Does The Way You Interview Prevent You From Hiring The Best Candidate?

I was reading through John Sullivan’s mullings about Notchup, the service that pays candidates to interview, and a paragraph leaped out at me.
My experience and research has found that as much as 50% of the reasons that top candidates refuse to consider firms’ job opportunities are directly related to the design of the recruiting strategy and the hiring process itself. Any combination of weak employment branding, negative comments found on the Internet, neutral or negative comments by current employees, a weak corporate jobs website, requiring multiple interviews, and a slow hiring decision will scare away up to 50% of the most qualified candidates.
John has real data to back up those assertions, which means that for companies that lack strong branding and employment processes, the pool of the best available candidates starts out at half strength. And human nature being what it is, these companies don’t even know they’re missing out.
You can’t measure what you don’t see. If your recruiting process and your employment brand turns off candidates, you don’t even get the chance to interview them. This can only lead to a disastrous misreading of the employee marketplace.

If your hiring managers and human resources executives are telling you there’s a talent war going on, and you’re constantly struggling to hire top people, it could be that the problem is not the marketplace, but you. That would certainly explain the surveys of companies with multiple critical jobs to fill, who can’t seem to find the right people. Maybe the people are there, but they won’t come interview with your company.
If that’s the case, it’s time to bring in outside help.
Some things to look for:
1) A high number of interview drop-offs (individuals come in for one interview, but not two).
2) Your employee referrals are under 20%.
3) Your staffing firm only speaks to you in platitudes, and can’t offer any suggestions on how to improve).
4) The top account managers for your staffing firms aren’t working with you.
5) A quick Google search turns up negative information.
If talent is truly the driving force behind success, are you doing your best to attract talent?
Article by Jim Durbin and courtesy of StlRecruiting.com

Originally posted by Candice A