Common Hiring Blunders Recruiters Make: A TimesJobs Survey

NEW DELHI, April 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Unclear job Descriptions, Sticking to old Hiring Methods and Ignoring Cultural fit are Some of the Most Common Hiring Blunders Recruiters Make, Reveals a new Study by TimesJobs.com  

Recruitment blunders can prove costly for any organization and a bad hire can damage the reputation of the business, hitting its bottom lines and brand value. Yet, nearly 62% hiring managers and recruiters, surveyed by TimesJobs.com, admit to hiring candidates who weren't the best fit for the positions.

"It is a highly competitive world and the war for talent is equally brutal as that for business. High quality talent is the only sustainable differentiator in this rapidly transforming age of the Internet. And successful companies will be those that can attract and retain skilled HR. Hiring Managers today ace the art of presenting their organization's best attributes and making it part of the recruitment pitch, thereby convincing top talent to join. However, with lack of due diligence on the fronts of clarity of role, career path and cultural fit - talent retention remains a big challenge," says Vivek Madhukar, COO, TimesJobs.com

TimeJobs' TJinsite Knowledge Series reveals the biggest recruitment gaffes are process-related and unclear job descriptions are the most common mistakes; admit 55% of the surveyed organizations. The other most common mistakes, according to the survey, are the use of outdated methods for screening and hiring candidates (46%) and ignoring the relevance and importance of a good cultural fit (40%).

Selecting a candidate just because he or she fits the salary range is also a prominent blunder employers tend to make. Nearly 60% hiring managers admit that CTC is regularly given preference over skill sets while hiring talent as there is tremendous pressure to adhere to budgets.

Also, while respondents admit conducting reference checks is essential, they do not rely too much on them, reveals the TimesJobs.com survey. While a significant majority (70%) of hiring managers believe that reference checks are important, only 58% actually conduct reference checks for every applicant. Hiring Managers further reveal that 20-30% candidates fake the references that they provide and admitted that 10-20% applications are rejected after background screening.

TimesJobs.com obtained responses from 713 hiring managers in companies across major employment hubs in India for this study.

The TimesJobs.com survey further revealed several unstated opinions that hiring managers have, which are rarely expressed due to various constraints. Such as - 

• 66% hiring managers feel reporting managers are unable or unwilling to hire people who seem more competent than them.
• 58% hiring managers feel many conservative managers overemphasize the need for domain skills and experiences even before the interview stage.
• 56% hiring managers feel many managers over-rely on intuition or gut-feel.
• 52% hiring managers feel most managers are unable to get over their first impression (positive or negative) of the candidate.
• 48% hiring managers feel many reporting managers focus more on work-related competency than the motivation and drive to do the job.
• 45% hiring managers feel only a few managers properly assess soft skills.

- reveals the latest TimesJobs study available in the new TJinsite Report - available for free download here - http://content.timesjobs.com/docs/TJNewsletterFebruary2016.pdf

About TimesJobs.com:    

TimesJobs.com, India's leading career and recruitment portal, is one of the best-selling online ventures of the Times of India Group. Conceived and launched in 2004, TimesJobs.com currently has a candidate database of more than 25 million registered job-seekers across levels and functions who clock-in over 60 million page views a month.

TimesJobs.com is positioning itself as an engagement platform and knowledge resource for insights, information, analysis and opinions on the recruitment market. Well-known for its product innovations and unmatched deliverables, TimesJobs.com has pioneered the platforms of:

- JobBuzz.in  for candidate engagement with company reviews and ratings

- TechGig.com as India's leading IT network for careers, coding and competitions

- StepAhead for career assessment and enhancement services

- RecruiteX as the definitive demand and supply recruitment index

- The TJinsite knowledge series and a lot more

TimesJobs.com serves a corporate customer base of more than 25,000 clients from across the globe. It has been serving clients like HCL, IBM, Yamaha, Godrej, HSBC, Mahindra, Bajaj Allianz, TCS and Thomson Reuters to name a few.

Media Contact: 
Aseem Seth 
Head of Corporate Communications 
Times Business Solutions - A Division of Times Internet Ltd. 
Email: [email protected]  
Twitter: @aseems 
Tel: +91-120-663-6338, +91-9910273367