Engagement: How To Hook Candidates
By Alan Lawson
Like most of my colleagues throughout the world, I read the recent AMS research report (Candidates, Consumers and Your Global Brand) with some interest.
The research highlights the importance of treating candidates the right way, and shows both the benefits of a positive candidate experience, and the risks of a negative experience.
While the report is excellent at highlighting the reasons that companies should work hard on engaging with candidates, it doesn’t share extensive detail on how to implement the strategy. I’d like to share some practical thoughts, experiences and techniques that my team and I use when working with candidates.
Empathy is Key
I always try and put myself in the shoes of candidates, I try to understand how they feel. After all, we have all been, at some point or another, nervous, yet so eager to demonstrate our abilities and experiences to assessors.
When you think about it, it’s like meeting a new person who you can relate to, and building a relationship. You tell them about yourself and find out more about them. It’s a journey based on honesty and being open, seeing a future, and enjoying the ride.
For many candidates, waiting is the hardest part of assessment. In my experience, it’s this time, particularly whilst waiting with others, when your mind starts to go into hyper-drive. Perhaps you start to panic unnecessarily, recalling and changing possible responses to any question that might be asked. Then the moment comes – the assessment starts, no going back now, and everything you have prepared for will be tested.
To offset this nervousness and to help begin building the relationship with customers, I like to meet and greet candidates with a smile, introduce and welcome. The assessment hasn’t started and I know that I have about an hour to help these candidates calm and get into a frame of mind where they are able to participate in the assessments and demonstrate their full ability. At the same time however, I want each candidate to want to be successful, not just in ‘any’ job application, but in an application for my client, a large retail bank in the United Kingdom.
How To Engage Candidates From The Outset
Recruiters and resourcers at all levels should ask: what is the best way to get candidates engaged? This may be their first time on site, and first impressions not only last, but can make a huge difference in candidates’ opinions. I am fortunate enough to work alongside a Business Manager to facilitate the Assessment Events, and our client is very generous to their employees in terms of reward and recognition. This certainly helps drive engagement from the outset!
I always believe it is best to ‘show’ someone how good something is to get them interested, then ‘tell’ them more to help build a more colourful and detailed picture. At the same time it should be fun, engaging and also open.
A walk-around the site will give the candidates an idea of what their future career could look like. They can see the floor where they could be working in a matter of weeks, they can see the layout, what others are doing, and for some they can start to picture themselves here already.
Now that they have seen what it would be like to work for our client, we like to ask candidates what they know about the company – sometimes they surprise us and give us quirky facts that we didn’t even know! We follow this with a short presentation on the company, and some FAQs making sure the candidates know exactly what is expected of them and what they can expect of the company.
Two Way Communication
The candidates will now have seen the site and heard about the company and what they can expect in their potential future role. At this stage we like to flip the coin to the other side and give them the opportunity to tell us a bit about them. Using a shield split into four sections within each section a question. We take a few minutes to complete this and then we all stand up and tell the group a bit about ourselves.
Questions range from current job or activity, where would you like to be professionally in 2 years, hobbies and interests to the weird and interesting such as what animal would you like to be and why, or who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Changing the questions every-so-often can be quite amusing as the Business Manager likes to prepare her answers before the assessment starts. For me though, I always feel that there are people out there that have much more interesting lives than me! In a way it gives me ideas for things I could do in the future.
By now the candidates feel much more relaxed they have had a bit of fun, they aren’t as nervous and are much more prepared to start their assessments. And once they’re through the assessments, regardless of the outcome, they’ll have positive memories of the experience. We’d like to hope that they pass this on, or remember it the next time they’re walking past one of our client’s high street branches!
