Emotional Talent Acquisition – Process Or Purpose?
// August 11th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Employment Branding
I’ve been engaged recently to be a ‘secret shopper’ for some friends. I’ve been applying for jobs through their corporate websites, and reporting to them on the resulting experience as a candidate. In some of those cases, I’ve done phone interviews as well, to skills test the internal recruiters. It’s been rather fun being a mystery candidate and evaluating the types of conversations and experiences everyday applicants are exposed to.
One of the things that struck me regularly was the utter lack of emotion in these calls. I rarely felt like I was talking to a person, let alone a brand ambassador for the employment experience. Often these calls were very one sided. “Tell us about you, and if you make it to interview, you can ask us some questions then.” In some cases (two recruiters in particular, both from the same company) the calls were very authoritarian. There was a clear sense of reading questions off an interview guide, of a rigid adherence to process that forbade any humanity sneaking in. I was literally told by one recruiter that he didn’t meed more information about my job history – a yes or no answer would do.
In a couple of cases, I was ‘set up’ as a passive target, a possible headhunt. One of these was even for a company that I’d already ‘applied’ for, and a different recruiter contacted me to sound me out. They used the same script they use for applicant-based recruitment, right down to “Where did you hear about this opportunity?” It will suffice to say this didn’t resonate well with me, the talent who was contacted because they had been identified as a good fit, particularly as the caller didn’t get my name right, and hadn’t read the ‘souring report’ they’d been supplied.
Whether systems of thought or technology, most recruitment systems encourage adherence to process. They encourage control – of the candidate, of the data, of the experience. Systems are all about universal experience, and a functional return on time spent. However, that control can come at a cost – the sense of automation rather than process. For the recruiter, ‘adhering to the process’ can be a synonym for ‘doing a good job’, particularly if the metrics which measure performance are built around the system itself. For the talent, it’s a massive turn off to feel like you’re talking to a machine, not a person.
This is an experience that can be designed for user delight, just like any other. A great phone interview should make the interviewee feel valuable, engaged and connected to the interviewer. If your brand is designed to communicate easy interaction and conversation, your processes need to be built with this in mind. Application, interview, onboarding – all these parts of the new employee experience should reflect the attributes of your employment experience. They should be reflective of your values and principles, and, ideally, your strategy regarding people.
Recruiters shouldn’t just be filling in forms and word-matching CVs to job specs. They are the ambassadors for the experience of being employed by your company. They’re the salespeople trying to make someone change their life, their routine and their job. Their role isn’t to adhere to process, but to satisfy process. And they can do it in such a way that they encourage emotional connection, a pleasant experience and begin to create the sense of mutual respect that forms the backbone of a good employment relationship.
The process shouldn’t get in the way of the people. The system shouldn’t overtake the core role of a recruiter/sourcer – which is to find and engage talent that’s ready to join the tribe, willing to endure the change required to change roles, and able to satisfy the duties of the role. Your talent are more than walking skill-sets, they’re people whose emotions are a strong part of the decision making process. And the process should never overtake the purpose.
Last week, I spoke at 
There’s some interesting discussion going on (at least in-house where I work) about how far a company should regulate social media usage. I’ve done a lot of research on industry practice and written a couple of position papers for the board on how we should approach this, as I believe it’s firmly attached to our EVP. In my opinion, you can’t support the free exchange of ideas and foster a culture of teamwork and collaboration, then muzzle people who dare to talk about something other than work. And luckily, the board has agreed.
Many companies who began the process of defining and employment value proposition and creating an employer brand did so as a means of attracting staff. The brand became important as a means of talking to the market, of building an external reputation. It was a vehicle for communicating promise to a market that had no exposure to the reality of working for you.
Finding the right match means using the right language
I was having a discussion yesterday with Adam Shay about internal communications and employer reputation management. Specifically, we were talking about companies where the employer brand is principally an external impression, a recruitment tool. This is actually pretty common – there’s no shortage of companies who use the brand to find talent, get them into the business, and then the brand is never seen again.
