Updated: 05/12/2018
The labour market has no longer been the same with the emergence of technologies and social medias. The relationship between companies and candidates is no longer a one way street where the job seekers have to rush behind and being desperate for their careers. After the presence of Linkedin and other networking tools, talents are more visible to the world and easier to be hunted. They also become more active and selective. Therefore, in order to remain indispensable in the fast changing world, I believe that recruiters should always retain these following philosophies ( that a machine can never replace):
1. Mutual respect
Again, recruitment is a two-way street. We need the candidates as much as they need us and for any candidates who are rejected for now, we may need their hands in the future. Therefore, treat them with the respect they deserve. It can reflect in different manners in different situations. If a candidate has involved in several rounds in the recruitment process, do not just reject them with an automatic response or a short email, call them, explain the reasons why, give them feedbacks and keep their hopes up. They put so much effort to your company, why not at least show them the paid off of their endeavor, even though it is not a positive result. You never know how being respectful can mean to others and keep them in your network.
2. Professional
If machine can be more professional than you, you will be replaced. Do you want to be replaced?
Being professional is to your internal and external customer ( company and candidate)
Do not be late for an interview, at least no more than 15 minutes. Stick to what you promise to deliver and mean it.
There was one time I applied for a very famous startup in marketing and truthfully speaking, no matter how I love the culture, I cannot stand the attitude of the recruiter. She was not present in the first interview, 25-minute late in the second and never give any feedback for the third. Of course, I will not judge the whole system based on one individual but it creates a bad impression for myself.
Please remember that recruiters, you represent your whole company, you are also the markerters, ambassadors. The candidates you attract can highly be the reflection/rejection of yourself. Furthermore, how many times you hear people undervalue and overlook the role of HR? Do you want to change that?
Be professional with your internal customers. Give detailed feedback to the hiring managers, store and register the timeline of each candidate for each position. Explain your assessment well and communicate with the stakeholders involved.
3. Honesty
As I have just mentioned, recruiters should also be a marketer for the company. The ability to motivate the candidate and increase their interest for your brand is very important. However, do not sell what you cannot offer. Personally, I believe that Recruitment is only regarded as effective if the newhire stays at least 6 months in the company. Overselling your company can lead to false expectations and desperation. The employees may feel they are tricked to take the positions that are not appropriate to their desires ( this happens a lot in headhunting, which I will speak deeper later in other articles).
4. Effectiveness
Be effective to both of your customers and reduce time to hire. Needless to say, there will be profiles that are more difficult to hire than others but when it comes to human interaction, be effective. The ideal time I will let the candidate wait for the answer of each round is 3 days min and 1 week top. This can be adjusted due to the complexity of the organization and if you cannot live up to your own target, give them an update of the process, do not keep them hanging.
Answer emails, call, Linkedin message within 2 days. This requires skilled time management and organization skills so set up priority because not every candidate should come first in your agenda. But again, it comes back to the number one: mutual respect: they all deserve a timely answer.
To your internal customers, sometime they may not understand the difficulty of finding the difficult profiles so communication and explaination is key. The point is, they will be happy anyway if you find the right one ( but not too late).
5. Humanity
I believe recruiting is a very noble job because you are entrusted to give a person one of the most valuable thing in his life: a career ( If you wonder why? Come on, you spend 70% of your day in the office). Please always keep that in mind, anytime you think about ignore someone because of your laziness, a subjective, personal reason ( I do not like his/her face in the resume. I think girls cannot do this/ there is one typo mistake in this CV..) take a step back and give yourself and the candidate another minutes.
Anytime you ignore a rejected candidate, put yourself in his/ her position.
Anytime you are not smiling in the interview, trying to intimidiate your candidates, imagine how terrifying it can be if you were to be pushed to the corner.
I truly believe that a real HR is the one who knows how to boost other self-esteem. We are all good at something and do not discourage or shadow the strengths of others just because we are unable to see them. Make them show what they have, a diamond is always hidden deep undersground!