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Did You Give a Valentine

For a lot of people Valentine’s Day just sucks. The advertisements, the sentiment and “ohs and ahs” on Facebook about what someone else got. What did you get? Nothing. Zip. Nada.  This may remind you of being at the high school dance and no one asked you to dance, or when they picked teams for dodge ball, and you were the last one standing on the sidelines. The one no one wanted.

No one likes this feeling, but this is what happens every day for thousands, if not millions of job seekers. The process of matching a job seeker to a position is a recruiters’ job and for them it’s just business, not personal – like Mr. Corleone said. Or how Tom Hanks explains it to Meg Ryan – it’s business, not personal.

However, job search is personal for the job seeker. Very personal. Most people identify with their job. How we live, where we live, how we care for our families and our progression in life is for the most part wrapped up in our job status.

When a job seeker is looking for a job, they are also looking for fulfillment, feedback and validation, but most end up with rejection or worse, no response.  Some will go to extremes as the one job seeker who mailed feces to employers who didn’t hire him.  Job seekers shouldn’t take this personally, but then we would be hiring robots.

I am not saying recruiters need to send Valentine’s Day cards to all job seekers, but bridging the gap from when a job seeker submits an applications to when, if, you do contact them for more information will not only help job seeker morale, but improve your brand through improving the candidate experience. Most job seekers are looking to avoid the black hole. The more you can do to provide feedback or understanding of your hiring process, the better off you will be.

Communicate your hiring process

Look at a few of our local companies who have shared this information on their career pages. Xcelerate Solutions makes a “pledge” to job seekers that they will communicate through the hiring process and explains in detail what they will do.

At Capital One, a 2013 Candidate Experience Award winner, they list how to apply, testing protocols and recommendations for better performance. If you do proceed to an interview at Capital One, this process is laid out for you as well.

Finally, how about chat? Lockheed Martin has been the leader in making live chat available on their careers page for several years now, and is another 2013 Candidate Experience Award winner.

Even if you don’t have the resources or access to expand your careers page, you do have automatic email responses. Use auto-responses to outline your process, provide tips on interview preparation and to manage the candidate’s expectations. 

In the end, connecting people with your company is personal.