Seven Mistakes for Post-Pandemic Hiring

If you find a good candidate with the talent skills, knowledge and experience who can fit your team, hire them. Really, just hire them.

In the current hiring environment, we have observed companies both large and small make seven big hiring mistakes. These are serious mistakes clients make time and time and time again, and, despite our best efforts to warn them, they cause our clients to miss out on the talent they need.

The 7 post-pandemic hiring mistakes are:

• 1. Try to negotiate a below-market salary or benefits. What you save in costs is not worth the churn. If you actually are able to hire someone below market, they will not stay long as someone will soon offer them a market or above-market package.
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  2. Insist on round after round of interviews. Do you really learn that much more after the first half hour?  Do you think great candidates really want to come work for a company that requires drawn-out decision-making?
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  3. Make hiring decisions a group consensus exercise. Someone in a group will always have an objection to a given candidate. The leader of the group — the hiring manager — should make a decision; that’s what leaders are paid to do.
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  4. Dismiss candidates who are not Grade A superstars. The right combination of competent players may be better in the long run than difficult-to-find superstars. Remember the movie “Moneyball” — the winning was greater with a team that could consistently get on base and safely to the next base. Having superstar home run hitters was fun to watch, but it didn’t win more games.
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  5. Attempt to assemble a full buffet of candidates to choose from. You don’t need to choose from a grand slate of candidates; you need to hire someone now. In the time it takes to assemble a good slate of candidates, you will lose half your slate to the competition. This is not a Presidential primary.
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  6. Postpone your hiring decision (or the flip side) interview candidates before you are ready to hire. This is simply rude to your candidates and it paints an unflattering picture of your organization that can hurt its reputation in the marketplace.
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  7. Neglect to sell the candidates on you and your company, even as you expect candidates to sell themselves to you. Remember that hiring is a two-way street. Despite the well-intentioned rhetoric, your company is not unique, and good candidates have choices. So make the candidate excited to join your team.

Why are these BIG mistakes?

This is not a game show; these are real people making real career decisions in real time. Everything you do as an employer to dicker around:

1. makes you less attractive to a sane professional candidate; and
2. gives time for another company to swoop in and hire them.

What are the implications for candidates?

In the pandemic, everyone stayed put, both physically at home and in their jobs if they had one. But now, candidates see a light at the end of the tunnel, showing increased confidence in the future as they consider new jobs and new opportunities.

There is clearly pent-up desire for career advancement and it’s busting at the seams.  It is a "sellers' market"!