For a small company, employees are the most valuable asset. They are the ones who shoulder the responsibility of fulfilling the company’s goals by applying their knowledge, skills, experience, and hard work. When every project, client interaction, and invoice is crucial for your company, you can’t afford to have a bad experience. Hiring even one wrong resource can slow down your company’s progress, impact employee productivity, and cause wastage of the company’s resources. That is why recruiting the right candidates is essential for the growth and success of your business.
Hiring a great team of employees is like winning half the battle. However, the recruiting process can be a challenge in itself, especially when your company is in its growing stage. Here are the top 5 hiring mistakes small companies should avoid recruiting and retaining the most qualified candidates.
5 Hiring Mistakes Small Companies Should Avoid
- Going through the recruitment process in a rush
- Providing a vague job description
- Recruiting without a retention plan
- Failing to highlight the benefits
- Not considering both technical and soft skills
1. Going through the recruitment process in a rush
One of the most common reasons behind small companies making bad hiring decisions is that they are more concerned about hiring immediately rather than hiring well. While filling up a staff vacancy is essential, you need to pay more attention to identify and hire the right candidate for the job.
By rushing through the recruitment process, you run the risk of overlooking potential problems and may end up hiring the wrong person. When you are short of time, you may cut corners in various ways. For instance, you may skip a thorough interview process or avoid carrying out reference checks and background checks. Though emergency recruitment may be necessary in some cases, you must never compromise on quality.
2. Providing a vague job description
Hiring is a two-way process. It is as much about selecting the right candidate as it is about attracting qualified candidates to apply for the job. Hence, your job posting must have a clear job description. It should outline the responsibilities that the candidate is expected to shoulder. This will help potential candidates to have a clear idea of what to expect from the very start.
By providing a vague job description, you may not be able to attract the right candidates. The right thing to do will be writing specific job descriptions in a way to pique the interest of a candidate.
3. Recruiting without a retention plan
More often than not, small companies make the mistake of adding members to their existing team without having a proper retention strategy. As a result, they face the problem of employee turnover. In addition to adversely impacting the company’s growth, employee attrition can also increase your expenses and affect the overall work culture. Needless to say, you must have an effective strategy in place to ensure employee satisfaction so that they don’t leave the company.
Luckily, there are many ways in which you can retain the top talents in your company. One of the easiest and effective ways is to offer a flexible work arrangement, such as working out of a coworking space near their residence. When you offer employees the convenience of remote working, they get to work in a professional yet relaxed work environment, which will further increase their productivity. Providing high-quality training, recognizing their efforts and accomplishments, promoting within the company, conducting mentorship programs, etc., are also among the best retention practices small companies can follow.
4. Failing to highlight the benefits
Very often, small companies are not confident enough to compete with larger organizations when it comes to talent sourcing. It is important to remember that money is not the only factor that attracts a candidate to a job. Soft benefits also play a crucial role in making a top talent settle for a small company rather than opting for a large organization.
That is why you need to emphasize every benefit your company offers to its employees all through the hiring process, right from advertising the position to the final interview. These can include remote working, flexible work hours, performance-based rewards, employee discounts, health insurance, employee referral bonus, etc.
Also Read: Top Challenges Faced by Small And Medium Businesses in India
5. Not considering both technical and soft skills
When it comes to hiring, small companies often attach a lot of importance to talent and technical skills. In the process, they tend to ignore or overlook the soft skills of the candidate. Always remember that a candidate with the wrong attitude can never prove to be the right fit for a company. It is a key reason why many newly hired candidates fail to thrive in the company, and the employer-employee equation doesn’t work out beyond a few months.
While recruiting, make sure to determine whether the candidate is a team player or not. Strength of communication, positive attitude, and empathy are among the other top soft skills to look out for in a candidate. In addition to meeting all technical and skill requirements, the candidates you hire must also be the right fit for the organization’s core values and culture.
To sum it up
Every employer wants to hire the best talents for their company. That is why you need to define your hiring philosophy right from the early days. By putting the best hiring practices in place, small companies can identify, attract, and retain candidates who tick all the right boxes of technical knowhow, soft skills, and other organizational requirements.
Once hired, make sure to offer your employees a flexible work environment conducive to growth and productivity. Coworking spaces and neighborhood offices come in quite handy in this regard. If you are looking for a coworking space in Gurgaon or Noida or South Delhi, you can check out TheOfficePass (TOP).
