A black hole is a rare phenomenon in nature. According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, a star eventually collapses on itself, becoming infinitely dense and transforming into a so-called black hole. Any object that encounters one – including asteroids, Lincoln Continentals, entire suns and planets, and even light, cannot escape its infinite gravitational pull. Mr. Einstein would be very surprised to find that in recruiting, black holes are incredibly common. In consulting with companies on the creation of their employment websites, I have the opportunity to speak directly with several job seekers and recently hired employees about their job search experiences. With amazing consistency, the concept of “resume black holes” comes up in our conversations as their number one frustration with the way that companies hire. The conversation usually goes something like this: Recruiter: “How did you find out about and apply for the position at ‘Company X?'” Job Seeker: “I found it on the employment site and then submitted my resume using their resume form.” Recruiter: “How long did it take for someone to reply back to you?” Job Seeker: “I got one of those machine-generated emails back the next day, but I didn’t hear back from a live person for an interview for a month.” Recruiter: “How would you describe the experience of submitting your resume and waiting for a response?” Job Seeker: “Frustrating. Whenever I submit my resume somewhere, I feel like I’m submitting it into a black hole. I didn’t know whether the right person had gotten it, whether I was a fit for the actual position or when the position was filled. I had pretty much given up on it by the time they actually called me.” The Recruitment Transaction Compare the act of applying to an online purchase or customer transaction. To do this, imagine that you’re a customer buying a very important product, like a book you have to finish reading by the end of next week ? you have 14 frantic days to purchase and finish this 300-page book in order to give a presentation to senior management. You find a website that is selling the book in question ? www.books4hr.com. Unfortunately, this website doesn’t tell you up front how long it will take to get the book delivered. You are also dismayed to find that nowhere on the site are there links for Customer Service email address, Frequently Asked Questions or even a phone number to call for more information. Chances are that you would refuse to buy from the site since they’ve already broken almost every rule of online customer service. For the sake of argument though, let’s pretend that this website is the only place you can find this rare book, and you forge on to buy the product because you know you won’t find it anywhere else. Next, you enter your personal and credit card information into a form that takes 1/2 hour to complete, despite the fact that the site does not have a Privacy or Security Policy posted. This is really a fly-by-night company, you think! 3 days pass, and you haven’t gotten confirmation that a real human being got your purchase. You’re getting nervous. 2 more days pass. Now you’re really nervous. You call the company, and leave a voicemail with the one person in book sales with whom the operator will connect you. Pretty soon all 14 days have passed, you’ve got a presentation to give to senior management, and still no book. A week later – 21 days after you attempted to purchase the product – you get a postcard in the mail that tells you that the book was out of stock. The principles of customer service dictate that as a result of your bad experience, you will tell approximately 10 other people about this negative experience with the online bookseller. This sounds like an unrealistic scenario in the world of e-commerce, but it is quite normal in the world of recruiting. Besides the “hot” candidates you interviewed, how many other candidates did you actually respond to immediately or at all? How long were they left hanging about the status of their resume or the position for which they applied? Did you ever follow up with these candidates down the road to see if they still might be interested in your company or have enhanced their skills? Did you set their expectations up front about how long it would take before you contacted them? Resumes are personal, and HR communities are close-knit, meaning that there’s some privacy risks to the job seeker; did you provide job seekers with a Privacy Policy? If you’re like most employers, you did none of the above. A quote from “I’m First: Your Customer’s Message to You” by Linda Silverman Goldzimer is particularly appropriate here: “Would you do business with you?” Candidate Customer Service and One-to-one Recruitment Marketing
As the Internet increasingly becomes the main way that job seekers and companies communicate, candidates are screaming for higher levels of on- and offline customer service from the Recruiting community. The level of support they desire includes immediate emailed responses to their resumes, real-time updates on position status, ongoing communications inviting them to update their resumes or revisit your employment site, follow-up contact information, and more. Here are some of the existing resources that you can use to support candidates in addition to any customized candidate support tools that can be developed and added on to your website.
- An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) should already be providing candidates with customizable automatic email responses, and possibly notifications of when positions are filled.
- An Email Marketing System ? a relatively new tool in the talent wars ? can provide you with the ability to automate broadcast communications with certain types of candidates and establish ongoing one-to-one recruitment marketing relationships to reduce time-to-hires and lower “re-recruiting” costs.
- Your recruiting team should be positioned to provide all the “customer” support candidates need and then some, including feedback, follow-up information, and frequently asked questions.
Companies who are quick to recognize the value of providing higher levels of customer service to candidates will differentiate themselves as employers and spread positive word of mouth about the potential to work at their companies. Those who are late to adopt this customer service philosophy will suffer the setbacks that the online book seller in the example above will face as more and more “customers” respond by backing out of their transactions or (even worse) telling 10 friends that the site isn’t worth visiting or buying from. <*SPONSORMESSAGE*>