I’ve got a friend who is in the midst of the recruiting process at a consulting firm. She’s had several rounds of interviews. Her last round seemed to have gone well. She followed protocol and sent a nice thank you note after the interview. And then, nothing.
For more than a week she heard nothing from them. Not even after she sent another note inquiring about the status of her candidacy. Total radio silence.
Sadly, this behavior is quite common. It is also quite foolish.
Recruiting is no longer an activity that is separate from the actual running of your business. It is very much part of running your business. Now of course it never really was separate. It was always a way of finding the talent that you needed to thrive. But recruiting was primarily thought of as an inbound activity – it brought people in. Today, it is as much an outbound activity – it is a means of telling the world who you are and what you’re all about. The people you hire – who experienced your values at work during the recruiting process – will talk to others about what they learned about you. And guess what? The people you didn’t hire – either because they rejected you or you rejected them – will talk even more.
In a sense, you are speaking to the world through all of the people that experience your behavior as a recruiter. What are you saying?
The company that is recruiting my friend is saying “We don’t care about people. We don’t empathize with people who are anxious to find out how they did in an interview. We don’t care that people might feel vulnerable during the process. We don’t care that our answer back to a candidate could affect their financial life and that they might really want to know what will happen to them. We don’t care.”
Is that what you want to say? And before you answer that question, think about this a little more. When you say that about how you recruit, do you really think you’re not also saying that about how you are in general? If you’re a callous jerk as a recruiter, don’t you think people might conclude you’re a callous jerk as a marketer, client, vendor, customer service rep, seller, manufacturer, etc.?
Oh and one more thing. In case your business doesn’t matter that much to you: Do you really want to be a jerk? Let me put this very plainly. If you don’t take 30 seconds to let someone know where they stand in an interview process – even if that means writing a quick email to tell them that you’re incredibly busy and won’t be able to get back to them for a week or two – then you’re a jerk. Plain and simple.
Don’t be a jerk. It’s bad for the world. It’s bad for you.
