Would You Want To Work For You???

The traditional concept of recruitment is that there is a definite imbalance of power in favour of the hiring company.

If you are a candidate you should feel grateful to be considered for an opportunity with the company and be flexible as to the wants and needs of the hiring business during the recruitment process.

In my view, this philosophy is long out-dated and has no place in the 2016 recruitment landscape, however I am shocked on a daily basis when I hear the experiences of my candidates and the position I can be put in by my clients.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately as I believe), businesses are no longer in the luxurious position of being in a buyer’s market and the marketplace in general has changed.  15 years ago it was perfectly acceptable to take the “bang your fists on the table” approach with suppliers when looking to negotiate a deal, as it was to expect your candidates to jump through hoops if they wanted to join your business.  Nowadays, it’s much more about give and take – suppliers these days (on the whole) can expect much fairer treatment with the “win-win” scenario being favoured to “lets-screw-my-supplier-into-the-ground”.   It appears however, that some businesses are still lagging behind in understanding that the landscape has changed.  No longer can a business rely on the idea that they hold the power in a recruitment situation, particularly in a market with pockets of skill shortage.

So where do hiring companies go wrong?

Here are the top 3 most common examples of how businesses get it wrong when dealing with candidates, often leaving a very sour taste in the candidate’s mouth and creating a bad perception of the company:

• Lack of feedback – This is top of the list and the complaint I hear most often. This is where companies don’t get back to candidates with feedback during an interview process.  I often advise candidates that if they have applied directly to a business and don’t get a response then understand that companies can received as many as 500 applications for one vacancy so it becomes very time consuming to respond to every one.  HOWEVER, once a candidate has been engaged in a recruitment process, then it is entirely expected that feedback following interviews should occur, even if unsuccessful.  If a candidate has invested time in a process, the least they should expect is some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback to assist them in their job search journey.   I put “constructive” in capital letters because all too often candidates get fobbed off with statements like “there was someone else more qualified” or “your experience is not quite right”.  Negative feedback can be difficult to deliver however I find that my candidates respect me so much more if I give honest feedback that they can build upon – however hard it may be to hear at the time.
• Poor Interview Content – Interviews should no longer be the place where candidates sit in the spotlight and expect a grilling. In today’s society it is recognised that they are a two-way street – a meeting for both parties to understand whether there is synergy and potential to work together and an opportunity for both sides to represent themselves and their business and showcase what they have to offer.  However, the reality is that companies still get it wrong in interview.

Not enough businesses sell the opportunity to the candidate.  In fact, many go the other way, wanting an A player in the business but worrying that they might leave quickly, they under-sell the opportunity, leaving the candidate dejected and a bit confused as to why they were asked to attend in the first place.  Another frequent mistake is made by businesses who give candidates a re-enactment of the Spanish Inquisition, get them to sit all sorts of tests, then give them very little information about why someone of their calibre should be attracted to join the business. 

• Lack of empathy and understanding toward the candidate’s position – This is a biggie and I would say the most damaging. I have had this situation occur twice this year so far and it causes a lot of resentment and ultimately results in processes failing.  To bring this to life I will use a real example but omit the names of the company and candidate involved:

My client was recruiting for a Senior Buyer.  It was within a very specialist field where candidates are in short supply, particularly good ones.  I sourced a fantastic candidate who had all the attributes the client wanted and more.  The recruitment went smoothly at first, with the candidate breezing through a 2 stage process.   The client informed me they wanted to make the candidate an informal offer, with the formal offer forthcoming imminently.  Obviously I fed this back to the candidate who was over the moon and accepted.  However, days turned into a week, then two, with no update from the client.  Obviously during this time, the candidate was still attending other interviews and because of his calibre, started to receive other job offers.  After about 10 days of radio silence from the client, I finally managed to speak to my contact who told me that their company was vast, it worked at its own pace and under no circumstances would they be held to ransom by a candidate…..

Well there are not many times in my life that I am rendered speechless but this was certainly one of them!!  Obviously the process failed as the candidate quite understandably decided that they were not a company he would want to work for.  In my opinion the client made a number of mistakes during this process – failing to communicate in order to give the candidate the full picture in which to be able to make an informed decision as to his situation, taking too long in getting the offer formalised, and of course believing that the most important thing in the process was themselves, and that the candidate should just be understanding that their size meant that processes would move more slowly.

To me, the crux of all of these failings are the cause of one thing – a lack of empathy and understanding of the candidate.  Too many hiring managers get blinkered and forget that candidates are living breathing people and to them, the decisions they are making during their job hunt are critical and life-changing.  It is NOT unacceptable to expect to be kept in the loop with the situation at your potential new business if you are told there will be an offer forthcoming.  It is NOT unacceptable to have multiple opportunities on the go at the same time if candidates are actively looking.  It is NOT unacceptable to want to communicate this information to potential new employers to help them in their decision making process and give them an understanding of timescales.  This is not a candidate “holding a hiring business over a barrel”.  It is common sense and good practice.

If you want to hire the best people on the market, then you need to attract them.  There are very few companies who can still do this by name alone.   Good people want to work for businesses who as employers take the time to understand them, who offer development, who can react to things quickly and have a strong vision of where the business is going and what they need to do to get there.  If you recognize any of the above failings in your recruitment, then your business will not be reflecting the attributes any good candidate will be looking for from their prospective employer.

Even more important is the need to be aware of how small the world is these days.  Social networking means that negative experience can go viral and a badly managed recruitment process can have a large detrimental impact on company reputation.

At the end of the day the question I recommend that all of my clients ask themselves is as follows:

“If you were candidate entering into this recruitment process, would you want to work for you?”

For more in this series of blogs addressing recruitment and how as recruiter, hiring manager and candidate we all have a responsibility to improve the process, please visit our website at www.jps-supplychain.co.uk/blog