V Is For VALIDATE - Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience

The BFC version of a "love in" continues today.  As we have been discussing, creating the ultimate candidate experience requires that you make every candidate feel L.O.V.E.D.  We started the series with an overview and then moved on to cover both L (for Listen) and O (for Own).  Today we move into a discussion on V and, continuing with our Sesame Street style for this topic, V is for VALIDATE. 

No, I am not talking about Stuart Smalley type validation (you probably have to be over a certain age to get that reference) and this isn't about self help affirmation therapy or anything remotely close to that.  Once a candidate is in process with you or your organization, providing validation at different steps is critical to creating the ultimate candidate experience.  That said, if this tactic is overplayed it could lead to serious problems for you when it comes time to make the offer and close the deal.  Validate as a tactic has to be used very carefully but, when executed well at the appropriate times, it becomes a powerful weapon in creating the ultimate candidate experience. 

Let's take a look at what validating a candidate means and what it looks like.  More after the jump. 

Validating a candidate is more than just saying nice things and affirming their existence.  It can actually be a viable recruiting tactic.  Here are some ways to think about validating candidates, some possible pitfalls that can be created by overdoing it and how to avoid those.

• Congratulate candidates at certain milestones in the recruiting process.  Every organization and recruiter has certain milestones in their recruiting process.  These are significant steps that demonstrate a candidate has advanced to the next step.  Unfortunately this often leads to an "assembly line" mentality in hiring that is extremely dangerous (post to come on this).  That said, each time a candidate reaches one of these milestones and advances it is important to recognize that accomplishment and encourage them.  This is pretty simple really and doesn't take much effort.  We recommend a comment such as "I want to congratulate you on making it to the next step in our process.  We take hiring and selection of talent very seriously and it isn't easy to get to this phase of our process.  Congratulations!"  Very concise, very simple and very validating.  CAUTION:  Don't over validate or let the candidate know they are the only candidate left in the process.  This gives them leverage when it comes to negotiating the offer.  The key here is to validate enough to encourage and draw them into the organization without over selling and giving them leverage.
• Value their time and pay them back for it.  Part of validating a candidate is to recognize they have invested their valuable time in learning about your company and investigating your career opportunity.  Make sure their time is used efficiently and you are aren't wasting their time with lots of dead space during the interview schedule, constant rescheduling of interviews, hiring leaders not on time for interviews etc.  See my previous thoughts here on how to pay them back for their time.
• Recognize unique accomplishments, awards and evidence of high performance.  This is, without question, the most overlooked aspect of engaging a candidate and creating a great experience.  By the time your candidate gets to an interview you ought to have a lot of business intelligence about them, their experience, their performance and any awards or successes they have achieved.  Validate it, talk about it, recognize it and play it up a little bit.  For example, if your candidate has won an award in their field or profession, do a little bit of research on that award and how it is achieved and then let them know your knowledge of the award.  Perhaps say something like "I know about the ERE Recruiting Excellence Award and how hard it is to win one of these select awards.  Congratulations on that achievement."  Not only does this validate the candidate but it opens the door to an interview question.  You can immediately follow up with "Tell me about what you did to achieve the reward.  I am interested in the specifics."  What a great way to get into a behavioral question around what they actually did, why they did what they did and what results they achieved.  The key is to know about successes and high performance of your candidate and then validate that during the interview or at various points during the process.  Your candidate will quickly recognize you and your company as clearly being superior to others because you know about their success and you are talking about it.  So many recruiters and companies see these accomplishments in a candidates background and promptly ignore them or just go to guns asking interview questions about them.  That makes you transactional and not relational.  High performing talent particularly dislikes this approach. 
• What to avoid when validating candidates.  As I said above, be careful not to over do it.  Too much validation too soon can let the candidate know they are a finalist and they will leverage that against you.  As a recruiter, maintaining candidate and hiring leader control is critical.  You will lose control of your candidate if you validate too much and reveal too much.  If you feel you have over validated then push the candidate away with a challenging statement or question such as "This position will require someone who has a demonstrated capacity and proven results leading high performing sales team to achieving even higher goals.  I am still not convinced you have done that."  Pushing them away and seeing how they come back and fight for the position can be helpful to you in compensating for your initial mistake of over validating but it can also be a revealing tactic to determine their level of interest and identify skills and performance you may not have uncovered as of yet.  That said, you can avoid all of this by validating the appropriate amount at the right times rather than over validating or validating too often. 

V is for VALIDATE.  A very useful and often overlooked tactic in creating the ultimate candidate experience.  My recommendations here are really confined to the "blocking and tackling" or fundamentals of validate.  There are many more tactics that can be utilized but I am confident that executing well on these few suggestions will get you and your organization significantly better results related to candidate experience.

Next up on our journey of making candidates feel L.O.V.E.D. is E. 

E is for EDUCATE. 

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[jer]

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