Recruiter Stories #10: Three Tips for Employers on How to Wreck a Selection Project

References Are Important

During every full-cycle personnel selection project, one of the indispensable parts of a recruiter's work is to ask a candidate for reference contacts from previous workplaces and to get in touch by telephone to discuss the candidate's achievements, personality or team relationships. One iron rule that every recruiter observes - never call the current workplace, so that the candidate who is thinking about changing companies does not encounter complications or misunderstandings in their relations with their current management. It may happen that participation in the competition ends with nothing tangible - that is, the candidate continues working at the company for another year or two.

So here is what happened: a project for a client in the construction sector, for a rather complex engineering position. Starting the project we reached the conclusion that specialists like this are not lying around in the Latvian market - headhunting would be required. All right, the project was nearing completion and the recruiter was preparing the candidate for the final interviews with the next potential employer.

At the same time, the company director - the potential new employer - having received the final candidate's profile from the recruiter and recognising a familiar workplace name, went and called his "old buddy" (the director of that company), to joke around and ask what was causing his specialists to flee and whether it was worth taking him on. "The old buddy" naturally paused - who was fleeing? His engineer who had worked for him for almost ten years? You must be joking?!

Instead of a moral to the story - a trick question: what do you think, how did things subsequently unfold between the engineer with seniority and the existing employer? Second question - what did the candidate think about the recruitment process as such? (At least he stopped answering phone calls.) When my colleague learned what had happened and tried to explain to her client what he had done, there wasn't a trace of embarrassment in his eyes, only dissatisfaction that he still had no candidate who wanted to work for him.

So, Tip No. 1 - if you want to wreck a selection project, call the workplace where your candidate being recruited currently works.

A Joke to One Is an Offence to Another

We are all very different. Some, who can switch to first-name terms with a stranger in the first minute of a conversation, coquettishly wink or start calling someone by a pet name; others, who always need time and a certain distance with people they are meeting for the first or even the fifth time, and the trust threshold that must be crossed is still quite high.

So there was this employer - quite a jovial gentleman in his prime - who had a habit of calling everyone by pet names, starting with the recruiter, who was his "little one", all the way to the female candidates. When the recruiter tried to tactfully point out to him not to do that with the candidates, as it could cause misunderstandings, he brushed it aside - it's just a joke.

Final interview. The young woman is nervous, trying to answer all the interview questions with the right attitude (a very normal reaction when we try to make a good impression on people whose decisions matter to us). Then, as if in passing, she receives from this employer the question: "So, lass, how about the demographic question - shall we grow the Latvian people? I had one female employee who came in, barely lasted half a year, and now she's sitting at home with two kids. No, I'm not having that (laughs). What about you on this question?" A sharper-tongued candidate would have given an equally sharp refusal or joked back, but this girl became even more flustered. Walking out of the interview room, she only whispered to the recruiter: "I'm sorry, but I won't be working here."

The recruiter had to put in considerable effort over the next two or three days to preserve the mutual professional "recruiter–candidate" relationship and to politely explain the essence of the situation - that not all employers in Latvia are such a...... .

Tip No. 2 - feel free to consider yourself the most clever person in the world, don't hesitate to ask offensive questions or address people around you in a professional environment with pet names, especially if they are of the opposite sex or young, calling them "little one", "lass", "kiddo" and the like. It's just a joke, after all!

Three's a Crowd

A selection project in a region, again a rather complex technical vacancy. I am driving (literally, as I invite candidates to join me in my car so they don't spend money on travel) one candidate after another to final interviews. One is too young and inexperienced in practical production (has finished university and now works there himself, teaching a subject related to the specialisation). The next arrives with an earring and in a t-shirt to the job interview (I try to object that this is a factory and he will be sitting in a small booth at a computer with drawings, where no one will see him, and besides all other employees wear work clothing - there is not even a unified work uniform there). The employer replies that this is disrespect to him, full stop, and so on with objections about the next four candidates.

Internally I am angry at myself, because my stubborn nature and professional ego have taken over (advice to colleagues - never be so pig-headed). With my head I clearly understand that the time had long come to give up on this project; I am burning my time, energy and money to prove something to someone - that I am the best recruiter and can bring a super candidate to a village in the middle of nowhere where they will work and feel like they're in paradise.

The last straw on my patience was the situation with the final candidate, who was hired but the employer still remained ultimately unsatisfied, because he was spending time learning specific production matters on the computer. But this story is not directly about this candidate, but about the penultimate one.

The company has a corporate event all day outdoors. I even ask again - is it really the right moment to meet both of the last two candidates? Yes, of course, bring them over! With a time delay we arrive by car from Riga; the first candidate, who has driven himself from another direction, is visible shuffling about some distance away from a modestly laid table. I go over and ask - well, have you already spoken? Have you reached any agreement? (this was a repeat meeting with the employer; the candidate had again driven some 40 km to the factory) No, the production manager hadn't really had time, but would be coming shortly. So now the three of us are shuffling about, because there is truly nobody from management left at the factory, and the mobile phone is not being answered.

The production manager arrives and starts a conversation with the second candidate, having already met the first once before. The finance manager also arrives. I congratulate them on the occasion, with a small symbolic gift. We chat warmly, everyone is in good spirits. Then I ask - so when will they speak again with the first one, who has been shuffling around nearby for 40 minutes already? I received a crushing reply: "Tell him to go, to drive away. I can see from his eyes that the production manager has taken a liking to the other candidate." Moreover, this was said loudly enough that I have no guarantee the first candidate did not hear it all clearly. Wow!

Tip No. 3 - feel free to ignore or treat dismissively those candidates who, by your own measure (appearance, manner of speech, age) do not suit you or do not seem likeable. It's just a candidate, there will be others - aren't there plenty of people with experience and a higher technical education in Latvia who want to relocate from Riga to life in a small town or village?!

N.B. All stories are based on real events. The names of the characters in the stories are not mentioned or have been changed to preserve anonymity.