6 Areas Your Hiring Process May Be Creating Friction

I have a confession, I'm deathly afraid of icing.

No, not in that "I'm on a diet and cake makes me nervous" way. I'm referring to the type of icing you get in aviation.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Let me give you a little backstory.

In college, while I was busy studying accounting, most of my friends and roommates were studying to become pilots. In fact, I was surrounded by so many hopeful pilots at one point I ended up joining their ranks and set out to get my pilot's license.

Let me tell you, it was the scariest thing I have ever done.

Trying to get this tiny airplane right on the runway and then have it gain enough speed to take off into the air was terrifying. Part of learning to fly was also learning about all the things that could go wrong and make it harder for the plane to fly. One of those things that could cause you some grief while flying a plane is called icing.

If you didn't know, planes rely on the smooth surfaces for the wind to flow across it without any friction or drag.

Well, icing is when it gets really cold and wet outside and ice forms on the wings of airplanes. When that ice forms there it creates a lot of friction or drag that disrupts that airflow and could ultimately lead to the airplane falling out of the sky.

Now it's a pretty scary thought to me, and probably to most people, that just a little bit of friction from a few icicles could end up causing a big giant airplane to fall from the sky.

What's equally scary to think about is how a little bit of friction during your hiring process could cause it to fall apart, and end up harming your company.

That's why in today's article I'm going to go over six points of your hiring process that may be causing friction and hurting your company.

Check out these 6 common points of friction in your hiring process:

• 1. Job Requisitions

  Collecting a job requisition is important, but asking too many questions or making it too complicated makes it harder for managers to fill out. This creates drag in actually getting to post the job.

• 2. Job ad

  If you're overstating your job requirements or creating a boring job ad full of industry jargon and technical descriptions, you're scaring away job seekers and creating friction with what could be an ideal applicant pool.

• 3. Application Process

  The harder you make it for job seekers to apply, the less likely they are to finish the application process. A great solution to making it easier for job seekers to apply is by implementing a two-step application process.

• 4. Next Step for Applicants

  Don't leave your applicants on read! After they finish the application your thank you page should be driving forward, keeping their momentum. Invite them to learn more about your company to keep them engaged.

• 5. Communication with Applicants

  Be smart in how you're communicating with your applicants. Sending an email that they may only check once a day creates drag. Instead, implement text messaging to spark instant communication with your applicants.

• 6. Hiring Process Decisions

  If you don't have a plan in place of how you're going to evaluate candidates, what the job offer will be once you find the right candidate, or even who will facilitate the interview process you're going to be faced with a lot of decision drag as you go. Knowing these things before you begin the hiring process will help you maintain momentum once you find the right candidate.

The best way to determine if any of these friction points are holding up your hiring is to walk through your whole hiring process as a job seeker. To help you get started with this exercise I've created a guide to writing a killer job ad. I wrote this guide to help organizations write job ads with the job seeker in mind. This guide will help you take a deeper dive into the second friction point discussed in this article and help you on your way to a friction-free hiring process!