A great recruiting process is like a great dinner party.  You may invite several people, but you want each one to feel special–like a guest in your home.

If you invite a dinner guest, you want them to feel warmly welcomed. You want to show respect for their time. Evidence of your thoughtful preparation will be everywhere. You will be considerate of their needs and preferences.

You are gracious to your guests, and they appreciate your hospitality and reciprocate, by being gracious to you. That’s how society functions. So, my dear, where are your manners when it comes to recruiting?

If your candidates were your dinner guests (after all, you invited them to join your party) would you do any of the following?

  • Reschedule the date of the party (interview) on short notice?
  • Insist they get back to you quickly if you do reschedule?  Perhaps give them a deadline to respond?
  • Expect them to be monitoring their email, waiting to hear from you?
  • Make them wait in the foyer (lobby) for 10 minutes while you wrapped up other work?
  • Forget their name, or act like you are not ready for them when they arrive?
  • Would your dinner conversation be all about you?
  • After the party, if you promised to get back to them about something, would you overlook your promise?
  • If they called you to ask a question, would you wait several days before responding?

No. If you did any of the above you would be inexcusably rude, and everyone would say you are a narcissist. And nobody would ever want to come to your parties. But of course no one would say that to your face, they would just avoid you.

So is it possible that your recruiting challenges are not about the candidates at all? Is it possible that you are not attracting great people to your company because you need to work on your party manners?

 

If you want to stop wasting your time on the irrelevant, superficial aspects of interviewing, and start understanding the deeper elements that predict the success of your new hires, read our post on How to Conduct a Job Interview so Top Performers Actually Want to Take Your Job.  Or, if you prefer your research and information to be more attractively formatted, just download our Employer Guide to Interviewing.