Common mistakes hiring managers make with recruitment

Hiring in Life Sciences globally has no sign of slowing down, and we’ve been incredibly busy with a number of exciting mandates across our specialist areas. 

Although a lot of what we do is finding specialist talent, we also work to consult and advise our clients – specifically hiring managers and Talent Acquisition teams on how they can streamline their processes.

We are in a candidate-driven market, meaning that candidates are being inundated with opportunities, all of which are promising from a package perspective as well as growth potential and career development. This means that the competition is higher than ever before, so being on the ball with hiring and retaining talent is front of mind for a lot of our clients. 

We’ve seen three main mistakes emerge that are commonly being made with hiring managers, here’s how you can mitigate them:

Mistake #1 Overcompensate candidates due to market demands

Although you want to secure the best talent – a common mistake that hiring managers and talent teams make is creating an uplift on a salary that exceeds the market competition, thus creating an imbalance and potentially overcompensating the candidate who is under offer. 

In the short term this can feel like a good solution, however in the long-term you will have to adhere to these salaries across future roles, and when the competition subsides, you’ll be left with inflated packages that may become difficult to maintain. 

Additionally, overcompensating a candidate could lead to disgruntled employees internally if packages are then shared, even with restrictive clauses in place.

What’s the solution?

Create a package that is competitive and attractive, but in the long-term is sustainable as the business grows and you continue to hire. Additionally, if a candidate is purely motivated by money and nothing else, then you must question the legitimacy of the candidate’s motivations and their long-term commitment to your organisation.

Mistake #2 Hire reactively instead of proactively

This is the most common mistake that we see, and is a repeated mistake regardless of what the market looks like. Too often, hiring managers will hire when the need is immediate, instead of forecasting and planning when they may need that additional human resource. 

Hiring proactively eliminates the panic that can set in when you need to hire, and also enables you to be a lot more streamlined and thought-out when interviewing. You won’t hire the first good candidate that comes along. Instead, you’ll constantly be networking and exploring your options so you can hire intuitively and have your ear to the ground on what is going on with the market. 

Admittedly, this can be difficult to do as a hiring manager when the scope of recruitment is only a small portion of your role, but talent teams can certainly adopt this mindset and have an “open door” policy when it comes to reviewing CV’s and having informal conversations with future talent. 

The best candidates are passive – so engage them from the beginning and pull the trigger when the need becomes more imminent. You’re way more likely to secure that candidate due to the “offline” relationship you have built with them, whether that’s directly or by using a recruitment partner. 

What’s the solution?

If you don’t have a talent team, and you are struggling to find the time to consistently be networking – whether this is on LinkedIn or at events, find a trusting recruitment partner who will be able to feed you insight as well as CV’s of exceptional talent on the market. 

Mistake #3 Not auditing recruitment partners 

You should aim to audit your recruitment partners twice a year, ideally once a quarter if you have a lot of budget allocated to agency usage. If you aren’t measuring the return on investment you’re getting from the partners that you’re using, how can you know that the partnership is efficient? 

Recruitment agencies, search firms, and independent recruiters are there to make your hiring easier, and provide you with quality talent. If you don’t have a system to measure this or even check your preferred supplier lists, you could be doing yourself and the brand a disservice.

What’s the solution?

Audit your recruitment partners a minimum of twice a year, and invest in software or a management system to calculate your spend versus your return on investment.

If you’d like to learn more about how Apsida Life Science can support you with Talent Acquisition, from complex mandates through to research and process management, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us today.