West Ham 1 Arsenal 3

Arsenal came from behind to end their nine-match winless streak as Freddie Ljungberg enjoyed his first victory as interim manager at the expense of his former club West Ham. Eighteen-year-old Gabriel Martinelli marked his full Premier League debut by side-footing an equaliser which cancelled out Angelo Ogbonna’s deflected first-half opener at London Stadium. Within nine minutes, Nicolas Pepe had curled a magnificent second into the top corner and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang fired in a third. The salvo turned the game on its head and piled the pressure on West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini, whose side have taken four points from their past nine league games and conceded three times in three successive home games.

The Hammers remain a point above the relegation zone in 16th and face a trip to third-bottom Southampton on Saturday. Arsenal move up two places to ninth. Arsenal’s victory was all the more remarkable because until Martinelli added to the seven goals he has scored in cup competitions this season, the visitors had been utterly woeful. Club officials had spoken before kick-off about the improved atmosphere triggered by Ljungberg’s appointment as Unai Emery’s replacement but it appeared this game would end in frustration, just as the previous two had done under the Swede. The visitors were bereft of confidence and mild boos from the travelling support accompanied the end of a first half in which their side failed to have a shot on target and went behind when Ogbonna’s header bounced in off Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

True, they did not have much luck. Hector Bellerin was injured in the warm-up and when Kieran Tierney was helped off in obvious pain with a shoulder injury sustained in a seemingly innocuous tangle with Michail Antonio, Ljungberg had lost both his first-choice full-backs in the space of half an hour. Nevertheless, it was pitiful stuff and when Aubameyang surged down the right wing and sent over a cross that flew over everyone and straight out for a throw-in on the other side of the pitch, it was symptomatic of a club apparently heading nowhere fast. It was 1977 when Arsenal last went 10 matches without a win. With an away Europa League game against Standard Liege followed by a home encounter with Manchester City to come, at the interval it was not beyond the realms of possibility that the 12-game barren sequence from 1974 was going to be threatened. With Alexandre Lacazette and David Luiz on the bench, it was two of Arsenal’s most inexperienced players who sparked the change in fortune.

Awful Recruitment Practices That Are Endangering Your Business

People matter! This is true of any business in any sector. Therefore your recruitment practices also matter. In fact, they are essential to the survival and continued success of your business. That is why it is so important to make sure that you have an effective and efficient recruitment process. Sadly, in many companies, this is not the reality. A topic that you can read about and learn from in the post below.

Asking for an application form. 

Application forms, for the majority of jobs, are just asking for a rehash of all the information you candidate has spent time collating and organizing on their CV.

In fact, the issue with application forms is that they create an additional hurdle for those considering applying. Something that means you could be losing out on well qualified and suitable candidates. Just because they are too busy to dedicate time to repeating a task they have already done.

In fact, this problem may spring from a more profound issue where the entire application and interview process is seen as a test. One that pushes a candidate to prove how much they want the opportunity.

Of course, underlying this is the very unequal power relationship that the employer is doing a favor to the applicant in considering them for a job in the first place. When, in fact, it is more of a mutually beneficial situation, with the business getting benefits from the workers, as well as the other way around.

To that end, making it as easy as possible for the right people to apply is crucial. It may even require the removal of the application form altogether.

Taking too long to get back to invite people for interview. 

Applicants have lives, and priorities, and may also have other offers on the table. With that in mind, making them wait weeks or even months on end to find out whether they have an interview or not is not best practice.

Of course, issues with this can arise when your business has to perform its due diligence and make checks on those that you would potentially employ. After all, this can be a long time-consuming process itself.

Happily, there is a way that you can expedite this part of the process, and it’s by using services like Checkr background checks online. In fact, by setting up an online account, you can not only mitigate risk and ensure compliance but also make the processes of background checking much fast as well. Therefore ensuring that you don’t lose valuable candidates to attrition.

Not using personality testing. 

Also, when it comes to a candidate’s ability to function effectively in your business, it’s not just experience and talent that play a role. In fact, their personality type, usually defined by the MBTI scale, will be an essential factor as well.

In particular, MBTI testing can help you to establish how well new candidates will mesh within existing teams, as well as how they will cope with the pressures of the job. After all, asking an extrovert to spend hours a day on their own performing individual task is unlikely to pan out, and the same goes for introverts that need to spend all hours of their working day interacting with larger groups of people.

To that end, using MBTI typing can help you match potential employees to roles that would best suit them. Something that cannot only help to increase the likelihood of productivity but also of job satisfaction and the chance they will stay with your business for a long time too.

Not automatically updating applicants. 

Very few companies currently update applicants at each stage of the process. Unfortunately, sparse and infrequent communication can work against the recruiting company in the long run. In fact, if an applicant feels as if they are being strung along, they are much more likely to continue to search for alternative positions elsewhere.  Rather than dedicate themselves to your application processes.
The silly thing is that it’s so easy to update applicants at each stage of the process these days. In fact, it can even be automated via email and your company’s LMS, so it doesn’t take up any of your HR teams’ time at all.

This being an action that can help to keep the best candidates engaged and interested throughout the entire process. While also demonstrate to them that you are an efficient, professional company that cares about people as well as profits. Therefore one they will want to work for.