“When recruiters and candidates respect and accept their differences, then success has a chance to blossom.”
~Adapted from John Gray’s (in)famous self-help book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Successful recruiting comes down to one thing: perspective. Recruiters and candidates have vastly different points of view. Recruiting is a demanding job. But, the candidates are going through one of life’s biggest stressors in looking for a new position.
What you do — finding your candidates opportunities that meet their interests, needs, and ambitions — can change their lives. But to really serve candidates during their stressful job search, you need to overcome the gap between recruiter and candidate logic. Here are some common problems recruiters face and the perspective gap that leads to them.
Candidates don’t respond to your job listings
Recruiter perspective
Wanted: Skilled coder. No…no…Star coder…that doesn’t work either. Coding Ninja. CODING NINJA. Perrrrrrfect.
Candidate perspective
Coding Ninja? What’s a “Coding Ninja?” Hard pass.
The olive branch
Language can imply a lot about a company’s culture. Make sure job listings communicate to the right person. Help potential candidates see that your clients create great places to work, that they aren’t a cliché. Below are job description tips from MediaBistro that can help you draft a better listing.
Candidates start your applications, but they don’t finish
Recruiter perspective
Applicant tracking systems save me a lot of time!
Candidate perspective
This application form is taking way too long.
The olive branch
About 60% of candidates do not complete time-consuming applications. To prevent candidate loss, streamline your application process. Speak to your clients and boil applications down to only what questions are most important to them.
- Keep questions down to 15 or fewer
- Minimize the time to complete the application to five minutes, which will increase conversions by 365%
- Develop mobile-friendly sites that allow candidates to save their applications to complete later
- Integrate with popular social media platforms like LinkedIn so candidates can import their information to your application system
Candidates apply — but then disappear
Recruiter perspective
Great! All these candidates are amazing. I’ll contact them later.
Candidate perspective
Did they receive my application? It’s been a week…I guess they’re not interested. I wonder if I’m a better fit with this place…
The olive branch
Nurture your relationships with communication. Be sensitive to how the process might be overwhelming and do your best to manage their expectations.
Respond. Respond. Respond:
- Schedule an hour or two in your day devoted solely to responding to all communications
- Include an auto-response that outlines when candidates will hear from you after applying
- Evaluate communications and look for patterns, then create templates that you can copy, paste, and personalize
With a slight shift of your point of view, you can assure your candidates that you’re on their side–the winning one.
Don’t cast them aside–learn how to stay connected to rejected candidates here.
