One of my clients called me this week. They were a little frustrated and wanted to know why candidate flow was down on a requisition they had given to me. I was happy to reiterate what I had been telling them for awhile.
Sometimes even the best clients – and this has been a good one – need to be reminded of some of the foundational truths in a recruiting relationship. After all, companies are made up of people. Hiring managers are people whose position shifts in an organization over time. Often there are new managers reviewing resumes and deciding action steps. New managers often need to be educated on how to evaluate resumes and candidates.
I explained the calculus I use to determine where I spend my time but much of it comes down to speed of response and quality of feedback.If I discuss a potential role with a candidate and decide to move forward with them there is a reason I feel they match the requirements I have been given and I articulate that in my presentation every time.
When a decision maker reviews my presentation they make a choice to move forward or not. It is that simple.
In my mind I picture a lever – it flips to yes or no. If yes there is a reason why and if no there is a reason why. Having to explain the lever movements drives a kind of accountability that is essential to making good hires. Feedback on yes means I uncover what they are really seeking – and let’s be honest most job descriptions are not written to make that easy. Feedback on no showcases even more important data. What is missing is what they are seeking.
For example a client may say cloud experience and even say Azure, but even that is a big bucket with many moving parts. Specificity is what I am going for here, specificity in matching what they desire – what will move that lever. If the decision makers mental lever gets stuck on maybe the act of summarizing their thinking often moves the lever from maybe to yes or sometimes no. Huzzah! Success!
In this case the decision maker was the hiring manager and he had passed on a candidate with no feedback – even when asked several times. On candidates he moved forward to next steps he had not given any feedback, and even worse, even on those candidates there was no sense of urgency, no momentum. I explained these things to my contact. No information on the lever flips of decisionmaking means I take my foot off the accelerator or sourcing, enthusing and presenting.
They listened. It was a productive call where I planted seeds. We’ll see if they sprout. I could use less friction with this client. I love them and love helping them be successful. I do not love frustration. PS
As we are living through the onslaught of Generative AI and completely drunk on automation of all times it is common for candidates to blame “robots” for screening them out of the process. I talk to enough inside recruiters to know this is rarely the case. Sure we have systems that assist in screening candidates and we all search on keywords. The whole world is drink on keywords and automation but that is a post for another day.
Suffice it to say, it is people writing job description and usually people making decisions about who to move into next steps. The truth is people are often very bad at both, and need training to be better. Any tools we build to assist us in this will most likely have the same issues, too.
But honestly right now it is still people frustrating all of us – internal recruiters, external recruiters and candidates too.
