If you want to know how to jerk the headhunter around, how to make recruiters hate you, how to toy with them and lie to them, or how you lead them to believe one thing while meaning another, promise them something when you really have no intention of keeping your word, then the following will tell it all.
There are certainly moments where I think that clients, be it HR people, corporate recruiters, or line managers, have conspired to make our lives miserable. “Our lives” as in those of us who make a living from helping client companies to identify the increasingly difficult-to-find talent.
Sure, I can appreciate that some of you are at the whim of a more senior person who impulsively decides to move the goalposts while a hire is in progress. But I suspect that some on the client side are enjoying the moment of perceived glory whilst sending contingency recruiters and even executive search firms on a wild-goose chase.
How you shoot yourself in the foot big time
But wait a minute. Who's fooling who and who do you think has the last laugh? Here's where some, I repeat some, clients and candidates shoot themselves in the foot big time:
- Calling the headhunter the same day of the interview appointment, to say you are busy and want to postpone the meeting with our candidate to another day. Never mind that the candidate has taken one of their few annual leave days off just to meet you.
- Ignoring the headhunter's regular status updates that a few qualified candidates have been identified, interviewed, assessed and are ready to meet you. Emails and calls to get appointment dates are ignored whilst we try to keep the momentum and the candidates warm. And then after weeks of work, a mail that you have hired someone already.
- Briefing the recruiter on an urgent job (vacant position) and demanding a list of candidates within a few days, but then end up sitting on the shortlist for 10 weeks.
- Adding insult to injury, sending one of your junior HR staff members to meet and interview a much more senior executive.
- Not respecting the time of the candidate by turning up late to the set appointment at your own office. Or having the potential new employee sitting in a meeting room which is not cleared of coffee cups, papers, chairs etc. from the previous meeting in the room.
- Suddenly calling off a search or hire after the last two, still-standing hot candidates, have been through three face-to-face interviews with your company, plus one video conference with a senior at head office, after providing names for reference checks which were completed, after doing both a psychometric assessment and a cognitive IQ test.
- Why on Earth would someone in a good job with good pay and benefits, consider taking a risk to start in a new, unknown territory (read: company), if the compensation is not attractive? There are still too many companies who keep dreaming that they will find that needle in the hay stack who will accept 50,000 baht per month in the job of Regional Sales & Marketing Director of a large multi-national company. Stop throwing low ball offers; people are not stupid.
- Candidates carefully assess your value proposition i.e. the selling points for your company and employment. They will check if your title is better (director compared to manager), if time from home to office is a lot shorter than their current commute, private office vs. open office environment, company car or transport allowance, medical cover for family or only the employee, guaranteed 13 months' pay compared to 12 months, and more importantly what is your salary? Unless you offer the best-ever benefits in Thailand, you need to put your money where your mouth is! That translates to showing through actions, not just words, that you are prepared to offer a competitive and attractive salary which becomes an offer your candidate cannot refuse.
Why are some hiring managers so naïve?
How can employers be so naive that they do not realise what they are doing to themselves? It's the candidates who will feel the pain, the disappointment, the unexpected anti-climax and suffering from the belief that your company was professional, ethical, and worth talking to about a possible employment.
I'm sorry to tell you that the middleman, the headhunter and recruiter you engaged to help you, will not take the blame for your unprofessional behaviour. With the easy access to social media which we have nowadays, it's your company name that is being tweeted, blogged and chatted about. Don't believe me? Check out glassdoor.com.
But the damage doesn't stop there. I bet disappointed candidates will tell colleagues and friends about their experience and warn anyone not to deal with employers who are still living in the past where applicants (active job seekers) outnumbered candidates (passive job seekers).
Tom Sorensen is a Partner at Boyden Thailand, a global Top 10 executive search firm. Contact tsorensen@boyden.com and learn more on www.boyden.co.th
Christopher F. Bruton is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult's Thailand Regional Forum provides seminars and extensive documentation to update business on future trends in Thailand and in the Mekong Region.
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