Whether you’re a hot new startup or an established multi-national corporation, hiring new talent should always be at the top of your priority list.

With new talent, you can bring new knowledge, experience, and skills into your business that you can leverage to ensure increased profits, brand exposure, and more efficient internal processes.

Although the interview stage relies a lot on the candidates putting their best foot forward, you don’t want your hiring manager to stand in the way of finding the perfect new employee.

Here are three common mistakes hiring managers make and how you can prevent them.

1.       ‘Ghosting’ a candidate

After a potential candidate has been interviewed, it’s good practice to send a follow up email. This message should thank the individual concerned for their time and provide a timeline for how long they can expect to wait before hearing whether they have been successful in their application.

Whether they have received the job or not, you should let them know the outcome of their interview when you have come to a decision. ‘Ghosting’ is when you don’t send any form of communication to an applicant after their initial interview has been conducted.

In many cases, it could be that the candidate was talented but just not a good fit for that particular role. If you think you would want to consider them for future positions, it’s important to leave things on a good note and give them a constructive reason why they were not selected this time around.

If you don’t provide this feedback, the candidate may choose not to accept an interview for a role you think they’d be perfect for in the future.

2.       Not being up to speed on the candidate’s skillset

Most interviewers would expect a candidate to have done some prior research on the company before showing up. That same principle also applies for the person conducting the interview.

Interviewers should make sure they have read through the candidates’ CV in detail and have some questions prepared to delve deeper into their experience and skills.

Candidates can tell when an interviewer hasn’t made the effort to look over their CV and cover letter. While this may seem like a minor inconvenience on the face of it, the reality is that it can create a poor impression of your company. It suggests that you’re not as interested in your employees as you should be, which could see you missing out when it comes to recruiting the best talent in your space.

3.       Not setting realistic expectations and/or overpromising

In the moment, it can be easy for a hiring manager to overpromise when trying to attract a good candidate. This can make you look bad in the long run.

Set realistic expectations for candidates when it comes to important things like salary, annual leave, role responsibilities and job requirements. They could be very disappointed if they choose to accept the job and find out they were not told the truth in their interview.

It’s important that hiring managers are clear with what they’re saying. If a question comes up that the hiring manager isn’t clear on how to answer, it’s preferable to say that they can find out and update the candidate later, rather than giving information that is incorrect.