Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.
Pinch punch, first day of the month and happy St David’s Day! In recognition today we welcome the group’s resident Welsh member, Lee Burman, who does a fantastic job managing our jobs page – a bit of promotion, but did you know every job posted to the group is tweeted too, meaning over 7,000 people in total can view the role? Today, Lee rather aptly looks at an element of poor communication that blights the recruitment process. (Ed Scrivener)
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These days you can’t read a HR magazine without stumbling across the phrases ‘social media’ and ‘recruitment’ in the same paragraph. There are countless articles telling you how Facebook has transformed an employer’s attraction strategy, or how Twitter has been pivotal in enhancing engagement between an employer and jobseekers.
More recently a new ‘tool’, Pinterest is taking centre stage. No doubt many an employer and recruiter will be scratching their heads, wondering what the recruitment angle will be.
Now don’t get me wrong. Every day I log into LinkedIn. I frequently tweet and will rustle through Facebook of an evening. So I completely understand why employers and recruiters are investing significant resources in these channels. I’m doing it too, albeit for different business reasons.
However what never ceases to amaze me is the following strapline which remains prevalent on many a careers site and job board:-
Unfortunately we cannot respond to every application. If you have not heard from us within 14 days of applying for the position, please assume that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.
Don’t believe me? Take a look. I just had a search on a well-known job board and this statement or something akin featured on 6 of the first 18 job adverts. 6. A third.
A little more investigation reveals that ALL of these 6 have twitter profiles and have tweeted about job vacancies. All of these 6 have a recruiting presence on LinkedIn. 5 of these 6 have a company or careers profile on Facebook. I ran out of patience before I could check out what they were doing on YouTube, Pinterest and Google+.
So whilst these companies are ploughing resources into their presence on these sites, the simple truth is that despite all of this, they cannot be bothered to let you know if your application has been successful or not.
They want you to assume, make your own mind up, give it 2 weeks and if you haven’t heard back, move on, fill out another application form, make further improvements to your CV, ‘keep in touch’…..blurgh!
We hear a lot about the candidate experience. I’ve read blogs about it, listened to people in a room fiercely debate it and seen many a tweet flying around trying to describe what it should mean and feel like.
To me it needn’t be something complex. It should start with an acknowledgement of your application, and if you are for any reason unsuccessful, it should end with an acknowledgement. Nothing fancy, nothing over the top, just a simple courtesy that doesn’t leave the candidate having to make assumptions.
So before you leap onto Pinterest, send out that tweet and post that job on Facebook, take a good look at how you are treating your candidates and remove that awful strapline from the bottom of your adverts.
Commit to acknowledging your applicants, don’t expect anything back in return, it’s just a common courtesy after all.
About the author
Lee Burman is Business Solutions Manager at recruitment outsourcers PPS. A former agency recruiter with 9-years’ experience in the HR industry, he now spends his days helping businesses to improve their processes, cut their costs and drive up quality.
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 8th March and will be written by Leadership Coach Dorothy Nesbit.
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