We asked 10 talent leaders to share their biggest recruiting blunders, along with the lessons they learned.

1. 10 Recruiting
Mistakes You
Should Avoid
An Assortment of Snafus from Top
Talent Leaders - and Lessons Learned

2. Ever made a recruiting
decision you regretted?
You’re not alone.

3. Even the most experienced
recruiters have watched
candidates withdraw,
forgotten to prep their
interview team, or made the
wrong hiring decision.

4. We asked 10 talent leaders to
reveal their biggest recruiting
mistakes to us.

5. In the following slides, we
share their missteps along
with the powerful lessons
they learned.

6. Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1WeQWae
Forcing a bad fit.1.

7. Mistake
“I worked with one candidate we
knew wasn’t a culture fit. I
recommended we not hire the
person, but we did. They ended
up leaving after six months,
leaving the project in a shambles,
and it was a detriment to morale.”
Chris Shaw
Director of Talent, Meteor
Learning
“Never force a bad fit, even if you
can. They WILL fail, and it’s a
matter of when, not if. You end up
losing customers or the faith of
hiring managers over it.”

8. Celebrating the wins and
overlooking the losses.
2.

9. Mistake
“Only celebrating or recognizing
the team when we hire someone.”
Betty Tsan
Head of Talent, Coursera
Learning
“Recruiting is a journey. If we focus just on
the wins, we lose sight of how much effort
our sourcer has put in to compel passive
candidates to talk to us, or how many times
our recruiter had to pick hiring managers
off the ground, dust them off from the
heartbreak of a declined offer to start
again, before we find The One. Recognize
the efforts, console the losses, be resilient,
and then also celebrate the wins.”

10. Not anticipating a
counter-offer from the
candidate’s current
company.
3.

11. Mistake
“A couple times, I didn’t ask about
the counter-offer. When offering
a position to your candidate, the
excitement can cloud your vision-
taking you back from the actual
process and diligence of the offer
stage.”
Sabrina Oldham
Head of Recruiting, Tune
Learning
“It's important to help the candidate think
through that counter-offer, preparing them
for how that conversation will sound.
Directly asking them about it can only help
the situation on both ends. I've learned to
always have an open conversation
throughout the entire process and be the
best coach possible through the offer
stage.”

12. Dragging out the hiring
process.
4.

13. Mistake
“Designing a long, complex interview
process to hit every dimension of our
evaluation criteria, only to realize too late
that no candidate ever made it to the end.
This led to making concessions after letting
the broken process go on for too long,
which ultimately led to weaker hiring
decisions and a smaller candidate pool to
choose from.”
Anik Das
Director of Talent, LevelUp
Learning
“‘Fail fast,’ and change your process as soon
as you realize it is not working. As an
example, if your target hire date is 8 weeks
out, and your aggregate interview process
takes 5+ weeks, it is too long. Decide in 2
weeks if your interview process is working
or failing, and iterate for the remainder of
the time.”

14. Stopping at the signed
offer.
5.

15. Mistake
“Assuming the recruiting process is over
once a candidate has signed the offer
letter. In reality, the recruiting process is
not over until your candidate has actually
started his or her new position. In the past,
I have had candidates renege on an
accepted offer because I did not maintain
the relationship after the offer
acceptance.”
Tenzing Bhutia
Recruiting Manager, Quora
Learning
“I learned that it is equally important to
maintain a trusting relationship with your
candidate after the offer acceptance, as it
is to build that relationship in the initial
stage of recruiting. The core component of
recruiting is the ability to build and
maintain relationships with people, and
this principle has to be applied and
practiced at every stage of the recruiting
life cycle.”

16. Allowing interviewers to
ask identical questions.
6.

17. Mistake
“An engineer came in for an onsite, and his
scores were great! Looking at feedback to
move the candidate to reference checks, I
realized every interviewer asked the
candidate the same question from our
question bank. The candidate never said a
thing and I was mortified.”
Alex Lebovic
Director of Recruiting, GrandRounds
Learning
“Make a plan, and make sure you're
creating areas of specialization with
corresponding questions. Oh and,
communicate that to your interview team.
No one is a mind reader. At Grand Rounds,
we now do a pre-onsite email to the panel
to make sure we're all on the same page.”

18. Hiring the most tenured
over the most talented.
7.

19. Mistake
“I once passed over a young pro who was
awesome but he was under another who
had “put in” more time and performed
decently. The young person took off to our
competition and within a very short period
of time reached levels we would have died
to have.”
Tim Sackett
President, HRU Technical Resources
Learning
“Tenure and loyalty to an organization is
important, but never pass up noticeably
better talent when you’re promoting.
Rewarding tenure and loyalty over better
talent just lets your best talent, with less
tenure, know they should start looking to
go someplace else. If all things are equal, go
ahead and reward tenure. If someone
simply has more top-end potential, you
need to give serious attention to the
decision you’re about to make!”

20. Losing touch with
a candidate.
8.

21. Mistake
“Not setting up another touch
point with a candidate that was
deep in the interview process.
We wound up losing the
candidate after he went dark.”
Amanda Bell
Director of Recruiting, Lever
Learning
“As a recruiter, it’s so important to own the
process and set up frequent check-ins. By
connecting regularly with your candidate,
you are guiding the process and can then
pivot as necessary, but you need to have
the important information first—are they
interviewing elsewhere? Do they have
concerns about the company or role? Make
sure each communication ends with setting
up the next one.”

22. Ending the interview
process unexpectedly.
9.

23. Mistake
“We ended an interview early
because it wasn’t going in the
right direction. In hindsight, it
may not have been completely
clear to the candidate that this
was a potential outcome. The
individual rightfully got upset,
even argumentative.”
Andrea Garvey
Head of Recruiting, Intrepid
Learning
“We've changed our prep materials to
make it clear that interviews are subject to
change or end ahead of schedule for any
number of reasons - a change in schedule
or availability of interviewers, when it's
clear it's not a match, etc. It's an extremely
rare occurrence which happens maybe
once a year, but expectations are set ahead
of time in 100 percent of cases now.”

24. Giving the hiring manager
the driver’s seat.
10.

25. Mistake
“When I started working
internally with hiring managers, I
was a glorified order taker. I
would beat myself up and try to
find the impossible profile. I was a
‘yes’ man to my hiring manager,
but it wasn’t improving the
process.”
Stacy Zapar
Founder and CEO, Tenfold
Learning
“Over time, I learned to ask questions, to
really push back and have those tough
conversations so that I could be a true
business partner in the process. By making
it a partnership, you can add much more
value. You should consistently hold weekly
hiring manager meetings and challenge
them to show up with feedback and
insights. In return, commit to arriving at the
meeting with six or seven resumes.”

26. The only crime in making a mistake? Not learning from it.
To avoid... ...check out this resource
1. Forcing a bad fit Train your interviewers
2. Celebrating wins, overlooking losses Recognize your recruiting team
3. Losing to the counter-offer Act quickly after the counter-offer
4. Dragging out the hiring process Optimize your recruiting workflow
5. Stopping at the signed offer Welcome new hires the right way
6. Letting your team ask the same questions Use Lever’s interview kits
7. Hiring most tenured over most talented Retain top talent
8. Losing touch with a candidate Take advantage of Lever Nurture
9. Ending the interview process unexpectedly Communicate throughout the hiring process
10. Giving hiring managers the driver’s seat Sync early with hiring managers

27. For more on Lever, visit
www.lever.co.