the requirements. But it is not advisable to stay with the first person to sign up for the offer.
It is good to maintain a high level of demand or, at least, adapted to the needs of the company and seek to ensure that the professional grows with them and fits into the organization.
However, when you fall into idealism, problems will begin to arrive. You will end up hiring overqualified people thinking that they are the most suitable, but in a short time they will leave the company. Reasons? The position they fill will be too small, it does not fit the work environment or the way of working that is required.
5. Waiting for an identical replacement, 5th problem in recruiting and selecting personnel
It is an easy option for most recruiters when replacing a laid-off or departed employee. A candidate with similar or identical skills and characteristics is sought, which opens the door to different biases and other recruitment and selection problems. The process will be tainted by assumptions that will not help you find talent.
This leads to new candidates not being assessed impartially and in accordance with the criteria required for the position. Furthermore, acting in this way can lead to lengthening recruitment more than normal, something that will contribute to increasing costs.
The ideal, as we have said, is to be clear about what is needed for the position and look for the best candidate without the obligation to repeat exactly the previous profile.
6. Highly scripted interviews
The interview phase is important, since it involves making contact with the most promising applicants. Most have been filtered for one reason or another, which leads to increased personalization of the process. However, falling into the temptation to standardize questions is very strong. After all, it would save time and effort.
The problem with acting in the way described is that you will not know the candidate in depth. It will not be possible to delve into their experience, knowledge, abilities or personality. We could have the right person in front of us and simply discard them by resorting to a series of guided questions that hardly provide any information. And this is one of the great risks in the recruitment and selection process.
7. Lack of strategy, the latest problem in recruiting and selecting personnel
The lack of strategy is one of the most serious recruitment and selection problems. There would be no clear objectives or a systematic way of acting, which leads to poor results or chaining one mistake after another without seeking to rectify or learn from each one of them. In the end, the process will be a failure that will have consumed very valuable resources.
8. Choosing a wrong profile
These are not good ways to raise a profile:
- Get a specialist, imagine the Digital Marketing analyst with knowledge in web development and mastery of analytical tools…
- Getting a candidate like the one who just resigned, the one who spent 8 years in the company and because of all the changes he experienced, he learned about finances and accounting…
Why are these practices carried out, even though they are not beneficial? These are some of the factors that influence recruiters:
- Accepting to carry out a process without understanding what it is going to do or what it is about.
- Do not investigate the profile or do not investigate, at least, if what you are looking for exists.
- Not asking the right questions.
- Do not ask! (This, in fact, is the biggest mistake they could be making.)
9. Absence of recruitment and selection strategy
The absence of the strategy is reflected in:
- Manage the same workflow for all vacancies (the same flow to handle 1 vacancy as 20 simultaneous vacancies)
- Use the same attraction strategy for all profiles, publish the vacancy for Plant Operators and the Community Manager on the same job portal.
- Not implementing KPIs and tracking metrics
- Not managing communication plans to candidates about their progress
- Not managing a standardization of the stages of the recruitment process
- Spend much of the day on operational recruiting tasks.
Instead of investing into extra manpower for recruitment, go for a recruiting consultant. It can significantly decrease the effort and expense. Also, you will get best employees for your business.
This can significantly improve the work performance and more efficiency for growing the business.
How to solve the most common recruitment and selection problems?
The effects of poor staff recruitment will be noticed sooner or later. Vacancies will not be filled with the right professionals, the company will not have the skills it needs or the staff will not get along well, something that will affect the work environment. To avoid these and other consequences, it is necessary to find the right solutions.
To help you in your work, at PITCS we offer you a guide with the seven most common recruitment and selection problems. In addition, our Human Resources experts have proposed a solution for each of them, taking advantage of all the automation and optimization of our recruitment and selection software. This way, you will know how to act in time so that you find the differential talent that you are looking for.
