Recruiting: People Come First

The Humane Side of Recruiting

Recruiting is becoming more and more challenging where each and every position has to be filled immediately to build human capital faster and to reduce costs. However, it is important to remember the core of this profession: people come first. For this exact reason, recruiting is a profession that is deeply humane. At its heart, it is about making contact, listening and empathizing with people.

We have to deal with each candidate individually, in the one-hour time we have with them, we have to understand his or her aptitudes. More importantly, we have to understand his expectations, needs and motivations to actually assess the candidate. We should seek to understand if the job is fit for the candidate and not the other way around. And what if we feel that it is not the right fit? Would you prefer not to give any negative feedback and use voicemail or other barriers to avoid the candidate afterwards?

There is a much better way

All candidates need and deserve a little sincere feedback. With the the dynamics of the discussion and the understanding we developed about how sensitive the candidate is, we should try to send the message across. If they do not get the message, do not push it out of respect for them.

No matter you are an internal (talent acquisition) or external (placement agencies, headhunting firms) recruiter, you could be doing mistakes and/or developing some bad habits. Pressure from an overloaded department head or perhaps a demanding workload, can make us lose sight of the person in front of us and forget to listen. When that happens, we jump to conclusions about him much too quickly.

Would you prefer to cut corners and hire from competition that feels like cutting costs or speeding up the hiring process? Chances are you are “categorizing” candidates: that is reducing a person to what they represent and overlooking their potential to learn and adapt. This can even be viewed as discrimination: “A career public servant could not deal with the private sector. A desk-bound customer service representative could not handle an export job that is 40% travel.”

Before falling into this trap, consider that a motivation to experience a new environment and adapt to it, integrates creativity to the company and can lead to long years of successful performances.

The Great Responsibility of Recruiting

Above all, are you aware of the great responsibility you have as a recruiter and as the person on the frontline of assessing hundreds or even thousands of candidates to identify talent?

Naturally, giving a chance to a person to get a job will have a huge impact on his life as well as approaching to another to offer a change of one.

Some of these thousands of candidates that you meet over your career might as well be feeling like failures, have lost direction or even be depressed. You have the choice of being the concrete representative of the world the candidate is facing, or to positively impact his development process in order to bring his life back together although this is no part of your job description.

Recruiters, do you believe in your great responsibility? If so, seek to understand each candidate individually, show your client a better grasp of what they need and the candidates will be heard better.