Taking care of candidates

Imagine this: A candidate applies for a job and was told by the recruitment agency that she would make a perfect match for the role. She managed to secure a client interview. After the interview, she doesn’t hear back anything from the recruitment agency for more than two weeks. Left wondering, she then called the agency to understand the status. To her surprise, the role has already been filled.

How mad would you be if you were in her position?

The recruitment industry is facing many challenges presented by technology, insourcing and a slowly picking up economy. But none’s more deadly to its survival than what it does within when it comes to candidate interactions.

Mess up a candidate’s service experience throughout the hiring process, and you’ll also mess up the company’s employer brand. And that means impacting the ease and cost of attracting and retaining the best talent in the market for our clients.

As preferred recruitment partners to more than 70 leading Australian organisations and 85% of the ASX top 20 companies, we’d like to think that we’ve got a few things right on this topic. We’ve also won Best Attraction & Retention Strategies at the Recruitment Excellence Awards 2012 and the Best Candidate Management Program in 2013.

What did we do?

Purpose

We laser focused on our core purpose that aligns our candidates’ and clients’ success to our own. We’re here to help them achieve success. Prioritising that ensures we indirectly contribute to our own success.

Culture

We’ve always had a strong R.E.S.P.E.C.T. culture. We’ve just re-interpreted it to what it means in candidate management:

  • Recognition: Recognise each candidate’s uniqueness and their values. Recognise every little effort be it responding to emails or completing an assignment / placement. Recognise candidate’s aspirations beyond just completing transactions.
  • Enjoyment: Positive attitude in interacting with candidates. Recognise that candidates are humans who want a positive experience.
  • Support: Offer candidates access to our award-winning L&D opportunities. Structure our company around supporting each other to deliver the best service.
  • Passion: Always strive to find the best opportunities for candidates. Passionate about the technology and business space we are in and the difference it can make to companies.
  • Energy: Proactive in responding to candidate needs.
  • Courage: Encourage and trust our employees to do the right thing by candidates. Encourage innovation with autonomy.
  • Trust: Trusting in our employees to always want to deliver the best outcomes to candidates. Trusting our candidates to perform their best.

Communicate

Internally, it’s important to ensure  that the vision and purpose cascades seamlessly to all employees. Staff are either “on the bus” heading towards the same direction, or they’re off.

Clarity in what’s expected when it comes to candidate service is critical.

Add Value

When most recruitment agencies think about candidate care, they talk about rewards and benefits. There’s WAY more things than that which matters. We seek to add value in every single interaction with candidates.

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