How do you attract the best candidates when trying to fill a position? First, you need to educate yourself on some common misconceptions about hiring.
Recruiters often make mistakes in the interview process. They sometimes give too much weight to the interaction between the candidate and interviewer, instead of focusing on the candidate’s abilities and motivation for the job.
Moreover, most hiring decisions are overly influenced by the interaction at the start of the interview. An interpersonal relationship develops between the candidate and interviewer right away, and that can end up swaying the interviewer too much.
If you immediately like a candidate, you’re more likely to ask them easy questions as the interview goes on. If the candidate lacks certain skills, you might dismiss this, thinking they’ll be able to learn them later.
On the other hand, if you dislike someone from the start, you’ll probably be harsher on them. You might subconsciously start looking for their flaws to prove that your negative first impression was correct.
We also have a natural tendency to focus on candidates’ skills instead of their ability to actually do the job at hand. When you put too much emphasis on a person’s performance in an interview, you might lose sight of what the job actually involves.
So remind yourself to focus on your candidate’s capabilities, not the impression they give off. Aim for objectivity. You’ll pay more attention to performance requirements when you push yourself to be more objective.
How can you do this? First off, wait at least 30 minutes after an interview before you make any hiring decisions. Don’t just go with your first impression of the person.
The real key to ensuring that you’re hiring by performance is to create performance profiles. Read on to see how they work.