Be Considerate & Get Better Candidates
Consideration in the Hiring Process is Underrated & Important.
Today we are talking about how to be considerate to candidates throughout the job application and hiring process. Let’s jump in.
So in our resource the four pillars of creating a winning hiring process, the considerate piece is often the piece that’s left out.
What do we mean by being considerate throughout the hiring process?
What we’re referring to is having empathy or understanding that the person on the other side of this process is going through their own stuff and anxiety and trying to get time off and meet deadlines and do their job and take care of their family.
We want to kind of break it into three sections really. So when we talk about being considerate, we talk about the interview process, how we’re asking them to communicate with us and make time for us. The second part is through the offer and the negotiation stage, which is anotherkey area where we can really win over someone who is in the hiring process with us. Then the final piece of this, and the piece that is overlooked almost 100% of the time, is the resignation or that transition from their company to your company.
So let’s look at these. The first one is the interview process. Say we get a resume of someone who looks great on paper. We get excited, we call them and say, “Hey, I just got your resume. We’d love for you to come in. Can you come in tomorrow at two o’clock and meet with me?” Person on the other end says, “Yeah, I think I can make that happen.” They show up at two o’clock. You have an an interview. This was great.
“I think you’re gonna be really valuable to our team. Can you come back tomorrow and talk to my partner or come back and talk to the leader of the department?” And they say, “yeah, I think maybe I could make that happen.” That’s what happens on our side. Pretty standard. Let’s think about what happens on the other side of that.
You’ve called them in the middle of the day. While they’re proudly at work, they could have been standing beside their boss.
And then we’ve said “Hey, can you come in and meet with us?” Now let’s think about what do they have to do to make that meeting happen? They gotta get time off. They’re gonna have to do something that high integrity people hate doing, and that’s lie to their boss and say “Hey, I got a doctor’s appointment.”
Maybe they use pto. They’re using their time that they put aside for their vacation to come in and meet with you. They show up to the office the next day and if they’re dressed up, what’s the joke in the office? “Oh, you got a job interview.”
So they might even change in the car or change in the bathroom before they leave. They jump in their car and they drive to your building. They don’t know where it is. They don’t know where to park. They don’t know where to go. When they do park, they don’t know who to ask for. It’s pretty stressful stuff they spend some time with.
And then you say, “Can you do that for me again tomorrow?” Not the best impression to make with a candidate, right? So how can we be considerate in the interview process?
If you’re gonna bring them on site, let’s just do it one time. We don’t wanna keep asking them to to take time off to do this. If they’re gonna take a half day off work, let’s utilize the whole half day and we can utilize technology for the other interviews.
Always make the first interview a video. It’s much easier for everyone to accommodate. When you bring them in let them know “Hey, you’re gonna be here for two hours, maybe three depending.” Give them an agenda so they know exactly who they’re meeting with. They can do a little research on the individual.
Let them know what to expect. That’s being considerate in just setting up that hiring and interviewing process. That’s pretty standard. The next phase is the offer and the negotiation. The mistake we don’t want you to make is we don’t want you to make this transactional.
Sometimes people will say “oh, we like ’em, let’s just shoot ’em out an offer.” As a business owner, you need to get away from these kind of strategies: “I know it’s not as much money as you’re making today, but you gotta trust me. Please quit saying that experience has value.”
You’re excited to hire them because they have the experience and the capacity and all the good stuff you need, and the huge majority of people do not leave a job to take less money. So please get away from that, negotiation tactic. We’ve seen it backfire incredibly.
That’s our job as small business owners. We’re not Google, we’re not Apple. We don’t have clout like that. So we have to prove to them that we’re a professional organization to get them to come across and get excited about the company and culture. So when we get into the offer negotiation it’s important to understand cash is king.
Understand where they’re coming from, ask the questions, keep it an open conversation. Check in with people. And when it comes to being considerate, we have to understand the level of anxiety that exists for that person. Possibly in the first time in their career, they have to resign. They have to go to that boss who they have a personal relationship with and say “I gotta give you my resignation”. It’s hard.
Professionals sweat over this. It’s not a fun conversation to have. I don’t care who you are. It’s not fun. This is where your impact can be the most important. We can put them through a great process and be considerate through the process.
Schedule a FREE Interview with Corey at www.keyhire.solutions/consultation/
(832) 807-9583
info@keyhire.solutions