April Joyner | Inc. magazine
From the November 2011 issue of Inc. magazine

The Four Worst Hiring Mistakes

The problem might be you.

Marcos Chin

 

In this job market, you might expect that hiring new employees would be easy. But many entrepreneurs still struggle to find good people. In a recent survey of Inc. 5000 CEOs, hiring edged out even the economy and government regulation as their top concern, with nearly one-quarter of respondents identifying it as the biggest challenge they had faced in the preceding three months.

To be sure, not every candidate is a rock star. But if you keep turning up dud after dud, the problem may not be the applicant pool. In a quest to find the best workers, entrepreneurs sometimes wind up adopting hiring practices that are actually detrimental to their companies. Here are the four most common problems that afflict interviewers.

Are you a narcissistic boss?

Without a deliberate hiring strategy, founders often gravitate toward job candidates who share their personality.

Are you a perfectionist boss?

Wonder why it's so hard to find good people? Maybe you're asking too much.

Are you overthinking your hires?

So what if you make a hiring mistake? Here's how to beat analysis paralysis.

How to make hiring less frantic

Recruiting is like selling: You need to develop a pipeline and build relationships. Here's how.

April Joyner is a reporter for Inc. magazine. She regularly covers sales and marketing topics and writes on start-ups for Inc.’s Elevator Pitch column. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. @aprjoy