Your Candidates Have Brains

// September 21st, 2009 // Employment Branding, Recruitment Marketing

It’s seen as something as a disadvantage by recruiters that the real superstar potential hires for any role are smart, savvy and often analytical. It makes them harder to sell on a story which isn’t backed up by a reality. I’m not having a go at recruiters – most salespeople would probably prefer an audience that didn’t require quite so much truth and hard work to convince.
And therein lies the problem.
Having a really good employer brand doesn’t work unless it’s true. Unless it’s honest. Unless you can prove it.
The greatest recruiter I know brought me into this job, and when she left, a party was held. The CEO made a speech, praising her efforts in building an internal recruitment function of nearly 30 people in three years. Towards the end of his speech, he said “Sometimes the business has had to reach in order to meet the expectation you’ve created. Your passion for working here is evident in how you talk about the business when we go to market.”
As nice a message as this is from your CEO when you leave, it paints a real problem. If the message is better than the reality, you’re creating an expectation in market that you can’t meet. It’s an expectation that will see candidates leave quickly once they realize the story isn’t going to come true.Not only will they leave ; they’ll tell their friends and colleagues how badly you delivered, and you’ll have to work progressively harder to get the right people.
If you’re going to talk to people who are interested in working for you, why not tell them the truth? Not Marketing’s truth, but the real, actual truth. Tell them the warts-and-all side of the job. Because (and this is provable across nearly every market) people remember the honesty. Respect the intelligence and observational power of your candidates, and you’ll see them become long-term employees.