Recently, I learnt about a trend called love bombing in recruitment. Workplace Journal ran a feature on it, and I was one of the people they asked to weigh in. What does that mean? Love bombing in recruitment is when recruiters or businesses oversell a job, and make candidates think the role is better than it actually is.

As you can imagine, that can backfire quickly. I'm not a massive fan of the idea.

As the CEO and co-founder of a small business though, I know, however, the pull towards wanting to oversell. You're busy hiring, you don't have a recruitment team at your disposal. You have to write the ad, source candidates and understand whether your process is good enough or not. That doesn't leave a lot of room for getting it wrong.

It then gets tempting to attract candidates by making the job seem more attractive than it is. Glossy culture, endless opportunities, none of the actual mess of being in a startup or small business where your role can encompass a lot. It's not really dishonest, it just feels like enthusiasm, or where you'd want the company to be in a few years.

But wait a minute, that’s exactly what love bombing in recruitment looks like. So how do you avoid falling into the trap and get good new hires by leading with honesty? Let’s see. 

Don’t treat hiring as a sales pitch: it will catch up with you

Love bombing works exactly once: the moment someone says yes to the job offer you've put out. After that, they're doing the actual job, but somehow the pitch got lost along the way. 

If there's a gap between the two, your new hires will notice, and that turnaround will come fast. The less honest you are about the job you’re advertising, the more you’re setting yourself up to get people who will disengage with the work they’re doing. Not only will it mean you have te re-hire, but it’s also a recipe for disaster when it comes to your growth. This is what we've spoken about before in our blog about the psychological contract.

One thing to remember here is this: you're not a salesperson, you're not trying to convince, you're trying to attract the right people for the job.

Why love bombing a candidate will be even more obvious in a small business

Small businesses famously have patchy hiring procedures:

• You don't have the resources to have a proper hiring strategy.
• You are stressed about building a team that helps you grow.
• You don't have a lot of time to dedicate to their onboarding.
• You expect people to catch on very quickly.

So if you’ve missold a job, that gap between the reality and the expectation of a role quickly becomes harder to hide. 

Whether you've promised a sales manager a whole team and you're unable to hire more than two people because of budget restrictions. Or you've missold a role into leadership when it's more of a jack-of-all-trades position, your new hire is going to clock it sooner rather than later. The trust will have been broken.

And what happens when you have to hire again? There’s a chance you might be tempted to love bomb candidates all over again, because you’re now desperate for a new hire to replace them. 

So how do you avoid that in the first place? 

Hiring for small businesses: painting an attractive, but realistic picture

At Charlie, we (me and the team) think about hiring a lot. Here's a few things we learnt over the years:

Hiring isn't a sales pitch. You're not closing a deal – you're starting a relationship that has to last. The people you hire will help you grow your business, so you want to invest time and effort into it for the long term.

Don't shy away from the hard truth. If the role is stretched right now, say it during the interview. Not everyone will flee at the idea. Some candidates will get excited about the opportunity. They're usually the right people for the job.

The good stuff still matters. You don't want to paint a bleak picture of a role. You want new hires to get excited. It's all about balance. Talk about the challenges and highlight opportunities and benefits. That's where talking about career growth will make all the difference compared to a large company.

Take your time. Don’t rush into decisions because you’re overexcited about a candidate. The relationship goes both ways: you don’t want to disappoint, and you don’t want to be disappointed. Think about the role, and hire with purpose so you make the right hire for your business. 

Retention will be the payoff. Honesty means you won't be hiring again in three months' time. You might even have won yourself a new hire who stays for the long run.

None of this advice is about painting a bad picture of your business. It's about being transparent and more realistic about what the role entails. 

"The break usually happens quietly, in the first few weeks. Someone realises the job doesn't match what they were told, and instead of raising it, they start pulling back. By the time it shows up as a performance issue or a resignation, the real problem happened weeks earlier, and it was rarely the job itself, it was the gap between what was promised and what was true."

— Alisa Mistry, HR Advisor at Charlie

What happens if your new hire calls you out? 

Throughout the first few weeks, your new hire might request a meeting with you. They might tell you they're not happy with the role, that they had different expectations based on the interview.

This is where your opportunity is to repair... And potentially avoid them leaving your business.

It can feel scary to admit you've made a mistake or oversold a job, but avoiding the conversation will only lead to these potential outcomes:

• A potential resignation.
• Someone who stays, frustrated, and not suited to the job.
• A bad rep that follows your business around.

That's why these conversations shouldn't be approached carelessly. You might even need a few conversations with your employee.

A good word of advice is to remain open. Your team member will value honesty over reassurance. If they are the right person for the job, and they decide to stay, you'll have come clean and built trust.

If they end up leaving, it’s a good opportunity to learn from what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again.

5 ways to avoid falling into the trap of overselling the job

Overall, hiring honestly is about discipline:

1. Due diligence and process is a must – don't leave it to chance, hire everyone the same way.
2. Don't do this alone – build the right hiring team. If you don't have one, you can join a community like Charlie's Boadroom to talk to small buisness owners like yourselves. You don't need to make decisions by yourself.
3. Avoid overselling. If the candidate is right for the role, being upfront about it won't scare them off — it'll usually be what convinces them.
4. Have several conversations. Don't be worried about asking more questions and follow-ups. Get to know the person before you hire.
5. Use data, not gut feeling only. It's important, but you want a solid hire at the end.

None of this needs to be complicated, it simply needs a process behind it. If you're not sure where to start, you can use a recruitment software like Charlie Recruit. It will help you get a process to begin with, instead of scrambling for emails and spreadsheets with no idea whether your candidate is the right fit.

Hope this was helfpul!