There is universal acknowledge that hiring good people are a key source of competitive advantage, yet many make obvious mistakes.
3 most common are, specify the job, develop the pool and assess the candidate.
Specify the Job in Detail- Often there is a reliance on generic competency models or looking primarily for charisma, general ability, and track record.
To avoid these pit falls- apply the following, detail the specific demands of the job, specifying which skills and experience are relevant, identifying the team the candidate will work with and consider how company culture and context affect the role.
Develop the pool- common mistakes are taking a scattergun approach, limiting the pool or only looking for external or internal candidates only.
Avoidance- simply develop a large pool, include insiders, outsiders, inside-outsiders and outside-insiders, use all forms of networking and social/business networks and always ask candidate peers for nominations.
Assess the candidate- perhaps the largest area for errors which include, settling on the first adequate choice, looking endlessly for the perfect candidate, going with your gut only, using the wrong interviewers, including too many unreliable filters and bureaucratic steps, employing unstructured or generic interviews, conducting inadequate or no references checks.
Good process to be implemented- using a small number of high-calibre, well trained, properly motivated interviewers, plus employs rigorous behavioural event interviews, additionally include top stakeholders in candidate assessment and always carry out detailed reference checks.
In conclusion Search consultants must gauge the hiring practices of their customers, anticipate what problems that can be expected, then plan the search execution to deliver a short list of candidates that match the detailed brief by skill, experience, personality and behaviour characteristics.
And yes consulting must be done otherwise the process will become one of simply “Headhunting”