Candidates are also “potential clients”: recruitment as a two way process

On the 31st of May 2012 I attended a professional marketing conference in Barcelona ( Hoy es Marketing) http://www.hoyesmarketing.com/agenda_barcelona.php

At the end of the conference I tweeted the following ” We have to believe that we can do things differently” A. Gómez ” “Creating a link using  quality and a personable approach” Flor de Esteban

Marketing professionals message was simple: honesty, integrity and creating an environment which was able to transmit emotion and human warmth.

The conference started with  a recurrent theme ” the lack of trust and client´s anger“. ” Clients are determined to take advantage of companies and operators, they also have a capacity of spreading their anger and ruining companies reputation, when they have suffered a bad experience.

For that reason it was highlighted “the importance of integrating client´s perceptions every time they become in touch with the company and also when we make decisions” ( Flor de Esteban)

To achieve client´s loyalty requires listening, human touch, sincerity and modesty.

While I was listening to all these concepts; emotion, quality, social media power, building stories that connected with consumer´s emotions, creating brand value… experiences of recruitment and selection processes in Spain came up to my mind, immediately I wrote the following: ” candidates are also potential clients, they are consumers, travelers, business creators… Why I was writing that?

My experience as interviewee and interviewer during the last 10 years has been intense and diverse. Used to interview and be interviewed by competences, with detailed job descriptions and person specifications, opening and closing deadlines for the application process and responses of regret for being unsuccessful  not only as a finalist but also as a participant, Spanish recruitment and selection practices left me in a state of shock and disbelief.

In the current economic climate companies are receiving thousands of applications which need to be filtered. Unfortunately many times companies don´t have the human and technological resources to perform a professional and transparent process.  Was that the reason- I asked myself?  I felt the response came from not having professional human resources practices instead of blaming the lack of resources…

In the current situation you can feel there is an attitude of arrogance spreaded around some employerswhich have decided to be extremely exigent and filtering with draconian requirements. Most of us will think that this is normal due to our economic situation, they can do as they please, isn´t it?

Spain has a common practice of not communicating to rejected applicants– not even participants that have gone through different recruitment stages and also at the final stage. Spaniards know that if they have not been called is that they have been rejected. Why bothering communicating  a bad new and having the chance of giving some feedback?

I could write an interesting summary of my experience in Spain but I think that the important thing is to highlight marketing professional´s message. A message that can be applied to all recruitment and selection processes. Technology might provide us with great tools to help us to deal with large volume of applicants but professionalism and having a personal approach that keeps a good brand image will benefit everyone.

In conclusion, Human Resources Departments should use all the resources they need to guarantee professionalism and good HR practices. Also a response to candidates is needed more than ever. Remembering that candidates are also clients or potential clients and they can use the social media to express their anger and disagreement. I remember a UK case where applicants were also supermaket consumers , they became upset and decided not to consume in the supermarket anymore…

A two way process is not a nice to have but a must have that benefits everybody.