The Pitfalls of the Human Resources Department

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

What are the three most common mistakes of recruiters?

HR is a crucial sector in all business organisations because it makes the first contact with candidates and determines their competence.

Today, it is frequent to deal with unprepared employees who occupy strategic positions in public administration or the private sector. This predicament is often the result of inexperienced or incompetent HR specialists. Hence the questions arise: How can they take the right decision if they devote only five minutes to each CV? Why are there so many candidates with impressive CVs that cannot even get an interview? Do the recruiters really know what is good for the company?

We provide some insights below.

Lack of knowledge

Many recruitment agencies do not know in detail the business and the needs of their clients. To prepare an adequate profile, however, the recruiter should be aware of the company's objectives, future expectations and strategies. The consequences of this flaw are often observed in businesses that employ external HR services.

Lack of objectivity

If the lack of knowledge is just an inadequate understanding of the client's core activities, the lack of objectivity concerns cases where recruiters refuse to admit their fault if they select the wrong person. In some cases, excellent candidates are even seen as a competition threat to the current staff of the company. The lack of objectivity is a typical pitfall for internal recruiters (employed by the company).

Incompetence

Incompetence here is used in the sense of poor professional preparation. The recruiter cannot see beyond the content of the CV and therefore is unable to differentiate between a suitable match and one that only looks good on paper.

These are the three principal causes that could lead to wrong candidate evaluations in the short term and poor work performance in the long term.