Back on May 20th I introduced the series Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience = All You Need Is L.O.V.E.D. I had a few emails asking questions about the difference between applicant and candidate experience. This is an an important question and one I plan to address in detail in future posts but, since that is not the focus of this series, I will quickly state that applicants should have a good experience and ease of use. Candidates need to get the Ultimate Experience as they are more likely to talk about their experience with others because they actually interacted with you and your organization. The potential for viral impact, both positive and negative, is greater with those that actually engage with your company thought phone screens, interviews and other personal interactions.
To quickly recap, I stated in the introduction to this series that to create the Ultimate Candidate Experience you need to make your candidates feel L.O.V.E.D., an acronym with the following meaning:
- L = Listen
- O = Own
- V = Validate
- E = Educate
- D = Deliver
Let's get this discussion started with the first one, LISTEN.
In some respects I touched on this in our series on How To Hire Great Recruiters when we talked about Spoken Communication. That really only uncovered the behavioral competency of spoken communication, which includes listening, in great recruiters. Certainly this is a situation where the behavior probably comes before the activity that makes for a great candidate experience but I am not going to rehash that idea here.
When it comes to creating the ultimate candidate experience LISTEN is incredibly important. Every candidate needs to really experience what has become a novel idea when interacting with recruiters - the experience of not only being heard but listened to. Recruiters love to talk. I too love to talk (anyone who has met me knows this). Because we love to talk we often spend very little time listening. Candidates complain in survey after survey, including one we did at BFC last year, that recruiters and hiring leaders aren't listening to them during the recruiting process.
Listening is really about being present with your candidates when you are on the phone with them, interviewing them and interacting with them. Don't type on your computer, hand-held device or whatever you use, don't answer the phone in the middle of the conversation and don't put them on hold unless the building is on fire.
Hang on their every word, understand the meaning of what they are saying, ask appropriate probative questions that not only demonstrate you are listening but help you to uncover who the candidate really is in consideration for the position. Candidates deserve this. When you are present and listening they know it and they feel the unique difference you bring to the relationship that most other recruiters do not. When they experience this type of attention and feel this level of importance they talk about it.
When you develop your candidate bill of rights be sure to commit to your candidate that you will listen to them, be present in the relationship and commit to engaging them in a transparent manner that puts them first.
In the next post in this series we will talk about OWN, the second letter and tactic in making candidates feel L.O.V.E.D. and creating the ultimate candidate experience.
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