The purpose of pre-screening and interviewing is to ensure that applicants meet requirements, as well as obtaining information on the applicants’ experience and skills. Based on the appropriate recruitment process you will select your candidates to interview and/or work for the company. But what about when none of the interviewees are a good fit? Do you take the best option or do you re-post the position?
The answer is almost always re-posting the position. Unless your best option is someone lacking the specific skills needed for the job and can be trained, the position should be advertised again to ensure that the right individual bringing the desired skills and qualifications will apply and ultimately join the company.
Why?
If you are not satisfied with the current pool of applicants you may be apt to choose the “better option” due to various reasons (such as lack of recruitment time). This may however hurt your organization in the long run. Whether the individual did not meet the skills and qualifications or was simply a poor fit, there was a reason why he/she did not make the cut. Chances are they will not meet the expectations of the role. On-boarding, training and orientation will also cost time and money. If the choice is not a good fit then the probability of success will not be very high and you will be forced to re-advertise and train again.
When posting the opening again you may want to consider making some changes in advertising in order to attract more candidates with the desired skills and qualifications. Some ideas for changes could be:
Salary review: if the advertised position did not attract the desires applicants, a salary review may be helpful in determining whether the pay is appropriate.
Change/increase advertising channels: if you have only advertised on your organizational website chances are that the traffic was simply not high enough to attract appropriate applicants. Consider using a variety of channels to market the job, such as posting in multiple job search websites and advertising in the local paper.
Employee referral: companies often offer their current employees rewards to refer a friend. This may be a program your company could implement in order to attract quality applicants for your open positions.
As the Hiring Manager, the choice is ultimately yours to make. From time to time, it does happen that an applicant may not have the desired skills for the job but is a good fit. In that case the candidate can be trained to meet the requirements and in the end will work great with the team.
by Sandra Stepan, Employer Liaison and Monthly Blogger for Agilec
