The Idea
“Take the time to build a relationship with the candidates coming into your recruitment pipeline”.
This feels a bit like a platitude. Of course you should. It should barely need saying but, in my experience, you don’t often see it done well in reality. Some have the temperament to do this effortlessly. A great recruiter is naturally curious and enjoys talking to people. But many don’t have this natural affinity and more troubling … the organisational systems many of us are working in do not encourage the development of relationships (unless you are working in the headhunting / leadership space where relationship building has always been key).
Traditional transactional recruitment agencies are numbers driven businesses. You quickly learn that recruitment is ‘just a numbers game’. Hit as many people as possible and you will inevitably achieve a placement sooner or later and then be instantly forgotten by the candidate – transaction concluded. If you are a natural relationship builder working in this type of environment you quickly realise the extra investment in a longer call, email exchange, chitchat will negatively hit your performance metrics and you’ll be under pressure to squeeze more touch points in. Ironically, for a conscientious recruiter this is soul destroying.
If you are a talent acquisition professional inside an organisation (aka an internal recruiter), you have probably either come from that same recruitment agency background or from being a HR generalist. You’ve brought your habits with you or you’ve been trained in another anti-pattern – protecting the interests of your organisation as the primary objective. In this world view, candidates … i.e. people outside your organisation, unfiltered, unevaluated, under no contractual obligation … are a source of risk and cost, to be treated with scepticism. Treated as a commodity to be quickly and efficiently ‘processed’.
The numbers tell you (rightly, of course) that most candidates will not become ‘offers’ or employees. So, surely what is most important is identifying those not likely to make the grade as quickly as possible? A quick leap of logic and the mindset can shift to ‘how quickly can I find the reason why this candidate will fail’.
The interaction with the candidate is either cursory, tick-boxing and increasingly automated (the traditional transactional recruitment agency) or dominated by caution, wariness and risk aversion (the HR generalist-dominated internal talent acquisition teams).
These are caricatures of course. Straw people created to make a point. There are great agencies and great internal recruiters … but I paint a picture here that I hope is recognisable – there is a reason this industry is not treated with much respect. And yes, this is just an opinion and probably a bit on the embellished side – but for a reason: to allow a thoughtful discussion for why focusing on relationship building throughout the recruitment process will lead to better results, a better quality of hire and stronger teams.
First though, where do these personal opinions come from? Very simply, I am reflecting on what I’ve heard from the candidates I’ve interacted with over many years. I have always followed a relationship-led approach and, as part of that, take pains to ask candidates how they find my process. A very common theme is an appreciation that, unlike most recruitment interactions they have had, this feels thoughtful, kind, respectful and fair. The candidate feels like they are taken seriously, interest is genuine and they are intrinsically valued. Sadly, this experience is viewed as exceptional (i.e it is seldom experienced).
OK. So … candidates prefer to be treated well, have interest taken in them, not be taken for granted and viewed throughout a recruitment process as a potential successful team member. But does it benefit the hiring company and how?
The benefits of relationship building
Candidates appreciate being treated respectfully, openly and honestly and building a relationship with the candidate can achieve these objectives. But this does take a little more time, a little more planning and skill on the part of the hiring team. You don’t make this investment unless it is worth it for the hiring company. Is it worth it? Absolutely. I don’t think there are huge epiphanies to be discovered here. It is fairly obvious stuff. But … it is worth stating.
First, a clarification. This discussion is particularly suited to the sourcing and recruitment of passive candidates i. e. people you are approaching to consider a position rather than those that ‘need’ a new job and have put themselves out there. Passive candidates tend to be much more discerning, will not easily begin a recruitment process and will walk away quickly if they feel it is not worth their time. Relationship building still works for the active job seekers but, I suggest, it is essential for passive candidates – which is my usual focus.
Your recruitment process must be efficient
Recruitment is ultimately a numbers game. It is necessary to see many candidates to help you confidently hire someone with the best fit. You just shouldn’t think of it that way when interacting with any single individual. Nobody wants to feel like a number being processed.
There is much talk about signal quality in the recruitment process. How do you get good information, that you trust, in an efficient manner? A decent place to start is by being honest, welcoming and friendly. The sooner you shift the interaction from a professional dance of manners, or interrogation or even signal-free small talk, the quicker you enter the zone where signal starts to be received. This isn’t about fooling people to let their guard down. It is about quickly allowing the real human to come out.
When you build an authentic relationship through a recruitment process you generate higher quality information (better signal) at every stage. You generate good signal, you make better decisions. You save the company time and money.
Secondly, honesty and transparency in the process gives candidates the information they need to more quickly understand you, your organisation and the role. They can leave the process when they feel the opportunity is not right for them. A recruitment effort that is all ‘sales’, hides important truths about the role and can keep candidates in the process longer than they should. This costs the organisation money.
Invest in your reputation as an employer
I have worked most often with small startup / scaleup companies that are not widely known. However, they are not invisible. There is more transparency than ever on the quality of working environments through e.g. Glassdoor and wider professional networks. If you are a bad recruiter or a bad employer, good candidates will find this out.
Promising candidates will have done their homework – not just reading the marketing materials on the company website but also understanding competitors, pedigree of existing team members and yes, reputation as an employer. I’d rather not rely on candidate ignorance to persuade a candidate to join me. If they are incurious about a prospective employer then what else will they be incurious about?
Treat every candidate as a potential ambassador for your company, as a source of word of mouth marketing to others and you will not go far wrong. Can a candidate have a bad experience, feel rejected and complain about you on social media? Of course they can. But it is way, way less likely if you treat the candidate respectfully, communicate well with them and be honest with your feedback – even when negative. One of the most common complaints one hears from candidates regarding recruitment processes is a lack of feedback. I have never had a rejected candidate not thank me after receiving feedback. Also, don’t ghost candidates because you’ve not made a decision to proceed with them. Let them know. Let them know why. Let them know in a timely manner. This is basics that we can all get right.
Do this right and your reputation will be enhanced, your network will grow and candidate sourcing will become easier for you. Yes, I’ve had rejected candidates refer their friends and colleagues to me.
Loyalty – the long tail of payback
It does take time and therefore it does cost money to build strong relationships in the recruitment process. If this was just about the ‘sell’ – closing the deal, making the hire – then the numbers might not add up – just follow the transactional approach. Indeed, this is the conclusion reached by many traditional recruitment firms (maybe encouraged by a lack of loyalty by clients – little guarantee of repeat business – everyone treats it as a transaction). They have no skin in the game. All that matters is delivering a candidate that is offered a job and hoping they stay for three months so commission payments are made in full.
The reality of course, is that the value of the new hire has barely started to be seen within three months. Great team members deliver their value over years. The longer someone stays – the more value they deliver to the organisation. An approach that selects candidates that want to engage over the long term, ensures a great culture fit (with the reality not the mythology of the organisation) and commences the employment in the right way will pay back many times over. This is value delivered to the hiring company though – not the recruiter so why should they care to select for and encourage long term loyalty?
Losing battles and winning wars
A good recruiter will play the long game. Recruiting a candidate that is a great fit and you know will stay is more profitable in the long run. But on the other hand, maintaining a good relationship with people who weren’t quite right / ready, we are keeping candidates warm for when the right position arises. This means as well as searching for passive candidates from scratch, we potentially have candidates “ready to go” – not an entry in a candidate database, but a human connection waiting for the right opportunity.
A high quality of hire is the objective
Remember why you are doing recruitment. It is not to make a hire, it is to make a great hire. Hiring mistakes are hugely expensive as we all know. There are, very simplistically, three steps to getting this right:
- identifying the right candidate
- getting them to join you ( ‘closing’ in recruitment-speak)
- integrating them successfully into the team (on boarding)
Identifying the right candidate
This is all about sourcing smartly (where do you think you will find candidates that may be the right fit for your organisation?)
Then, how do you get that quality of signal quickly and effectively as briefly discussed above.
Closing
Closing should not be hard if you’ve got everything right ahead of time. You understand the candidate and what makes them tick. They feel they know what they might be walking into, compensation expectations are already understood – no surprises, the candidate trusts you by this stage, they have seen various team members and there is consistency in what they’ve seen. There is little remaining uncertainty (both you and the candidate have done as much as you can).
If you are both still in the game at this point, it is because neither of you has seen a reason to walk away and, more positively, you can both see a place for the candidate in the team and it excites you. If the candidate hesitates at this stage you have either not done something well enough earlier in the process (commonly a lack of candour somewhere along the way) or external events change – counter-offers from the current employer, competitive offers from other firms or life events.
Onboarding
This is a huge topic and worthy of multiple articles or its own but several considerations can be emphasised:
- the better you know your candidate and the client, the better you can make their onboarding experience
- The better the signal you achieved in interview and evaluation, the more likely it will be that your chosen candidate will cope well with what they have to learn
ensure the relationship building does not stop once the candidate has accepted an offer, it’s invaluable for them to feel supported. - Keep in regular contact, allowing them to mentally, physically and practically prepare whilst reinforcing the cultural norms you put in place throughout the recruitment process
To wrap up
Start from the premise that you are trying to get the best possible hires (within reason) and think through how best to achieve that result. It is a numbers game and you will need to see many candidates and most of them, by definition, will leave the process somewhere along the way. But – if you treat each of those candidates well throughout the process, spend that extra bit of time getting to know them, being flexible and understanding with scheduling conversations, sharing information on the company and role as candidly as possible you will:
- Hire the right people
- Do it quicker than you might expect
- Have them onboard more smoothly (cost effectively)
- Stay with you longer
- And … have unsuccessful candidates still rating you highly
It’s a good deal.
Follow Castelo Green to hear more on this and other matters relating to finding and growing great software engineering teams. Next up are real world tips drawn from my personal experience for how to put this relationship building approach into action.
