Think of recruiting
as a marketing operation

A good friend of mind received a telephone call awhile back from a large public corporation. One of the board members was on the line and explained that they were looking for a new chief executive officer and wanted to talk with him about the job.

My friend made arrangements to visit the company’s corporate headquarters and met with top management and key members of the board of directors. The company had run into troubled waters and was looking for someone to help it — someone who, like my friend, had experience in steering corporations back into profitability.

The talks went smoothly. My friend seemed like a good fit for the job, and when they were done with the official stuff, everybody enjoyed a wonderful dinner and said nice things to each other.

Then — nothing. No offer, no rejection, no letter, no thanks-but-no-thanks note, no phone call, no e-mail. It was like the interview had never happened.

Corporations often treat job candidates poorly. At best, they seem uncaring — a selection process that resembles the way shoppers sort through produce, picking out the one they want and tossing the others back into the bin.

In this case, it seemed that the corporation went out of its way to be rude. It was the company, after all, who sought him out, not the other way around. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter why they failed the common courtesy test. The important thing is that they did fail it, and they also failed to realize how loudly and effectively this spoke for the company. No wonder they were losing money.

Business managers tend to view recruiting as a time-consuming, necessary evil. The net result is that the recruiting and staffing process is sabotaged. Job applicants often are treated carelessly or callously, and even successful candidates emerge from the process with a jaundiced view of the organization.

For most companies today, no matter how big or how small, productivity is directly related to how we, as managers, treat employees. And because managerial behavior is habitual, if we treat job applicants badly, we will inevitably end up treating our own workers the same way — and pay the price in productivity.

We can start improving things by looking at the recruiting process as a marketing operation. Our goal should be this: Every person who comes in contact with our company in this way should come away believing, “This is the kind of company I want to work for.”

This is not runaway niceness, but simple pragmatism. Our company will benefit in two ways:

• We will get more highly motivated, skilled job applicants.
• The existing work-force team will be moved to think of themselves as part of a high-quality, highly productive organization — and will act that way.

Job applicants are, in one sense, a marketer’s dream. We have their full attention — a priceless resource in the marketing world. We should not waste that resource, but use it to spread the word about our company.

When setting up the recruiting and staffing process as a marketing operation, there are some guidelines known to be successful. First, while it is not necessary to acknowledge every resume received in response to a job advertisement, you should be prepared to send a thank-you letter to any candidate who is contacted by telephone or e-mail.

Second, do most of your screening by telephone. Any candidate that you take the trouble to interview in person should be considered a potential staff member and worth the time to do it right. Remember that the goal is to get candidates to want to be part of the organization, even if they are not selected for this particular job. Send thank-you letters to each interviewed candidate to reinforce this idea.

Third, pay special attention to any applicant who was recommended by an existing staffer. Remember that from a marketing standpoint this is a “double down” situation — the candidate’s treatment will be echoed in the worker who made the recommendation. Each recommended candidate should be interviewed, and, if their skills are not a good fit for the current opening, this should be discussed. If possible, include a brief tour of the facility and express the hope for continued contact. Follow up with a letter.

Fourth, select people from the existing staff to participate in all interviews. That way, the goals of the company discussed with the candidate also are reinforced in the staff member. Internal marketing is a good thing, too.

Recruiting is a time-consuming process, but it also is an opportunity to present our company to new, valuable people and to reinforce our goals and purpose within our own organization. Successful companies seize opportunities.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by sending e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.