Continually Humanize the Hiring Process
6 Simple Tips for Recruiters and Hiring Managers
Welcome back, frens.
In our episode today, we’re discussing some simple strategies to constantly define and redefine keeping the humanity in your hiring processes.
Humanity will be the most-valuable characteristic of an Ai-everything work-world in our lifetimes, so companies who create an honest, authentic human touch will win, win, win no matter what.
If you are a talent leader, recruiter, or a people leader in any respect, being carefully aware of what exactly your candidates are going through is critical to developing not only a strong candidate experience, but also creating a flywheel effect of a talent attraction brand that can bring you top talent in any market.
Currently (and unfortunately) many companies who are fortunate enough to be hiring in this market are glutting themselves on easy-pickings of top talent they could not have dreamed of touching 6 months ago (even though they still thought they should be able to).
Some of the challenges in the hiring market right now are a self-fulfilling prophecy of companies' increasing proclivity to slashing internal recruiting teams at the slightest market blip faster than a discount clothing store trying to get rid of winter boots in the summer.
Understanding that, like Connor Libutti reminds us, “TA teams are lean [so, they have] less time to dig into applications, interviews, messages, etc.” and that “workloads have increased without any added support.”
Yet, in the current downshift of the market, when candidate applicants outweigh successful hires sometimes 1000:1, many companies are not doing anything at all to inspect the actual hiring process they put their candidates through.
The greatest way to measure the effectiveness of your talent brand is to find out not the experience of hired candidates, but to find out the experience of rejected ones.
Would they still tell their friends about yoru company?
Would they apply for another role if it came up?
If, after they are well-employed again, your recruiters came knocking/begging them to join up, would they give it a second thought?
Companies & recruiters who are not carefully curating their rejected candidate experience right now will find that, when the pendulum swings back (as pendulums tend to do) their company’s talent brand will not only be relegated back to the dust-bin of candidate interest, but they will have hundreds 👏🏽 of 👏🏽 thousands 👏🏽 of new employment brand-haters that will not easily forget how you snubbed them when the market was in your favor, and now you’re begging since the tides have turned.
Below, we have curated 6 simple ways for you to keep the humanity in your candidate rejection process. If you find these helpful, please share them with others and comment on ways that you have found these or other ideas helpful.
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6 Simple Tips to Reject Candidates Humanely
In the fast-paced world of recruitment, it's easy for the human touch to get lost amidst the automated processes and default settings. However, to create a truly welcoming and candidate-centric experience, it's crucial to remove any barriers that may hinder human connection.
In this article, we will explore six simple tips to help recruiters and hiring managers retain the human touch in the hiring process, especially for candidates who may not proceed to the next stage.
By embracing these strategies, you can enhance the candidate experience, build stronger relationships, and foster a more inclusive and compassionate hiring culture.
Revamping Communication Channels
Tip 1: The No-Reply Email is a No-No:
First, eliminate using the impersonal "no-reply" email address. This is the quickest way recruiters can immediately enhance the candidate experience.
Recruiting leaders should change default settings to ensure that emails come directly from the recruiter's email address or, in the very worst case, a team recruiting inbox.
This simple adjustment demonstrates a commitment to open dialogue and signals that candidates' voices are heard and valued.
Streamlining the Resume Review Process
Tip 2: Implementing a Fair and Straightforward Rubric:
A guaranteed way to simplify recruiting process as well as increase inclusive and diverse hiring practices is by creating a pre-defined rubric for resume evaluation.
Yet, in my experience, recruiters usually approach the batch task of raw applicant resume review with less of the precision of a sharpshooter and more of a 1940’s gunslinger cowboy-movie flair.
The reason? While everyone has heard the adage “measure twice and cut once”, most people think they can eyeball it well enough.
I know this takes an extra 5 minutes of time to setup, but leveraging insights from your intake with your hiring manager and/or partnering with your operations team, write down a set of key criteria that you will use to clearly and simply move an inbound applicant forward for further screening or reject them out.
Here are a few suggestions to build a rubric:
Start with non-negotiable items such as the candidate’s location and their ability to be hired by your company both because of where they live and if they have the right to work for you where they live.
This brings up nuanced issues around remote or hybrid work, relocation and work-status sponsorship, which may be on a company-by-company and even job-by-job basis which should be clear and straightforward.
Other items you may include in the rubric are things like:
Salary expectation is within the budgeted range
Experience level seems to match within reasonable range of the role’s expectations
Top three-to-four critical skills of the role are obvious in the resume.
A resume review rubric could be as simple as 4-5 things that each resume needs to have. Avoid getting into grey area, but have a place or a tag or a method in your applicant system to put resumes that were reviewed but need another look when someone’s profile falls in the grey area.
Pro-Tips for Resume Review with a Rubric:
If you walk out of your intake call with a hiring manager and do not have enough information to develop a simple rubric like this, you need to go back to your hiring manager and find out. Don’t fake it! This will burn you sooner or later.
Developing a rubric both reduces bias and reduces your emotional energy requirement in reviewing your job applicants. Give yourself this gift of mental freedom while also being a better human for your applicants.
A rubric makes it easy to ask for help from another recruiter, a recruiting operations team member, or a contractor in screening out the bulk of inbound resume applicants. This gets the knowledge out of your head and helps you scale your work across other team members.
Smart companies will update their job posting with generics about how the applicants will be reviewed. This way, when you reject candidates based on one of these items, you can simply refer to the job description and note that this item is clearly defined.
One hack to this may be to star items (asterisk) them in the job description if they are “required” and then make a simple note at the bottom in footnote format (starting with an asterisk) that says something like:
*Along with other items listed above, these starred items are particularly required for the role and will be carefully reviewed in your application.Make a note in your internal applicant system about why the person is being rejected. It can be a simple one-word answer if it fits the rubric you wrote. Something as simple as “location” or “no visa” can be valuable to future recruiters looking at the profile.
Offering Constructive Rejection
Tip 3: Providing Concrete Reasons for Non-Selection:
Rejection is an inevitable part of the hiring process, but it doesn't have to be disheartening. There is significant value in offering at least one concrete reason why a candidate is not moving forward.
Clear and simple language is key to ensuring candidates understand the decision.
Drawing from the rubric established above, recruiters can provide specific feedback related to criteria such as salary expectations or skill requirements.
Tip 4: Encouraging Feedback and Second Chances:
In your rejection email template, invite candidates to provide feedback if they feel something was missed during the evaluation process. By demonstrating openness to feedback and acknowledging that mistakes can happen, recruiters create an environment that encourages candidates to speak up.
Look, we all make mistakes. But trust is built in being open—being human—about requesting feedback if something was genuinely missed.
Who knows, you may actually find a diamond in the rough whose skills in the role far outshine their skills in resume creation! And they will appreciate you for life because you asked them one additional question and took their response seriously.
This proactive approach can help rectify oversights and potentially uncover hidden qualifications or circumstances that may change the outcome.
Cultivating Lasting Connections
Tip 5: Genuine Invitations to Connect on LinkedIn:
I strongly encourage recruiters and hiring team members to extend a genuine invitation to connect with candidates on LinkedIn, emphasizing that they are open to future interactions and potential collaborations.
These connections can nurture relationships beyond the current job application, and provide critical positive experiences for candidates allowing them to feel open to reaching out—or replying to—future conversations about working with you or your team.
By maintaining an active LinkedIn network, recruiters expand their pool of potential candidates and foster a community-driven hiring approach.
Pro-Tip: Regularly cull out your linkedin connection invites. Yes, nobody likes spam, but connecting to a genuine individual who may not have been right for this role, but could be right for many others, is a valuable add to your professional network. Don’t leave them hanging if they request a connection!
Tip 6: Leveraging Social Media and Job Alerts:
Recruiters should invite candidates to follow their company on social media platforms or subscribe to job alerts. Leverage a strong social media presence to engage with candidates and keep them informed about future opportunities. By establishing a connection beyond the immediate hiring process, recruiters and companies can nurture long-term relationships and build a talent pipeline.
Conclusion:
As recruiters and hiring managers, it is our responsibility to ensure that the hiring process remains human-centric and compassionate.
By incorporating these six simple tips into your recruitment strategies, you can create a more inclusive and supportive experience for candidates, even those who may not proceed to the next stage.
The idea of "Hiring Made Human" emphasizes the importance of consistently seeking and removing humanity-blocking elements to foster genuine connections and elevate the candidate experience.
My hope is that companies can take this challenging time to build a hiring culture that celebrates both the individuals we hire and the individuals we don't, acknowledging their worth and the potential they bring to the table.
Until next time,
Rob
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