With this age of artificial intelligence and less and less interpersonal connection, I look at the job hunting/hiring process and chuckle to myself. Hiring managers and recruiters seem to forget that this is a significant life decision for people.
If you are in a position to hire people, remember to you it may be a job req, but to the person you are looking at it is a major life choice for them. I have a few ideas/suggestions for you:
- Return messages, emails, calls etc. Even telling a person they are no longer under consideration is better than just letting them twist in the wind waiting to hear back from you.
- Set a reasonable timetable for the process. My last job hunting process, i spent almost five months interviewing and waiting for response from one position. (Yes, i do understand some positions do require that kind of runway, but being brought in as an IT consultant for a 6 month contract is not one of them). The sad part is, after all of that, I got a phone call from the recruiter I was working with on the day I accepted another offer, asking if I had time to review their offer. By that time, I was so turned off by their process, I did not want to work there. The position i took, had spent three weeks from start to finish, and that was with us agreeing to take a one week break since they had a major project going live.
- Explain what the hiring process looks like. Don’t keep mysteriously add rounds of interview. In this age of video interviews it is not so bad, but having to take half a day or full day off work to go onsite for an interview was a significant commitment, especially for a company I may not want to work with.
- Return feedback in a timely manner. I have to give props to Skyline Technologies, when I went through their hiring process. They had quite a few rounds of interviews, but they were identified up front, and more importantly I received quick feedback. The day after each interview, I would get a message that explained they wanted to continue forward, and they would be scheduling the next interview, and asking for availability windows.
- Keep skill and experience expectations reasonable. The number of Junior positions i have seen posted that want five years of experiences is absurd. Having a required skill set of thirty different technologies seems a little excessive. Also look at realistic experience expectations, having seeing posts wanting 10 years of experience with software that was only developed six years ago seems a little much. The picture above, asking for 5-7 years of experience within the last five years was the catalyst for me writing this post.
Have a great day, not sure when the next post will be up….