There are a lot of bad experiences reported by candidates about recruiters and the recruitment process Where does this bad rep come from, and what are the ways that we can improve as recruiters when speaking to candidates and guiding them along the hiring process?
To recruiters: “Please include the word ‘kitty’ in your message so I know you have read my profile”. This is an experience one of my colleagues had when screening for a candidate on LinkedIn. This leads me to believe that candidates must get bombarded with many messages on a daily basis. A lot of the recruiters out there just don’t take the time to fully read a profile, work experience, etc to see if he/she would be a good fit for the open role. This can lead to a bad experience during the first call right off the bat.
From my own experience, I once had to decipher binary code from a software developer’s profile and translate it to text, which read:
“Your outreach is welcome but please be an actual human about it. Thank you.”
This also hints at the use of AI from many recruiting firms nowadays – something I already talked about in a previous article here in our blog. At Zartis, we believe in the human connection and try to shy away from automatic outreach, for this very reason. I wrote back to the candidate in binary of course ,to prove to him that I was human and had taken the time to decipher his code. He wasn’t ready for a change but he was very appreciative of my actions and I feel like I gained a valuable connection. His response was:
“Hi Frank –
Thanks for taking the time to check in, as well as for actually reading my profile. The timing for a change isn’t quite aligned at the moment, however. I’ll keep you on my radar for future reference though. Thanks!”
Treat your candidates how you would like to be treated is my number one rule. The sheer volume of candidates a recruiter deals with might make this hard to do as well, making it very difficult to follow up with everyone in the process. It is not uncommon to give more attention to our “Rockstar” candidates and leave the average mass of candidates by the wayside. However, the way a company treats all of their candidates speaks a lot about how they treat not only those who get hired but how they probably treat their clients as well.
Some of the reasons why candidates have a negative experience are lack of follow up, not being honest and giving no notification if rejected. Following up with recommendations about what can be improved, asking for feedback and not just giving it, and always ending the conversation on a positive note are just some of the simple things organizations can do to provide an excellent candidate experience.
