Are Your Hiring Efforts Attracting the Wrong Applicants?

How you’ve designed your hiring process can mean the difference between wrong applicants, or those qualified for your open positions. So many of our clients come to us expressing their frustration because only the wrong applicants apply for their jobs. Many times, they blame the market or the wrong applicants themselves because they don’t understand the profound role they plan in attracting these wrong applicants to them. If you’re an HR professional who feels like you’re drowning in a deep pool of “wrong applicants” and feel defeated because you don’t have the budget to increase salary offerings, take a look at these hiring don’ts. Chances are, your recruiting efforts are drawing to you the perfect storm of wrong applicants for your openings.

Chances are, your recruiting efforts are drawing to you the perfect storm of wrong applicants for your openings.

Stop writing blasé job ads that attract desperate and wrong applicants to your jobs.

We’ve stressed the importance of job ads so much at this point, that if you’re a regular follower, you’re probably rolling your eyes at this broken record suggestion, but guess what? This won’t be the last time we mention it because getting the job ad wrong equals a whole heap of wrong applicants. And getting it right…well, you get the idea.

So, how do you avoid the wrong applicants trap? The easiest way to do this is to stop writing job ads that are so boring, dry, and one-sided (what’s in it for you, not them). You’re competing with a lot of other job openings and if you compose a job ad that is designed to scare people away, it will scare all of the good applicants who know their worth away leaving you with a small number of not-the-best fit and wrong applicants.

Long lists of irrelevant job duties are a sure fire way to attract the wrong applicants.

When was the last time you reviewed your list of job requirements? Is each line item relevant to the job your applicants will be performing? If not, it’s likely that you’re drawing in the wrong applicants. Why would you want to include any job details or job requirements that aren’t applicable to the job for which you’re hiring? It doesn’t make sense to require or suggest that you prefer a Master’s degree for the position when you have a high performing employee in that role without a Master’s degree. For whatever reason, HR professionals feel as though they hit the jackpot when they hire an employee who is over qualified or over educated for their positions. They think that a secondary degree helps secure their hire, but that’s the type of flawed thinking that brings a heap of wrong applicants to apply for your positions because they’re more likely to be dissatisfied with position. You also increase the likelihood of attracting desperate job seekers in this scenario. Desperate job seekers have been unemployed for months and so they apply for positions that seem to align with their resume on the surface or fall beneath their “skill level” so that they can guarantee a paycheck until something better comes along. This doesn’t do either of you any favors – they’re the wrong applicants for you, and you’re the wrong employer for them.

This doesn’t do either of you any favors – they’re the wrong applicants for you, and you’re the wrong employer for them.

Choosing the wrong ATS provider (or none at all) increases your risk for hiring the wrong applicants.

Marketers make it their goal to get inside their clients’ heads, so that they can best understand what it takes to meet their needs and compel them to buy their products. If you’re a marketer with a website that has poor usability and makes the buying process finicky, you’re going to have a lot of customers who abandon their purchase mid-sale. You want to avoid this at all costs. Similarly, as an HR professional, if you’re wanting to ensure that you ward off the wrong applicants (who are desperate), and encourage quality applicants to apply, you’re going to want to use an applicant tracking system that is user-friendly and makes the application process seamless and simple. Creating a clunky hiring process reinforces your ability to draw in desperate and wrong applicants.

Are you frustrated because you current hiring process seems to only draw the wrong applicants to apply for your openings? Our hiring experts can help! Give us a call to get started free for thirty days.