How to Avoid Costly Hiring Mistakes: A Step-by-Step Guide for Recruiting Top Talent

As they say, there’s no “I” in “team" ... but there are a few in “hiring mistake.” And you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself if you make one.

Hire well and you’ll have a high performing and happy team. Hire just one wrong person, fondly known as a “hiring mistake,” and you’ll spend a lot of time and emotional energy trying to fix your team. This is why hiring is arguably the most important job of a people manager.

Download our free guide here to learn how to hire and organize an outstanding inbound team.

To hire well, you need to have an effective process full of checks and balances in place. Notice I used the word “process," as hiring consists of many more components than just the classic face-to-face interview.

So to help set you up for success, we've detailed our process below. With tips designed to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls that lead to costly hiring mistakes, the following information is perfect for anyone looking to build out their team.

10 Recruiting Steps That Avoid Hiring Mistakes

步骤1：编写描述您理想候选人的职位描述。

I’ve heard too many hiring managers say “I’ll know the right person when I meet him or her” when asked to describe the ideal candidate for an open position. Maybe that’s true, but that mindset can lead to terrible inefficiencies. Interviews are time consuming; you’ll waste a lot of time talking to the wrong people if you don’t take a first step of putting a thorough and accurate job description down on paper.

职位描述可实现一些重要的目的。首先，它告诉候选人工作将是什么样的以及您在寻找谁。其次，它迫使您对某人必须在这个角色中取得成功的属性进行深思熟虑。

撰写坚实的“ JD”（职位描述）的行使将帮助您设想这个人每天要做什么，以及需要哪些技能和经验才能做好工作。确保包括两个部分：

1. A list of the job responsibilities with descriptions of each.
2. 理想候选人将拥有的一系列技能，经验和个人特征。

步骤2：在线开始自己的采购。

Even if you have a recruiter supporting your hiring efforts (lucky you!) or a steady stream of inbound resumes, you should be doing some of your own sourcing. Here’s why: Looking at marketers’ profiles will help you better articulate to yourself and others what the ideal candidate looks like. Plus, you may find the perfect person who wasn’t in the job market and therefore never would have found your job description.

Our advice? Start online. Community sites like LinkedIn andinbound.orghave helpful filters and search functions to help you comb through profiles more effectively. Send a very personalized message to anyone who looks qualified. Keep in mind that candidates tend to be more receptive to hiring managers than recruiters -- and even if they don’t bite, their response will help give you a pulse on the market. If you come across a few strong candidates, be sure to send them to anyone else involved in the hiring process to set expectations.

完成在线配置文件中后，请参与您的网络。员工推荐是理想的，原因有一些。首先，他们通常有更长的工作时间：46％的员工转介持续三年或更长时间，而从工作委员会雇用的员工中只有14％。根据JobVite。更不用说，通过推荐雇用的员工比职业网站的员工快55％。

To facilitate more referrals, post the JD on all of your social networks and talk the position up with your peers. There’s nothing more comforting than hiring someone who has experience working with a trusted friend or colleague. Remember, this process is designed to minimize risk and avoid hiring mistakes.

Step 3: Review resumes with Google by your side.

The old fashioned written resume still has its place, as it provides a candidate with an opportunity to market him or herself for the job. I always say, “How can I expect someone to market my product well if they can’t market themselves well?”

In terms of what to look for, an effective resume should tell a story where your open position is the natural next chapter. It should be concise, well-written, include metrics, and demonstrate a record of goal achievement.

当你发现一个引起你的兴趣,打开your browser to get more of the story. Check out the candidate’s social media presence, website, and any publically available content such as blog articles. Be realistic about how much of an online presence this person should have based on their level of experience, and view anything you find with a critical eye. Do they understand fundamentals of digital marketing? Do they write in a voice that would match with your organization’s style? Do they use good judgment in what they chose to post about themselves?

Step 4: Plan out the 30-minute screening meeting.

You will probably have to talk to dozens of candidates, so be strict about keeping a first phone screen or coffee meeting to just 30 minutes. The goal is to use those 30 minutes really wisely. If you’re not prepared, you might end up hanging up the phone not knowing whether or not you should move forward with the candidate.

为了避免这种情况，请创建计划询问候选人的问题的轮廓。我喜欢包括探索行为，技能和批判性思维的各种问题。有一组您会问所有人的问题，以便您有一些优点进行比较，并为每个候选人提供一组定制问题。个性化的问题应调查您在简历和在线评论完成后不确定的领域。

通话后，请不要解除审讯之类的问题。相反，使用您的轮廓来帮助指导自然对话。If you need to get to a new topic, or find a candidate rambling, try interjecting with a transition such as “You’ve given me a great understanding of (topic x), so now I’d like to shift gears and talk about (topic y).”

At the end of the conversation, go with your gut. Are you excited by the idea of talking to this person again? If no, prepare a thoughtful note explaining why they are not the right fit for the job. If yes, move them forward in the process. Even if you have a few uncertainties about their skills or experiences, the next step is going to be a really subjective checkpoint that won’t take much of your time.

Step 5: Give candidates written exercises to complete.

Every marketer needs to be a strong writer. All marketing jobs involve content creation, so the candidate should be able to create high quality content with ease. This stage of the hiring process is the perfect time to test someone’s writing skills by assigning a written exercise. This step won't suck up much of your time, and it can be really helpful in determining the candidate's interest in the roll.

When designing a written exercise, think about real life scenarios -- your own work, or that of team members with similar roles, can be a great source for ideas. Here are a few examples I’ve used before:

• Blog post.Ask the candidate to write a blog post for a specific topic, or have them come up with their own topic based on certain buyer persona for your business.
• Mock case study.Provide notes from a customer interview and ask the candidate to write up a mock case study.
• Landing page optimization.创建一个工作表，其中包括许多着陆页的有机交通数字和提交率。询问候选人如果他们只有时间做两个，他们将优化哪些人，以及为什么。您还可以提供样本着陆页并要求进行建议的编辑。
• Competitive battlecard.Ask the candidate to create a one-page summary comparing one of your products or services to a competitor’s.

Step 6: Assemble a strong interview team.

If the candidate passes the written test, it’s time to bring them into the office for a round of interviews. You’ll want to start by having the candidate interview with one of your team members, your superior, and you. But don't stop there.

总是包括main stakeholders this person must work with well to be successful. It’s important to include them on the interviewing team to get their buy-in and get off on a positive foot. Also, they will likely add a different perspective than people on your direct team.

您可能还需要考虑包括其他可以添加独特观点或仅仅是出色面试官声誉的面试官。例如，您可能包括一个人来测试文化，产品能力或分析技能。

Step 7: Prep the interview team.

It’s incredibly important to set up an interviewing strategy to use everyone’s collective time to the fullest. Doing so will create a better experience for both the candidates and the interviewers.

The first step is to reflect upon what you know about the candidate so far. Then, consider how you can use each interviewer’s strengths and experiences to poke holes in the candidate and remove any uncertainty you have about them.

Once you have decided on a strategy, send an email to the interviewing team including the following information:


The Candidate


• 背景。Include a few bullet points on what you think is most relevant, with a link to his or her LinkedIn profile and resume.
• Strengths.记下您观察到的内容以及他或她为何如此远。
• 弱点。Explain why you are willing to live with any weaknesses that you may have already identified.
• 不确定性。Highlight the main areas the team overall will be testing for to finish the evaluation of this candidate.

Competencies to Test

给每个面试官两个或三个领域以重点关注。这有助于他们更有效地利用自己的时间，并使您更深入地测试更多的能力。它还为候选人提供了更好的体验：没有什么比在一天之内四次被问到同一问题更令人讨厌了。

Step 8: Conduct a thoughtful interview.

与手机屏幕,t的准备是关键he in-person interview. You’ve already done some of the work for the others on the team by giving them specific areas to probe into. However, if anyone on the team is not a very experienced interviewer, you may also want to provide them with example questions to ask.

面试问题会根据角色和候选人的经验而有所不同，但我通常喜欢使用以下结构：

• Resume review.When reviewing the resume, I’m looking to see how well they can market themselves for this specific role. I ask them to keep it to just two or three minutes since I’ve already read their background.
• 工作兴趣。始终询问候选人为什么要在您的公司工作并担任这个具体职务。bob全站app这是查看他们所做的家庭作业，如果他们真正了解所需的东西以及如何出售自己的工作，这是一种很好的方法。
• Behavioral questions.I usually have three or four questions in mind that have either been sparked by something I saw on the resume or by something I think will be challenging in their role.
• Case questions.我喜欢使用更开放的营销案例问题来测试候选人的批判性思维，营销敏锐度以及他们如何应对歧义。Here are some marketing case examples from HubSpot's CMO.

Always allow at least five minutes for the candidate to ask you questions at the end, and at least ten if you’re the hiring manager. Their level of preparation and thoughtfulness behind their questions will give you a lot of insight into how they approach problems. It will also give you an idea of how comfortable and effective they are being in the drivers seat now that you’ve handed them the wheel.

Step 9: Gather feedback from the interview team.

As the hiring manager, the ultimate decision about whether to hire a candidate is yours. But remember that you assembled a whole interview team for a reason: to ensure you'd get a wide variety of perspectives. That said, be very thoughtful when considering the feedback of others.

Hopefully, you'll all be on the same page. But if someone has raised any uncertainty, don't hesitate to go back to conduct additional interviews, present additional exercises, or check with references. This process is all about reducing risk, so the whole team should feel very confident about a hiring decision before you make an offer.

步骤10：与候选人分享好消息和坏消息。bob官网官方网站

It's important to follow up with every candidate, whether you're delivering good news or bad news. And the faster you do it the better. Nobody likes to wait around wondering if they should be getting ready for celebration or consolation.

Making a job offer can be incredibly fun and rewarding. If the candidate has other offers, it's also an important time to do some selling. Go into the conversation prepared to discuss specific terms of the offer, such as salary. Or, if someone else will be having that discussion, let the candidate know up front when they can expect those details and who will be sharing them.

另一方面，很难拒绝某人的工作。考虑到在电话中或通过电子邮件传递新闻是更合适的。bob官网官方网站这将取决于候选人的个性以及您与他们建立的关系。您应该提供为什么他们没有找到工作的原因，但您不需要详细介绍。如果他们确实要求更多的反馈作为随访，请建设性。当他们申请时，您会看到他们的潜力，所以为什么不投入更多时间来帮助他们发展呢？

您最喜欢的招聘技巧是什么？在下面的评论部分与我们分享。