Find the Right Candidates Using a Respectful and Open Process – There’s a New Idea!

If you listen carefully, you - like me - will become very discouraged to hear more and more sad stories about what it’s like for individuals trying to engage with the current recruiting and hiring processes being implemented by organizations wishing to grow. What concerns me is that as organizations increase their staffing needs, the sourcing and recruitment processes they are implementing seem to lack a respectful interaction and this is bound to have a bigger detrimental effect than the organization has considered. In most cases, the job seeker contacts the organization and tries to follow up on the initial information submitted – only to hear nothing in response. Dead silence. No returned emails, no returned calls. Is this the message the organization intends to send about how it values its talent? Organizations need to get a handle on how they are reaching out and responding to candidates to ensure there is a match between HR practices and the values and corporate culture the organization wants to expose to the job seeking public.

I realize it takes time to talk about and integrate basic human courtesies into our hiring processes, but the flipside of not paying attention to this important element can be costly. Organizations need to remember that any time you are reaching out into the public, as you do with a sourcing and recruitment efforts, your reputation is either being shined or tarnished by the treatment job seekers experience. What grade would you give your process? What grade do you think job seekers are giving you about their perceptions of your culture? Organizations can’t just walk the talk of a ‘great place to work’ once someone starts a job – the walk starts with the first steps taken to announce sourcing and recruitment activities. So what basic human courtesies do we need to instill?

What’s expected of candidates?

When I’m wearing my Career Coach hat, I always point job seekers in the direction of saying ‘thank you’ over and over again. Not only is it a sign of respecting the time and attention of someone who has helped you along your transition journey, it’s just common courtesy. My list of “must thank you’s” includes:

• A thank you email and then follow up call (or voice mail message) is appropriate to your contact a day or so after you have submitted the required application, resume, and/or cover letter. This should include a thank you for the opportunity to introduce yourself and share your fit for the advertised position. Chances are you probably won’t get a response from the company, so a day or two later, call your contact to again say thank you for the opportunity and ask for them to call you back so you can discuss next steps and answer any questions about your background and experience. 
• A handwritten thank you note dropped off at the office or sent through snail mail – whichever you have time for - after each and every interview as well as after a significant networking meeting. The interview or meeting can either be face-to-face or over the phone – it doesn’t matter. Send a thank you note.
• A handwritten or email thank you note after every networking encounter. This is also a great time to share a copy of your resume and remind the person you are networking with which competencies and talents you want to highlight.
• A thank you letter within a week or two (depending on the timeline they laid out for selecting the successful candidate) of your handwritten thank you note. This thank you again refers to your gratitude for the interview meeting and restates your interest in the position. It’s always a good idea to reiterate several of the key strengths you’d bring to the position, as well as offer any additional information you can share to add to the interview experience.

In this economy with so many people looking for work, I’ve also seen some coaches such as Amy Lindgren suggest two more times for contacts and thank you’s. One, after about 10 days from your last call to confirm that you are still interested in the position, thanking the person for their consideration, and letting them know you may not be able to keep your schedule open for the next round of interviews because of other job activities that are picking up. Ask them to please contact you (provide your number) so you can discuss the upcoming interview process and schedule. Five days later, thank the person again for the consideration given to you so far and let them know you are still interested, but at this point you must move on to other employers, and so therefore you won’t be contacting them anymore. But don’t close the door all the way. Instead, invite them to contact you if they want to bring you in for another interview.

These last two ideas will require an extra dose of diligence and confidence, especially in light of the fact that you probably haven’t heard anything from the recruiter or hiring manager on your other contacts. Have perseverance. With as many people as are out there competing for a job, you have to make all the contacts you can while demonstrating your interest and willingness to take risks. Above all, you have to be honest and demonstrate respect.

Should we expect anything less from the other side of the table – from the employers?

What’s expected of HR?

As a Human Resources and Organization Development consultant, I advise my clients to incorporate some type of response system – either email, postcard, call, or snail mail letter – into their sourcing, recruiting, and hiring processes to accomplish the following:

• Keep the communications open and transparent regarding the candidates’ status in your system. There’s nothing more frustrating than applying for a job and feeling that your resume landed at the bottom of a big black hole. Yes, employers have an advantage at the moment, but that doesn’t make it right to take advantage of others. Not acknowledging and appreciating interest in your company could turn out to be a turn off to the exact talent you are trying to attract.
• Have processes in place to ensure external contractors utilized to assist with sourcing and recruiting activities understand the organizations’ values you want them to demonstrate as they engage job seekers as an extension of your HR department. If their performance is rewarded only for filling the pipeline without a metric for the quality of the experience the candidates have while processing through the pipeline, your company most likely is sacrificing its reputation and culture for volume.
• Make sure your staffs responsible for sourcing (both internal and external) are honest when identifying if the need is for a current opening or for possible future needs. It’s much healthier, and a lot less stressful, for both the candidates and the organization to be honest with what’s going on. If there is no immediate opening, a candidate can respond and then periodically follow up on the need, rather than be frustrated and frantic about reaching the recruiter thinking the position is being filled without consideration of the candidate’s competencies.

In the current climate, I don’t hear too many good things being said about recruiters and HR folks responsible for the hiring process. I know they are inundated with the volume of resumes they are receiving. But perhaps instead of justifying their lack of communication with job candidates by being overwhelmed with responses, they should look for ways to incorporate more narrow filters to help manage the volume, and utilize technologies now available to aid with automatic responses and updates.

So what’s next?

Organizations can’t rely on old recruitment practices to manage today’s responses to internet and social media advertised openings. We’re seeing the results: frustrated job seekers who feel they have to cater to the recruiter in order to get the opportunity while resenting the treatment and hoping for the day something better comes along.

As the economy rebounds, there will more than likely be all kinds of employment activities taking place; sourcing, recruiting, restructurings, and downsizings to name a few. Organizations should ensure that their practices in each of these activities set a tone for honest, fair, and transparent communications. Corporate culture is an important component to achieving strategic goals. Ensure that the values your leaders espouse as important to the firm are demonstrated and confirmed at each step of the employment relationship.

Deborah Hildebrand, a freelance writer for the LA Examiner, recently wrote an article calling for the need to continue reminding the public about the importance of demonstrating respect for others everyday. I agree with her. We shouldn’t put the focus on civility and respect only when painfully reminded of our everyday lack of it. In her writings she referenced back to a 2007 article she wrote, Seven Steps to Building a Company Culture that Embraces RESPECT, which has some very thoughtful ideas for creating and sustaining a respectful culture.

Human Resource Managers as well as individuals working in the profession should be the first to demonstrate the importance of performance that reflects and motivates others to be respectful. It may take a little more time to return a call, or send an email with feedback to a candidate, but the kindness of those acts won’t be lost on the relationship an organization develops with a potential new employee.

Are you a job seeker, a recruiter, or someone working in the sourcing arena? I’d be curious to hear what your experiences have been. Do your practices allow open, transparent, and respectful engagements? Is this type of process doable? Or should the job seeker just take their chances and see if they’ll ever hear back from the employer? Just think about the impact an organization could have by being one of the few who does take the time to communicate. I look forward to hearing from you.

Q&A

Dear Debbie,
I’ve been practicing interview questions I see on-line and in books. But should I be doing more in order to ace the process?
Jose R.

Check out Dear Job Seeker... to see my response to Jose's question.