Match of the Month – September 2026
A Treasury Risk Manager was placed in Hamburg eight days after joining a search already handled by four agencies. Discover how the right network made the difference.
Over the last decades, most employers were able to almost always choose from multiple candidates when recruiting. Being nice and professional towards potential employees was appreciated, not showing that kind of behaviour was not always penalized. Now it is. Normally we always focus on the positive, we thought to change things up to the negative. So, as a team we compiled a list of low-hanging fruit in don’ts when finding new staff:
- Letting candidates wait without understandable reason or communication. Not only it is impolite, it makes them feel less interesting and another employer will snatch them away from you;
- Not mentioning a salary range in your job posting. Research shows that response will be significantly lower. If you are afraid colleagues might find out what their colleagues earn, know that they speak about the topic anyway. We think you should be able to explain what the value of a specific job has for your organisation;
- Having too many rounds of interviews. The candidate will learn about you through experiences. You are wasting the time of others & yourself, are inefficient and show redundancy in recruitment, chances are that is what you normally do and that is not appealing;
- Trying to find the mistake in the CV. Regretfully some interviewers act like Sherlock Holmes and who are happy when they find out what is wrong with a candidate and let this dominate the interview. It spoils the mood and weren’t you supposed to find out why the candidate can do the job?
- Having unbalanced interviews. The application process is meant for you and the candidate to find out if there is a match. That implies information exchange, you asking AND telling. Too often we notice it is only questions or a client being so proud that there is only broadcasting;
- Thinking your position is a gift. It is called labour MARKET for a reason, there is supply and demand and together you will find out if there is a balance between the two. The salary you pay and place at the desk is not a courtesy but part of the deal;
- Ignoring there is more to life than work and variety in drivers. You might be driven, dedicated and absorbed by ambition, which is great. Ambition varies per person as do their drivers. Let’s find out what is most important for the candidate, salary, vacation, training, taking care of the kids, moving up?
- Rejection for unprofessional reasons. The candidate invests valuable time to find out if there can be a match. If you are asked to explain a rejection, you should be able to explain and have professional reasons. Not only because that is the decent and legal thing to do, also because your bias might lead to false negatives. There is so much quality still ignored!
- Entering the interview unprepared, aka not knowing what you want. This is a classic, if you do not know what you are looking for, how do you know you found it?
- Lacking interview skills. Time and time again CEOs tell us their most important asset is their staff. How can it be that we have professional procurement protocols for buying ballpoints but we do not know how to start, execute and wrap up a meeting with a potential employee? And use the input from the interview to make a professional assessment?
So, this is our list. It is most definitely not comprehensive, we can write bibles on the topic. What do you want to add to the list?
