Bearing Fruit Consulting

Hanging Out With The Cool Kids at Fistful Of Talent

Michael Homula — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:17:59 -0400

Just wanted to point you all in the direction of my latest post over on Fistful Of Talent. The title of the post is Hanging With The Cool Kids In The Talent Pool and it appears today.

I consider the whole posse over at FOT to be "cool kids" so I feel as though I am blessed to be in their company. Seriously, there are some really smart, witty and innovative HR and recruiting practitioners in that group.

I still can't figure out how I got into that group!

Another Letter From Fred Hockett - Recruiting Leader Serving in Iraq

Michael Homula — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:10:26 -0400

As regular readers of this blog know, we have been sharing the story and letters of Fred Hockett. Fred is a recruiting leader from Michigan who was called to active duty in January and is currently serving in Iraq. I have talked previously about Fred and I admire his leadership, recruiting knowledge, courage and commitment to his country. He is a great guy and I want to continue to share his story with our readers.

Before I share Fred's latest letter, written on June 17th, I want to point out that at the end of his recent communication he indicates he is open to answering any questions (that he can without jeopardizing himself, his men/women or the mission) that you might have. If you have any questions send them to me via email at mhomula@bearingfruitconsulting.com and I will be sure to pass them along to Fred and we will post your question and his answer in a future post.

Also, if you want to follow Fred via his own blog there is a lot more information and detail there. The blog was primarily set up for his family and friends to keep up with him, his activities and just generally know what is going on. It is a great blog and I encourage you to check it out.

Without further ado, here is Fred's latest letter!

I'm sorry about the delay in writing you. We've been moving at a pretty rapid pace here, and as you can imagine I've been doing everything to just keep in contact with family. It's surprising how quickly time passes. I'm almost at 4 months in theater. Things are still very challenging, but rewarding. The easiest task is made very difficult due to proximity to logistics. Needless to say we don't have a Home Depot to go to when we can to do a room renovation. I find myself working on that type of thing most often, coordinating logistics. It's a great deal of fun.

As you are probably reading in the paper things are quieting down. The Iraqi military and police have undertaken several operations in the area to quell the violence and they are doing a pretty good job. Our teams are out working with them on a regular basis and we have people coordinating with the Ministries all the time. We all continue to see progress every day... most of it is the tangible, physical progress: Construction projects, new roads, graduating police officers, etc. It's the other, less tangible, results that are even more encouraging: the coaching and mentoring going on, people "getting it" after working very hard to understand our methods, Iraqis taking the lead on operations. These are the critical bricks in our path home.

I'm very excited about my vacation in August. My dad, brother and I will be heading out for a guys weekend. I'm also attending the wedding of a friend in Kalamazoo and visiting other friends in Chicago. After I return here, I'm down to 4 months left and I return to states in January. Crazy how time flies.

I'll close for now, but if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them. My job is a lot of different things, but nothing really exciting enough to write about. It would be boring if there wasn't so much of it. :) Have a great day and I look forward to visiting while I'm at home.

Your friend,

Fred

What If Karl Marx Were The Director of Recruiting?

Michael Homula — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:45:00 -0400

My partner in crime at Fistful of Talent, Tim Tolan, had an excellent post yesterday entitled Looking For Talent? Always Look Outside Your Company. It is part of a point/counter point discussion between Tim and the mighty Kris Dunn for a Workforce Management series. I have many thoughts on this topic so I decided to share some of them with you here.

I am going to come right out and say it. I think organizations with documented process or policy that require them to look at and/or hire internal talent absent a side by side comparison with external talent are practicing a form of talent management/recruiting communism. Let me explain.

When I was the Director of Talent Acquisition at Quicken Loans we had a saying within the organization that went something like "What got us where we are will not get us where we want to go." The point is that what you have done and the work you have done up until this point will not necessarily breed success in the future. Great organizations need to constantly evolve and get better. Rarely can this type of performance improvement evolution happen without an influx of talent from outside the walls of the organization. Constant promotion from within is a form of corporate "inbreeding" that is dangerous and often leads to innovation stagnation, acceptance of norms, inefficiency and general acceptance of mediocre performance.

More after the jump!

Tim has already made many of the same points I would have made (probably more eloquently as well) but to be more dramatic (imagine that) I equate this practice of only looking "within" to a form of communism. It is the Karl Marx philosophy of hiring and talent management if Karl Marx were a Director of HR or Talent Acquisition. On a quick side not, notice that Karl Marx has his hand in his jacket, Napoleon style, in the picture I used. That is because he has heart burn over how bad his ideas are not because everyone of his time posed for pictures in this odd manner.

Back to the topic. This type of internal focus in hiring virtually ensures that the very best don't get the job, only the very best within a specific organization. What if the very best within a specific organization isn't really that good? What if the very best within an organization isn't good enough to take the team, division or company where they need to go in order to get better performance, greater efficiency etc.? Employing this approach virtually ensures that the very best don't get the job because the very best might not even get consideration. There is no competition for the open position. Lack of competition, as we have learned with communism, doesn't work out so well.

This is why so many organizations with an intense union presence are literally bleeding out because of inefficiency, lack of performance and lowering of quality in order to feed a union mentality of entitlement. Nothing comes closer to communism in America than unions. Under the guise of looking out for the "common laborer", unions have successfully created an environment where good old American business values such as pay for performance, promotion based on performance alone and making business decisions that are right for the customer and/or business are secondary to tenure based pay, next in line gets the promotion and demanding concession after concession regardless of the impact on the customer or business. Many unions have succeeded in creating their Utopian world of workplace equality by ensuring that all are equally likely to eventually lose their jobs because unions are bleeding companies to death. No where is this more vividly portrayed than in the promotion, job posting and internal transfer policies that unionized companies are forced to follow. Policies that almost assure an organization will not put the best talent in the open position but, rather, the next talent in the open position.

What is more frustrating and perplexing is that non-unionized companies have built career opportunity, job positing, promotion and talent acquisition strategies on these same principles. This effectively ensures a low performing organization by preventing competition in the recruiting and selection process.

When it comes time to fill an open position it is right and equitable to look at internal talent. It is also right, equitable, in the best interest of the business, in the best interest of the shareholders and in the best interest of American corporate health that companies create a situation where internal talent competes with and is evaluated against external talent.

I think this will ensure that the very best person gets the job. What a novel concept!

E Is For EDUCATE - Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience

Michael Homula — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:01:00 -0400

All You Need Is L.O.V.E.D. and the BFC "love in" on how to create the ultimate candidate experience continues. It's probably a good idea to recap where we are and what we have covered.

First, we introduced the basics of creating the ultimate candidate experience in the form of an acronym - L.O.V.E.D. The goal is to make every candidate feel L.O.V.E.D.

We then began breaking down our acronym and started, logically, with L is for LISTEN, moved on to O is for OWN and then V is for VALIDATE. The emails on this topic have been very interesting and there has even been some discussion of these posts around the blogosphere. Many have requested that I share a template for a Candidate Bill of Rights which I will be sure to do in a later post.

Let's move on to our next letter in the acronym - E is for EDUCATE. More after the jump.

Too often, recruiters and HR professionals believe that educating candidates is all about giving information and providing materials about the position and company. In truth, in order to create the ultimate candidate experience, educating is much more significant than just providing information.

In the context of creating a meaningful, transparent and unique candidate experience educate becomes a highly interactive exchange between the recruiter and the candidate. Here are a few primary objectives of educating candidates that go well beyond just giving information.

Educate to gain agreement on the information provided. Providing information is good but great recruiters get the candidate to agree to what they learned. Asking questions at key moments of education about the job, hiring leader or company causes the candidate to have to slow down mentally in the recruiting process and really evaluate what they are learning. Candidates take this information and plug it into their decision making criteria around their career. A great recruiter helps the candidate through this process by educating properly, remaining transparent, providing detailed answers to candidate questions and responding with a sense of urgency to each of the candidate requests for information. Ask questions of the candidates such as: "How does what you have learned about our organizational mission fit into your career objectives?". Not only will you know that the candidate is becoming properly educated you are also able to learn about how they see themselves in your organization. From a candidate experience perspective the candidate is left feeling as though you are taking the time to make sure they are thinking about their career properly. Candidates walk away after being properly educated feeling as though you care as much about their career as they do.
Educate to maintain control of the candidate throughout the process (conditional invitation). Candidate control is critical to recruiting success. Most recruiters lose control way too early in the process or at key moments in the recruiting process. Once control is lost it is often difficult to get back. One way to gain control and never relinquish it is to get conditional acceptance of important items in exchange for information. When a candidate asks a question, or indicates they aren't comfortable with some aspect of the position, a great recruiter will gain conditional acceptance to move forward in exchange for providing the information the candidate desires or overcoming some other objection. Educating and providing meaningful and much needed information to a candidate not only creates a great experience but is a useful and important tool in maintaining candidate control.
Ensure the candidate has fully absorbed the most important aspects of the information. Actually quizzing or testing candidates during the process to make sure they have taken in and learned all of the vital information necessary is a great tool. High performers understand that being properly educated about a role, the hiring leaders and organization is critical. When they are challenged they typically respond favorably and enjoy the opportunity to show off what they have learned. Now, I am not advocating that you send your candidates a written essay examination but pushing back at specific points in the process with a question such as "Our mission is not only a statement for show but actually how we go about our daily work lives at ABC Company. We want to make sure our mission is clear to each of our candidates and that we have done a good job of displaying that mission in our recruitment process. Can you define our mission and how our mission fits in with your career goals?" High performers won't bat an eye at this request. In fact, high performers look at this challenge as a meaningful candidate experience. It shows you are serious about who gets hired and shows a concern about how their career goals mesh with the overall mission of the organization. Low performing talent, those that are more motivated to get the job rather than do the work, will be put off and not likely respond favorably to this request. You will learn much by pushing back to discover if your candidates are fully absorbing the information you are using to educate them but also create a better experience.
Remove any questions or doubts about the position, hiring leader and/or company from the candidates mind. The amount, quality and transparency of education you provide to a candidate is directly related to the level of confidence the candidate has in you as a recruiter and in your organization. The more willing and detailed you are in educating a candidate the more confidence they have. This leads to more success at go time - the offer. Great recruiters never make an offer when there is even the slightest amount of doubt about whether or not it will be accepted. Making offers that never get refused is an art form. Education is a very important element of that art. Not only does it continue to demonstrate your aptitude as a recruiter as well as your organizations willingness to respond urgently with requests for information and education, educating candidates relieves them of doubt or anxiety about the position, hiring leader and/or company. Nothing makes for a better candidate experience then being comfortable, having no doubt and walking through the process with little or no anxiety. Educating candidates effectively addresses each of these common candidate issues.

There is much more to educating candidates to create the ultimate candidate experience but not enough room or time here to tackle them all. Executing well as a recruiter in educating your candidates will not only ensure a great experience but, as we have demonstrated, clearly lead to more success in recruiting results.

Next time we will tackle the last letter of our acronym - D is for DELIVER.

V Is For VALIDATE - Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience

Michael Homula — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:00 -0400

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.

Omaha Stylee Did Not Think There Was One - Maren Hogan Over On FOT

Michael Homula — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:17:52 -0400

Juiced the title a bit here with a lyric from 311. Maren Hogan, from Omaha, Nebraska, shows us a little of her Omaha Stylee today over at FOT. Her post, Like Paris Hilton, You've Got To Work It To Be A Good Recruiter... gets into some interesting ideas around what sourcing and recruiting really are as well as what the perception of those concepts might be.

An interesting discussion is starting to unfold with her post as well. Of course, never without an opinion, I jumped into the comments and discussion myself.

Maren is an up and coming recruiting professional who has a pretty diverse background outside of recruiting. She is fun to talk to and fun to read (her blog is Big O Recruiting)because she hasn't been in recruiting forever and thus has some unique perspectives. Because of her minimal recruiting industry experience it is also fun to watch her learn and grow in this space right before our very eyes.

By the way, I found an old school skater video using 311's Omaha Stylee as the backdrop music. It is pretty funny and if you want to check it out it can be found after the jump.

Here is the video. I think it is hysterical. Omaha Stylee is one of my favorite 311 songs of all time and, to the best of my knowledge, they never made a video for it. These old school skaters decided to resolve that matter and make one for us. Enjoy!

Moving from ATS to TRMS Over at FOT

Michael Homula — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:48:09 -0400

Is that enough of an acronym tease for ya?

Just a quick note to alert you all to one of my latest posts over at Fistful of Talent on converting your ATS to a TRMS. I provide some guidance on how to take your ordinary, process swamped, compliance focused, administrivia driven Animal Tracking System and tweak it to start getting more TRM from it.

Have a read...if you aren't sick of reading my stuff yet.

Jessica Lee On How Lame Careerbuilder Is...errr...Has Always Been

Michael Homula — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:44:12 -0400

I have become quite the fan of Jessica Lee. She is a cohort on my other gig over at Fistful of Talent who is smart, brash and has just enough of that "take on the world" mentality to make her just my type. In short, I dig her approach and the way she thinks.

Today she unleashed on Careerbuilder and their lame marketing ploys. Careerbuilder has really sunk to new lows since the funny, witty and engaging monkey bits during the Super Bowl. Her post is strong and got me so fired up I let loose a tirade in the comments section of her post.

I recommend you check it out!

If, for some odd reason, you want to just read my comments you can do so after the jump.

Ok, you really just wanted to read what I said about this without reading Jessica's great post? Suite yourself but it just isn't as much fun. Here is what I said:

Another great post from Jessica Lee. I am becoming quite the stalker...errr...fan.

I have long said that using job boards to recruit and find high performers was the recruiting equivalent of fishing in a lake or ocean using a fishing net. Sure, you will catch a few fish but you have to sort through the syringes, wet diapers, boots, body part, used condoms etc. to get a few good fish. Not worth the effort.

Careebuilder has now proven this point by their actions. Sadly CB, along with many other job boards, believe they are able to attract high performing passive talent with these shenanigans. All they really attract are the same old, lame, tired, low performing active job seekers that are already trolling their job boards looking for the next job they can quit in the next three months. The applicant equivalent of syringes, wet diapers, boots, body part, used condoms etc.

What CB and their band of job board misfits don't get, and clearly never will, is that high performing passive talent NEVER use job boards to find their next career opportunity. Does anyone else find it oxymoronic that they call themselves CAREERbuilder but repeatedly refer to JOBS on their website? There is a difference between a career and a job you know.

Ok, I have calmed down now...back to actually finding high performing passive talent and teaching my clients to stop wasting ridiculous sums of money on using fishnets when they can use a depth finder and target the very best.

O Is For OWN - Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience

Michael Homula — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:23:18 -0400

The All You Need Is L.O.V.E.D series on creating the ultimate candidate experience and a candidate bill of rights is continuing today. Last week we looked at the first letter in our acronym L.O.V.E.D when we focused on L is for LISTEN.

Logically, today we move on to O. O is for Own. I am confident that nothing will get you more bang for your buck, so to speak, than executing well with OWN.

Time and time again we hear from candidates in survey after survey about how they fall into some mysterious black hole or abyss when they apply for a position or talk to a recruiter. I think it is the same black hole where socks seem to disappear to in the dryer. If you want to get significantly better results as a recruiter or a recruiting organization you can do yourself a favor and get vastly better at owning your candidates. Just raising the bar a fraction in this area will set you apart from virtually every other recruiting organization.

That last statement is a sad indictment of our industry I suppose but it is true. Recruiters and recruiting organizations are so bad at this aspect of creating the ultimate candidate experience that just being decent at it will put you head and shoulders above the rest.

So what does OWN actually mean you ask? Great question, let's take a look.

The concept of OWN in the context of L.O.V.E.D and committing to it in a Candidate Bill of Rights means that the recruiter will take ownership ofthe candidate and what they experience once they are in process.

There are many ways to define this but a few simple things to think about and execute are:

Take full responsibility for every aspect of the candidate experience. Nothing falls through the cracks or gets missed. Schedules are detailed and tightly integrated and each interviewer and/or hiring leader knows exactly where the candidate is to be at any given moment in their day. More importantly, the candidate has the schedule, knows who they are meeting, has bio's on each person they are meeting with and clearly understands each persons role in the organization. Directions to your building and interviews are clear, precise and you follow up with your candidates to make sure they know exactly where they are going.
All questions get answered quickly. Your turnaround time for candidates in process needs to be prompt and consistent. This will often mean you are virtually "on call" with your candidates but you will clearly stand out against other recruiters if you execute this well. Your hiring leaders need to be coached on why this is important as well and when you have questions that are dependent on their expertise and knowledge they need to get back to you quickly to ensure your candidate gets the attention they deserve.
Each aspect of the candidate experience is customized and tailored to candidate needs, likes and interests. This means you actually have to know a little about your candidate and ensure that the experience they have reflects what you know. Nothing impresses a candidate more than when their personal interests show up in their recruitment process. This is especially true for passive candidates. I was once recruited by Microsoft for a leadership role in their recruiting department. They knew I liked jazz music and arranged for my wife and I to attend a jazz club one night during my interview process. Nice touch! Jason Warner, formerly the Director of North American Staffing at Starbucks and now with Google, is exceptional at creating a customized and personal candidate experience.
Value their time and commit to making their time valuable. Essentially you need to realize that every moment they spend with you or with your company is time they are not spending at their current employer, looking for a new opportunity or spending time with their family. Their time is valuable and you have to make every moment count. When I was the director of talent acquisition at FirstMerit Bank in Ohio we used to give movie tickets to the candidates we interviewed with a note. The note said that we knew their time was valuable and we appreciated that they chose to spend that valuable time learning about career opportunities with us. We went on to say that we wanted to give them back a few hours of that investment by sending them to the movies on us. Not very expensive and certainly a good experience.

Those are just a few ideas that help to create the ultimate candidate experience and one more step in making your candidates feel L.O.V.E.D.

OWN each candidate. Commit to doing so in a Candidate Bill of Rights. Executing well in this area will set you apart from every other recruiter and create positive grassroots buzz about you, your recruiting team and your organization.

In the next part of our series we will take a look at V.

V is for Validate.

L is for Listen - Creating The Ultimate Candidate Experience

Michael Homula — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:48:49 -0400

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.