Let’s talk word of mouth appointments over using a professional recruiter for your next hire.
So your friend/client/employee/third cousin knows someone who knows someone… Andrew is his name for the purposes of this blog post. “Andrew is just perfect for the role” you hear. “Andrew has loads of experience” you are told. “Andrew would fit right in here” you are promised.
Then, weighing up the time and effort you save in running a recruitment process, or the costs you save in appointing a professional recruiter to do the work, Andrew joins your team – because word of mouth referrals are the best way to recruit someone, right?
Read on…
A month or two later you start to see issues with Andrew. He doesn’t seem to be grasping the role, the experience you thought he had is not evident, and he really isn’t such a great fit after all. So now you are left in the position of cleaning up and starting all over again, albeit now you are a couple of months behind. Don’t forget you still have to tell your friend/client/employee/third cousin that Andrew just didn’t cut it – awkward!
Despite the doom and gloom presented in the above scenario, there is still a place for word of mouth referrals. However, where referrals are not weighed up against other possible candidates to ensure the very best person is chosen for the position, it will more often than not end in disappointment for the employer. In fact, the above scenario is based on a true story. Over the last two week period we have heard from two clients who are having the exact issue as described above they’ve fallen for the word of mouth referral trap.
For this reason, we recommend that employers ALWAYS advertise vacancies. Where there is a referral received from someone you know, the referral could be added to the relevant pool of candidates so that you can be assured you are basing your recruitment decision on merit, rather than someone’s opinion. Remember, while a recruitment process does take more time and effort than quickly appointing a referral, a recruiter using a good process takes significantly less time to manage than a failed referral.
If you would like assistance using an experienced recruiter, call Industryus HR on 07 5655 4047 or click here for more information.