Honest!!

Why are so many recruiters and recruitment companies still, in 2019 not showing more honesty when it comes to managing candidate relationships?

Sure, recruitment as an industry has made great strides in the last 10 years and there’s far more acknowledgement from clients that the quality of their recruitment relationships is built more solidly around trust, credibility and honesty, in short, we’re more professional as an industry.

So why has the way we treat and manage candidates not progressed at the same pace and with the same level of developed professionalism? I still speak to candidates every week who are good candidates and just as importantly good people who have had a call with a recruiter or even interviewed for a role and then never heard back from that recruiter again. We all know they’re either just not right for the role or they failed the interview, so here’s an idea why don’t we tell them that! Give them feedback, make it constructive and if you really can’t help them right now for whatever reason then tell them the truth.

An old contact used to say, “I’ve never had a candidate pay a fee”, literally speaking this was correct but it encouraged an attitude of valuing the candidates as the second-rate citizen in the relationship, not cool in my opinion. No, giving 5 minutes to provide proper feedback after an initial screening call or interview isn’t going to get you a fee but telling someone straight and then maybe offering an alternative option (even if it's to suggest they consider other career/role options) makes you feel good and guess what, you’re consulting!

There are some great new recruitment companies out there, some of whom we compete against, led by smart people doing great things in the industry, the industry is more respected than it was, but let’s start humanising the people part of our business more. It feels like clients value our industry more, so if candidates did too what a wonderful world we would have!