Candidate experience? What candidate experience?

Everyone connected with recruitment seems to be talking about candidate experience these days.  Whether you’re in Resourcing or HR (and looking at the process that your candidates have to go through), a recruiter, or a recruitment services vendor, you will have talked about candidate experience at some stage recently, if not every day.

And if you don’t believe me, just go into Google and search for candidate experience, or better still, search for #CandidateExperience in Twitter, and see what comes up.

Mind you, why shouldn’t everyone be talking about it?  After all, we all seem to agree that providing a great candidate experience is one of the most important things that an employer can do, if it wants to enhance its employer reputation, build its talent pipeline, and hire great people. Most of us also agree that candidate experience has a huge impact on an organisation’s consumer or corporate brand.  (In a recent survey by application tracker StartWire, nearly two thirds of respondents said they’d think twice about buying your products or services, if they don’t hear from you after they submit their application).

So if we all agree that providing a great candidate experience is so important, it does beg an obvious question: why are we so bad at doing it ourselves?

OK, so that’s a bit of a generalisation, I know.  But it’s one based on my own experience, because I’ve recently been in the jobs market myself, looking for a new role. And I can tell you with absolute confidence, that whilst there were some great examples, overall, the candidate experience was very poor.

My personal bête noir was recruitment and search consultants who, having agreed on a how they would support you, would disappear.  But there were other equally frustrating and time-wasting experiences:

• Painful, long and complicated online application processes (seriously, have you ever applied to one of your own roles? You should do, and get your ATS Account Manager to do the same);
• Recruiters who don’t understand the role that they are recruiting for;
• Out-of-date job postings (when you click on a job listed on a job board or LinkedIn, you don’t expect to get to a page that explains that “this job is not live anymore”. Apart from anything else, you just look disorganised).
• Acknowledgments – or a lack of them.  How difficult can it be to set up a simple “thanks for your application, we’ll be in touch soon” automated response?  Don’t ruin it, mind, by explaining that “if you have not heard from us in X weeks, assume you have been unsuccessful”.  You might believe that that’s a reasonable and practical way of dealing with volume; I just found it insulting.

As I say, there were also some great examples of organisations and people providing a fantastic candidate experience: recruitment and executive search consultants, employers, and in some cases, former colleagues and acquaintances in my network, who I had contacted speculatively (they may not have been recruiting, but took the time to speak to me, give me suggestions, and helped me network).  Unsurprisingly, these are the organisations – and the people – that I’d like to work with (as an employee, employer, partner, client or supplier) in the future.

And as for me, I’m delighted to say that my search for a new role was successful. I’m joining a fabulous organisation (a company with real expertise, a fantastic track record, and of course, an excellent candidate experience) in a new and exciting role next week. When I’ll be sure to start talking to clients, about the candidate experience they provide.

What lessons can we learn from the G4S London 2012 furore?

After two or three days of hiding in the metaphorical cellar, while the political and media hurricane raged about them, G4S have finally come out with the kind of response that they should have done a few days ago.  That they chose to wait, hoping that it would blow away, is no surprise; I’m certain that is exactly what they were advised to do by their PR advisors.

Mind you, I’m sure the delay in their response, and their initial (underwhelming) announcements, have only added to the strength of feeling being voiced in the media, and across the social mediasphere.

For anyone watching BBC’s Breakfast News this morning, they might have been surprised by the tough time that the normally mild-mannered Charlie Stayt and Louise Minchin were giving G4S CEO Nick Buckles, who duly explained that G4S is “disappointed, embarrassed, and sorry”, which more or less echoes the company’s latest statement released late yesterday.

Yesterday’s statement (and Nick Buckles uneasy interview) go an awful lot further than the low key announcement the company made on Thursday, saying that it understood “the Government’s decision to bring in additional resources”, which clearly didn’t go anywhere like far enough.

Regardless of how successful (or otherwise) G4S’ media and crisis management strategy has been, as a recruitment, talent acquisition and employer branding professional, what I’m really interested in finding out is whether there are any lessons to be learnt from G4S’ failure to deliver.  (So, I suspect, is the board of G4S, given the £10m – £20m of contractual penalties they face on this contract, not to mention the likely impact on future potential contracts – Surrey and West Midlands Police forces  have already shelved plans to outsource a large portion of their middle and back office functions since the furore began last week).

Not being funny, but with unemployment topping 2.6m, including record levels of student and graduate unemployment, how difficult could it have been exactly to have recruited 10,000 people or thereabouts, to be part of the ‘greatest show on earth’?

Well, according to G4S, very.

Indeed, the company has described it as an “unprecedented and very complex security recruitment and deployment exercise”, during which it has “encountered significant difficulties in processing applicants in sufficient numbers through the necessary training, vetting and accreditation procedures”.

Except that G4S is the company that just 2 months ago, won the award for Best Global/International Recruitment Strategy at the 2012 Recruiter Awards for Excellence in HR. (No, I’m not kidding).  In its press release, G4S credited the win on its highly innovative and effective direct resourcing strategy that “has been achieved through the application of innovative technological recruiting solutions which match our business requirements”.

Oh dear.

Once the leadership team at G4S have finished wiping the egg off their faces, they will clearly turn their attention to finding out exactly what has gone wrong, along with the Commons Public Accounts Committee which has summoned G4S, two government departments and 2012 organiser LOCOG to answer questions in September.

When they do, I suspect they will find that all sorts of issues have contributed to the situation, including the decision by LOCOG to increase the number of required hires three fold, a year into the contract.  But above all else, I suspect they will find that it’s not been managed in a sufficiently robust and joined up way, and that the project has lacked clear pipeline management processes (in spite of those innovative technological recruiting solutions that G4S boasted about until so recently).

I hope that in due course, we can all learn and understand where it’s gone wrong.  That will be essential to the outsourcing and recruitment industry – in particular those organisations that work on large government contracts.

But in the meantime, I hope that we can all look forward to a fantastic, but above all safe, London 2012.

Cause for celebration?

So guardianjobs.co.uk has broken the 2 million users-a-month barrier for the first time, and according to the press release it has sent out: “the continuing rise in traffic is attributed to the quality of jobs carried across a wide range of sectors and a strong pool of both passive and active job-seekers”.

Hmm.  I suspect it might be more about the active job seekers than anything else. 

After all, as even the calmest and least sensational of commentators agree, the UK unemployment rate is about to smash through the 2 million barrier – it if hasn’t already done so (
http://tinyurl.com/bxd8e6
). 

In other words, there are more people out there looking for jobs than ever before (or at least, more than at any other time since the birth of digital recruiting).  Is it just possible that more than anything else, it’s the high number of job seekers out there that is fuelling guardianjobs.co.uk’s traffic numbers?

The Guardian might argue that those job seekers come to guardianjobs.co.uk because they know they’ll find that high “quality of jobs carried across a wide range of sectors”.  But the truth is, a quick glance at most job sites’ ABCe (www.abce.org.uk)  audit – assuming they are independently audited- will show a big jump in numbers.  For example, TotalJobs saw the number of their monthly users increase between Dec 08 and Jan 09 by a massive 90%. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising guardianjobs.co.uk – in fact I think it’s a strong site in many areas and in some cases would always appear on the schedule.  But let’s not get carried away with some increases in audience and traffic numbers at the moment because right now, that is par for the course.

In any case, if we assume that guardianjobs.co.uk’s press release “big-ing up” the numbers was the result of a slightly over enthusiastic sales effort, let’s look at what resourcing professionals and advertisers really are interested in when they are formulating attraction strategies for their recruitment needs.

Are we interested in traffic and audience numbers? To a point. But it’s not the be all and end all.  Once upon a time those numbers might be a useful indicator of potential success (or otherwise) of a campaign, but these days, there are so many active job seekers out there (as we’ve discussed), that it’s a little less relevant.  People are more desperate so there’ll be more applicants.  But in that middle-to-senior management space that the Guardian and its sister job site occupy, employers want quality – not quantity. 

The stuff that would really make us sit up and take notice is data on likely success – numbers of applications in similar roles, numbers of shortlisted candidates, and offers made, for example.  In fact, the same kind of information that resourcers and advertisers have been asking for, for years.  Except now, thanks to more joined-up technology, we do have the ability to capture, manage and share this information.  The question is, are we (by which I mean media and site operators, advertisers and resourcing professionals) ready to really take advantage, by working in a more open and collaborative way?

 

It turns out size is everything

OK, this one may be sour grapes.  It’s definitely borne out of sheer frustration.  But why, oh why do we still hear “we really like you, but we just want to go with a smaller agency” as a reason why we’ve lost the pitch?  (Smaller, niche agencies presumably get the polar opposite from time to time: “we just want to go with a bigger agency”).

Now I know that sometimes HR and resourcing teams are just too nice; they don’t want to have to tell you that you were too expensive, the creative work was rubbish, the strategy had more holes than swiss cheese, or even that “we thought the MD was an idiot”.  But let’s just put that thought to one side for the moment, can we?

Take today.  My company has been doing some fantastic stuff in terms of new business (including a number of blue chip wins we’ll be announcing very shortly), but we’ve also pitched to a medium sized manufacturing business with a global export business, based in the West Midlands, a month or so ago.  Let’s call them Company X. 

We’ve been talking to Company X for months.  We know them.  They know us.  From the first metaphorical shy, nervous smiles across the dancefloor, to the breathless, desperate throws of that first night together, to the pleasant routine of the comfortable, lived-in relationship.  We know everything about each other. 

So why did they wait, until we’d gone to the effort and expense of pitching for their business, before telling us (today) that actually, with hindsight, umm, you know, they really liked our pitch but well, the thing is, they realised they’d be better off with a smaller agency?  But we’d really like to keep in touch, you know, just in case.

Please.

I completely understand that some organisations would feel more comfortable working with a smaller partner.  But couldn’t they have told us before we were ready to commit?  It’s not like we were pretending to be anything we’re not, was it?

So you have to wonder, maybe getting jilted by Company X had nothing to do with our size.  As I say, we never tried to hide our size and were completely open at the credentials stage months ago.  So maybe we really were too expensive, or they didn’t like the creative work, or the strategy, or even the MD?

In which case (and this is a plea to any HR or resourcing professionals who happen to stumble upon this blog), please give us honest feedback.  You’re not going to appoint us?  OK, we can take it.  We’re big boys and girls.  No-one expects to win every pitch (like I say, we’ve won a number of blue chip accounts already this year – our strike rate for January is 3 out 4).  But every organisation (including my own) that pitches for your business will invest a huge amount (of time and money) into getting their pitch ready, and that represents a considerable commitment to you.  The least you can do, is to give us honest and clear feedback – so we can properly understand where it went wrong and what we need to do next time, however hard that may seem (nothing wrong in aiming for 4 out 4, is there?).  So if you thought we were too expensive, or you didn’t like the creative work or the strategy, or even if you thought the MD was an idiot, please tell us.  We can take it.

On second thoughts, maybe size is everything?!