Hiring Blunders: 60% give more preference to CTC over skill, says survey

Recruitment blunders can prove costly for an organisation, yet 62% hiring managers and recruiters admit to taking candidates who were not the best fit for the positions, a TimesJobs.com survey says.

Moreover, selecting a candidate just because he or she fits the salary range is also a prominent blunder employers tend to make. Nearly 60% hiring managers admit that CTC is regularly given preference over skill sets as there is tremendous pressure to adhere to budgets, the survey said.

One of the most common hiring blunders recruiters make is, unclear job descriptions which was cited by 55% of the surveyed organisations. The other most common mistakes are the use of outdated methods for screening and hiring candidates (46%) and ignoring the relevance and importance of a good cultural fit (40%).

"It is a highly competitive world and the war for talent is equally brutal as that for business. However, with lack of due diligence on the fronts of clarity of role, career path and cultural fit talent retention remains a big challenge," TimesJobs.com COO Vivek Madhukar said.

The survey further said while a significant majority (70%) of hiring managers believe that reference checks are important, only 58% actually conduct reference checks for every applicant. 

Around 20-30% candidates fake the references that they provide and recruiters admitted that 10-20% applications are rejected after background screening. TimesJobs.com obtained responses from 713 hiring managers in companies across major employment hubs in India for this study.