Triggers, tarts and lazy jobseekers…..
Every now and then a technological advance comes along that will “change recruitment forever”. If you hang about long enough you will get to see a few of these cataclysms. For example, I have witnessed prophesies of the death of recruitment agencies on more than one occasion, yet to misquote Mart Twain, “reports of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated”. Whereas it is without doubt true that the use of technology has changed the “how” people go about changing jobs, the fundamental reasons as to “why” aren’t led by technology. That is why the underlying thing to understand is the way people behave and what motivates them to behave that way through a process which leads to life altering decisions. As a colleague in Corporate Communications recently pointed out to me, “you recruiters are pretty much social anthropologists, aren’t you?” If we understand this behaviour, then we can equip ourselves better to engage, better.
So, how does it start? It starts with what I call a trigger moment, which sets off a chain of events. One of the things that every leavers’ survey will ask is something along the lines of the reasons behind leaving. In very broad terms the relatively anodyne responses will heavily lean towards “more money’ or “better prospects”. However these two things are only really known by someone once they are in the process. The really interesting question is “What happened that made you even consider looking for a job somewhere else?” and that point is the trigger moment. They take all forms, and we have all experienced many of them. A headhunt call just after a frustrating meeting, a moment of boredom and an idle flick through a job board, a disappointing bonus etc etc etc. The old adage is that people join companies and leave managers, so there is more often than not a straight line there somewhere to management. The trigger moment is just the start, of course. Once the decision is made to look, a good recruitment process in the destination will change the look to flirtation, flirtation to dates and before we can say “that’s an outstanding candidate experience” we are walking down the job offer aisle. One side of this equation suggests that looking at the nature of the triggers is a good thing to understand and the other side suggest that there is a benefit in exploiting these.
The trigger moment is one aspect of the intrigue of human behaviour in finding a new role. The next is how people actually go about the business of finding that job. Of course when headhunted there is a singularity about the path, but that is not always the case, and exists at certain levels only. But for all, understanding what that behaviour dictates is key. What I like to do, with a slight tongue in cheek, is to apply some fairly broad labels to segment that candidate behaviour and this helps me understand what the best response is. Here are some of my favourite categories…..
Tarts – particularly prevalent in volume recruitment. We make it easy to apply for the jobs, so therefore it is easy to apply for 10, or 20. Speed is the key here. Wrap them up, and force a decision quickly.
Lazy Jobseekers – One of the reasons why the recruitment agency will continue to be a valuable partner (of course the fact that often recruitment is a distress purchase also helps their cause, but that is a different discussion). These candidates aren’t necessarily lazy people, just confident that a CV with a couple of agencies will yield a good job without all that effort of applying. Savvy seekers, they know the agency will do the grunt and will spoon feed them at interview.
The Hunters - They know what they want and have a plan. Will often approach an organisation directly. Great to attract if you have done your employer branding work well.
Shaky Loyalists - Been with the same organisation for years and are generally senior and respected. However things aren’t going great, or they feel they have stagnated. A decent researcher in a head hunt firm can winkle them out. The approach is the trigger here.
Tyre Kickers - No intention of leaving. It’s leverage for a pay rise. Good to identify early!
……and so on.
The point is that an effort to understand the motivation and thinking behind the candidate interest is a useful guide in what we can do in our processes to increase our yield. Of course recruiters will through experience recognise these categories, although without having attached labels, and will often adjust their reaction accordingly. However I think this is a pretty under-researched field and there is a tendency to homogenise the view of what candidates want to fit what works for us.
The view I would hold is that there is a real prize to be won in really understanding the behaviours and motivation of candidates and planning how just to tap into it effectively.