Why Kindness During the Recruitment Process Pays

In a month where many people choose to publicly celebrate their love for another human being, it seems fitting to look at why we should all be promoting our love for the human race in our corporate lives.

Anyone that's read past blogs I've written will know I have a tendency to bang on about this. And I will continue to. Endlessly.

Many recruiters still argue that because time is money, time spent dealing with unsuitable applicants is time wasted, therefore a great cost, when annualised.

Inserts expletive

Here's why being kind during the recruitment process pays.

An unsuitable applicant today might be the perfect applicant tomorrow

And they'll remember how you made them feel. You know, when they had two interviews for that job and you didn't even bother to tell them why they didn't get it. They found out when someone they were connected to on LinkedIn updated their profile to show they got it.

True story.

A year later, the person you hired is on the move and the applicant you offended would be spot on as a replacement, with that extra twelve months under their belt and a couple more papers completed towards their professional qualification. Only they wouldn't touch you with a bargepole and you've got the cost of starting the recruitment process again.

Because people who have a good experience will recommend you

My business helped a, now large highstreet, manufacturer/retailer recruit almost their entire accounts department so they could grow, before they hired a recruitment team, booted us out and the new incumbents wouldn't even return a call.

I used to spend quite a bit of my marketing budget with them, as well as personal gifts. And when they were hiring directly, without my input, I recommended them to jobseekers.

I won't step foot in their shops now and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone as an employer because they treated us poorly. The loss of revenue I generated is likely represented by a number in the sixteenth decimal place, but I don't send job seekers to their customer services team for free.

Recruitment agencies will want to work with you

If you work with recruitment agencies, you might think you hold all the cards. What work you pass to who, how things will play out, how much you'll pay, when you'll pay, the rebate terms etc.

It's 2022 and finding talent has been getting harder every year for many years. We've had a pandemic, there remains a talent shortage, recruitment agencies are highly skilled people, persistent, with thick skin. We expect transparency, honesty, feedback, mutual respect.

Kindness.

We don't like working with difficult people who begrudge paying us for our efforts.

So we don't.

We're probably busy working with one of your competitors right now.

Because we owe it to each other

You never know what someone else is going through and anyone that's out of work or desperately unhappy at work will find the recruitment process particularly emotive.

Getting the job they've applied for might be critical to their well-being.

Please don't make their life any harder.

So, they didn't meet the requirements of the job? It happens. It might even be partly your fault because your advert was poorly written, with an obscure job title.

It's easy enough to send an acknowledgement of receipt of an application. And to send a courteous response if they have been unsuccessful. Even with the lack of a professional Applicant Tracking System, Outlook will do it for you in Quicksteps.

You open the application, you review, you press 'reject' and the email is sent. If the application is really baffling, that process took all of five seconds.

We all have five seconds.

Clarity Appointments is an independent recruitment agency specialising in accountancy and office vacancies. With a registered office in Stevenage, situated between St Neots and Cambridge, we work within Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, with some clients further reaching due to work won through referrals.

Clare Wight is the founder and Managing Director of Clarity Appointments, an independent recruitment specialist. She served as a Regional Director for The Employment Agents Movement, supporting other independent recruiters.

She remains an active member of Recconnect (formerly Members Only), a recruitment leadership network promoting high ethical standards, collaboration, diversity, equity and inclusion.

She believes business owners are more fulfilled and higher-performing when they provide emotional and professional business support to other business owners, even those they deem to be competitors. She does this actively, whilst challenging and updating her skills and knowledge of the recruitment sector, enabling her to offer the best advice to firms looking to make their next hire.