What Dating apps Taught Me About Recruitment ??

Though it flourished from a short article to a full-blown essay/article, I have enjoyed writing about this topic and hope you’ll enjoy reading it. Light-hearted content below, proceed with open-minded-ness ??

I am naturally curious, notably about people and how human interactions evolve. Being a recruiter, this trait helps a lot but, I also draw a lot of lessons and insights from my personal life to help in my work life. I believe this is quite natural for everyone, no matter one’s career.

Being single in today’s world can be very daunting and confusing. I personally felt this way when I arrived in London with my suitcases, leaving my so well-known cocoon of student life in Sydney and my support network in France. A big adventure was ahead, full of excitement and, some fear too, for good measure. There, came dating apps ‘to the rescue’ with its multitude choices of ways to meet people to become friends and more, if affinity. Diverse pools of candidates were at my reach, just through my phone and fingertips. There came the discovery of this new process of communicating with the world and that’s where things became interesting with various learning experiences.

Let’s jump in and clear the air here: Going for countless job interviews sucks! Similarly, going for countless dates sucks too! This is especially true if all the time and energy spent feels like it was all for nothing: a big waste. I know, I’ve been there so many times in both contexts.

Also…Have a think… Has anyone of your friends or family ever tried being a match-maker for you? -- that awkward moment when you arrive at the restaurant to meet friends and see there’s an extra person there… Have you ever been on a romantic date and felt you were being interviewed? – that moment where the person with you nearly asks you for a background check and your credit score…

If you nodded in affirmation till now, then you know where I am going. For those who don’t get it, let me lay it out for you.

From experience, as both a recruitment professional and as a single woman using dating apps, Dating IS LIKE Recruitment, and that is so in many ways.

Below are my points highlighting the similarities and bringing them to life. Hope you enjoy the ride of this recruitment/dating process ??

1 – The same aim – “Looking for the perfect match a.k.a. Some Day My Prince/Princess Will come” ????

For companies, the aim is to find the best possible candidates to become your future employees, with the additional hope that they will stay Forever After. As a company, you look for the best person, with his/her skills and experience matching the requirements for the role and matching the company’s values and ‘personality’. For individuals, you ideally look for someone who matches and complements who you are, your own personality and values. (emphasis on ‘ideally’ as sometimes it’s about “opposites attract and match”) No matter your list of ‘requirements’, you’re looking for a match, a special spark, a connection, the piece of puzzle that fits the whole picture. 

2 – The profile – “Eh you, Look at me!”

Your profile will be the way for others to get a glimpse (or more) of you. You are ‘marketing yourself’ and your profile will help you attract potential candidates, and ideally get a better chance to quickly find your ‘perfect’ match. I’ll start distinguishing professional and personal levels here a bit more.

Professional: On the one hand, companies will often have various profiles available to the public with information about them, what they do and their teams – their website, their careers page, their LinkedIn and other social media pages. On the other hand, job seekers will also have various profiles available to view such as their CVs, LinkedIn profiles, online portfolios and so on. Personal: To ‘market yourself’ to potential suitors, you will create a profile on at least one app. The basic profile will include one or more pictures of you and, if you want, you can write a few lines about yourself as an introduction. Each app will have specific information to fill-out but in general, it is apparent that many do to feel bothered about writing about themselves on their profiles, preaching that the pictures will ‘speak for themselves’. (And often they unfortunately do.)

Warning: Beware of the catfish! The down-side with having most information being on digital platforms is that people can easily create fake profiles. The term ‘catfish’ therefore refers to those fake profiles you can see online. It is very common on dating apps (I had match with David Hallyday and Orlando Bloom once. :D) but, it can also happen on professional networks too. For instance, I recently realised that some individuals listed themselves as team-members of my current company on LinkedIn but, following some detective work, we found that no one knew who they are. Therefore, as a key take-away, be aware of these catfish profiles, trust your intuitions and don’t be afraid to check information. In short, channel your inner Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple or any other detectives you like.

Patterns and new norms: In the age when everything is digital, this is where things get sociologically very interesting with the variety of types of profiles as one can see patterns form. Examples: In recruitment, norms and patterns of profiles often depend on your sector of work, which is quite normal I guess. Profiles from creative professionals will showcase those creative skills while the profiles within another industry will be another way. On the personal front, norms and patterns in profiles are quite fun to pick-out. From my experience, the most recurrent types of pictures on dating apps are: one with an animal (many somehow with sedated tigers, some with dogs and other pets), one with a kid (cute picture holding a child, making faces), one with other people (family or friends), one about travelling (many somehow at the Machu Pichu, or somewhere else that looks exotic).

I’m not judging. The digital era and the use of social media for everything have formatted us to behave in a certain way, with new norms and rules. We are all guilty of wanting to fit into the box but, being aware of these patterns and ways bring me to ask myself and you: Do you absolutely want to fit in, no matter what it takes or, do you want to challenge the limits of that box? Do you want to be one of the sheep or be your own animal? Just some food for thought…

3 – Right or Left? – “The Art of Swiping”

Profiles are great because they give you the opportunity to have a platform to showcase who you are, notably your personality and what you like and do not like. However, did you know that it only takes 3 to 5 seconds for you to build a first impression? After forming that first idea of someone, it is totally up to you whether you want to decide to be curious and peel the layers of the onion/ use a finer comb or, if you want to simply leave it there.

Personal: The common saying is “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. Well, dating apps go quite the opposite way. I have never ever known anyone who actually took the time to look at each dating profile into detail during the swiping stage. In that way, they follow the 5 seconds decision-making process to either swipe right (equals Yes) or left (equals No), purely based on the first picture they see. Many people will tend to say “it’s a numbers game”, by swiping right on most profiles and only making decisions once they have matches, they then leave the more thorough decision-making process for later. It might come across as shallow but eh oh, it’s one way of going about it.

Professional: Anyone in a company can have a look at profiles on LinkedIn etc. However, the responsibility of searching for potential suitable matches and ‘swiping profiles’ is given to the internal recruiters a.k.a. the companies’ personal match-makers. I cannot talk on behalf of all recruiters but, we do not just swipe right or left after 5 seconds. We will likely build a first impression about a candidate from the CV and LinkedIn profiles but we go above that, challenging the profiles’ content and the biases. That said, when your job is to look at profiles, you become quicker in assessing profiles in a short amount of time. It’s normal for recruiters to go through 100 profiles on LinkedIn in less than an hour and making Yes, Maybe and No lists. We could go into detail about how recruiters make decisions but that would be for another time. On the other hand, job seekers will have their own way of swiping company profiles. As a candidate, my decision-making process included looking at job descriptions/ adverts in detail, cross-referencing information on the website with company rankings and what I could find in the news about them. At other times, I would also send my profile across to many companies, playing the numbers game.  

Ultimately, the way you want to go about Swiping is totally up to you but I have learnt that a mix of volume and quality is usually a good combination for success, no matter the context.

4 – The initial match – “You noticed me, now what? Is there something there?”

In both personal and professional levels, some matches are leveraged. Getting a match brings a spark of excitement but now, it’s all about knowing if there is actually something there by getting to know each other a little more and explore whether you should move on to the next step or not. This ‘assessment’ usually occurs through initial messaging. With dating apps, when a match occurs, either one of the pair may decide to send a message as an ice breaker and see how it unfolds. There are many ways to do that but I’ll let you explore that separately. Similarly, in recruitment, initial messaging will occur between the company, usually by the recruiters, and the potential candidates through emails, LinkedIn messages, text messages etc.

The killer question: Shall I make the first move? Taking the first step can be very daunting no matter the context. There is that sense that you are putting yourself out there with a strong sense of vulnerability and strong fear of rejection. On the personal level, try to recall when you went to talk to someone in a bar with courage and came back to your friends a little later with your self-esteem bruised? Similarly, try to recall when you sent your CV thinking you definitely will get an interview and then you got a ‘No’ email so your self-esteem and confidence got bruised too. Similarly, as a company’s personal match-maker, I get a bit anxious when I contact a candidate for the first time, for the same reasons as above – they won’t reply or they’ll say no – and I get somehow a bit worried that how I communicated was ‘not enough’.

However so, someone wise told me that “if you don’t ask, you won’t get”. I must admit I do agree; taking chances and leveraging opportunities help maximise the chance for finding a great match, build your network but also helps you get thicker skin and build confidence. On the professional front, I always prefer when potential candidates send a note with their LinkedIn connection requests. It breaks the ice, clarifies how I could help them and also gives them a higher chance of me remembering them and, I believe the same applies when it’s the other way round.

Put bluntly, rejection sucks, no matter the situation. However true, the silver lining is : we all have to deal with rejection so might as well try our luck! ??

The ones that get away More often than not, on dating apps, matches remain matches without any communication between the parties. There can be many reasons for that but that’s a separate sociological topic. In all honesty, in a similar way than on the personal level, many matches can remain just matches for some time. This happens if you have candidates on the system that do not fit any of your current requirements. Also, job-seekers do not necessarily respond to all the company matches and initial communications sent to them. It’s not because they are not good matches, it’s just you need to focus on more urgent and relevant matters first. As we say in my language: “C’est la vie!”

I like the idea of recruiters as match-makers and fairy-godmothers/godfathers but, unfortunately, we are all just human beings with no ‘bibbidi-bobbidi-boo magic’, so are often limited and our hands tied. In the wise words of my own (and real) godmother, words that I try to apply to my everyday life, “You cannot help everyone but, you can try your best.”

5 – The Dates – “Are you the piece of the puzzle I’ve been looking for?” ??

Following your first interactions with your potential ‘perfect matches’, you will set up dates to get to know each other better and see if you are really compatible. Likewise, as a job seeker, you will get invited to speak to members of the company in order for all parties, including yourself, to decide whether you are compatible. 

The Rule of 3 3 as a number holds a lot of symbolic across various topics. In the dating world, the rule of 3 corresponds to 3 dates and 3 months, the amount of time someone is apparently likely to make a decision about their match. In the recruitment world, companies will have various number of stages for their interview process, depending on various factors. Typically, the average number of interviews will also likely be 3, including the conversation with the company’s matchmaker.

 #1 Conversation with your matchmaker: This stage generally happens in between the initial match and the first official date but, for the purpose of this article, I have put it as part of the dating stage. I cannot speak on behalf of other recruiters so this is how I personally see things:

For me, this particular conversation will commonly be over the phone and is where the recruiter fully blooms into the matchmaker godparent-like figure. The purpose of this first step is to put all the cards on the table, lay it all there – the wonderful, the good, the bad, the very bad, the expectations etc. and, it enables to assess if going forward is the best next step for both candidate and company. I won’t dwell long on the details but, my advice is for both parties to be open and honest, not making any promises and managing expectations. As a matchmaker, you get all the information you need to introduce the candidate to the rest of the team the best ways possible (all the good examples, the personality etc.) and, in that role you will also be able to make an informed decision about the candidate. As a candidate, this conversation will give you the opportunity to showcase who you are, what you want to do and ask questions and advice. I personally do not like seeing this conversation as purely transactional. On both ends, it is the opportunity to build an ally-ship.

 #2 and #3 The official dates: Once everyone is happy to move forward with the further assessment of this match, this is where parallels with dating come really into play. A few years back, as to prepare my candidates for their first official interviews with members of a company, I used to tell them the following:

Interviews are like going on a date with someone you barely know. Your recruiter will be your wing-person/ god-parent who will act as a mediator throughout the whole process and will prepare you as much as possible but, when you are on the date, it’s pretty much all up to you. Think about the company as it being a person, with its character, values and personality. When you go on the interview, just like on a romantic date: you will show genuine interest in the other person, you will find common grounds, you will be honest, you will be yourself, you will be respectful, diplomatic and open-minded. Overall, you will reveal enough about yourself to spark interest from the other party to get another date but won’t over share and give an ‘information overload’. Also, arrive prepared. Interviews require research and preparation, you will gather data about the various sides of the company (e.g. values, team members etc.). Comparably, you would also gather different kinds of data before your romantic date. However, together with gathering data, be prepared to also keep an open mind. Do not build too many pre-assumptions, biases and beliefs. Do not believe everything you hear or read, create your own opinion. Keep an open mind because you could be happily surprised of what you find out. Generally speaking, in life it’s better not to build too many expectations. An example from dating: If you expect to meet Legolas but end up finding Frodo, or Bombur or even Gollum, waiting for you, you will probably be disappointed. But, if your flip it, you’ll be happier to see Legolas as you were expecting Gollum. As such, leave room for you to discover, give the benefit of the doubt. Follow your gut-feeling, take a leap of faith. And, when in doubt, go through things with your matchmaker.

I must say I have kept giving the same advice throughout the years as I believe it’s generic advice that can easily be applicable to any job interview or romantic date, don’t you think? ??

6 – Happily Ever After? - “Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m Yours”

Let’s pretend that all the dates/ interviews went well. You have now concluded that you are right for each other and here is where you lay down the terms of your relationship. You can draw parallels between signing a job contract with signing a pre-nuptial, a legal partnership contract or a marriage one. Whatever way you want to see it, this is only the beginning to a big new adventure in your life so, breathe, be ready to compromise, take a leap of faith and soar.

Let’s be honest, not all ‘dates’ turn out into Happily Ever After moments. Fairy tales and movies have unfortunately distorted expectations for reality. Life is messy, a roller-coaster of ups and downs, a mix of failure and successes and, often you’ll end up failing more than you want to but, here again, “C’est la vie!”

Closing Comments

As closing comments to what has been more of an essay on parallels between Recruitment and Dating (sorry for the length), remember the following:

• Drawing parallels between your personal and your professional lives, and vice-versa, can help you understand certain contexts better. It helps me all the time and I am sure it does help you too.
• Leverage your relationships, it’s all about creating your network.
• Your recruiter is your ally.
• LinkedIn is for networking on the professional level, not for dating. (If I had a penny for all the weird messages I received on LinkedIn, I’d be rich)
• Know yourself to free yourself
• Take chances. Seize opportunities. Draw lessons.
• No matter the context, we are all looking for a perfect match, that specific missing piece of the puzzle. However true, there can also be perfection in all the imperfections that can be found, it depends on how you want to look at it and what you can compromise on.
• Even if you feel your date or your interview was a waste of time and energy, remember we all have something to learn from everyone and every situation.
• No matter the digital profiles, the automating of certain tasks by A.I. and algorithms, how can we be certain that what we see is actually the best we can get?

At the end of the day, it’s all about people connecting to other people, with all the variety of nuances of what it means to be human.

I hope you all find the different missing pieces of your own puzzles. Thanks for your time reading my piece.

#thoughtsofafairyunicorngodmother #talentacquisition #datingapps #sociology