Global Recruiting - Helping Global Talents succeed in Switzerland

So, recruiting sisters and brothers, listen up. I am writing this post to you. I want to help my candidates have a better experience and for that, I will share a few recent frustrations. I will share them in a way that is hopefully adhering to you and you can always go on a lunch date with me to discuss this further.

ATS - Applicant Torture System

Most of the applicant tracking systems I currently see are a milder form of torture. Why do they never allow you to save a process in the middle? Maybe you did not yet write your cover letter. Maybe you get a phone call or you are interrupted during an upload. Also, they never give you enough space to upload your extensive collection of testimonials and certifications. They hardly ever give me a status update. That should be so easy to program. Here is where you are, then you get a drop-down or similar with a few status updates: We received your valuable application, one of our staff members has reviewed your application, we have forwarded your application to the hiring manager, you are in the pile of rejections, we might take a second look, we will call you for an interview, we will call you again. Maybe you could get an amazing copywriter to make it sound appreciative.

Going back to the 70ies with individual cover letters

Seriously? Do we need cover letters and do we have to make them several pages long? If you really want a well-written cover letter it will take the candidate at least 30 Minutes if the person is a native speaker and good at writing. If not, it will take them an hour or two. Just to go into the black hole or to receive a robot response. If you want to get a candidate’s motivation it’s simple: We need to make a living in one way or another. We have studied hard, worked hard all of our lives and now we had to face a job loss/ offshoring/ burnout/ international move of the partner. You will not get a lot of additional value from the cover letter and if you must make it compulsory, can it not be a field where you can just write 200 words instead of an A4 Letter, pdf and all that?

The robot response

The robot response is a little bit disheartening even if you are packaging it nicely. With the GDPR I am not even sure if it is legal that you keep the candidate’s profile in your database. Have you considered writing a line that is a little more personal? In the old days, we used to give candidates feedback and give them a chance to call us. I guess that’s no longer possible since you are now based out of Wroclaw or Pune. But maybe you could give a hint, WHY the application did not match (especially when LinkedIn thinks you have 7(10) skills. Was it because the candidate seems too lazy as he did not write a cover letter? Was it because the candidate did not adjust his resume, because I told her not to do that? Did you maybe think she was too old, too expensive or too female? Give us an idea of what to improve next time. 

Thanks for your interest in the role of (insert role here). After reviewing your details, we've decided not to progress further with your application. We'll keep your profile in our database. If you are interested, we put new jobs on our careers website (xxx) every day. Thanks for your interest in working with us and we wish you success in your future job search. xxx Recruiting Team

The black hole

It’s hard for most of my clients when they receive a lot of robot responses but for many of us a robot response is better than 0 response. I don’t understand how you can do this and still look in the mirror in the morning. A busy person is using 30 minutes to 2 hours of their precious life to communicate their interest to you and you do not even find it necessary to send a thank you note? Where you raised by wolves? Seriously sisters and brothers, this is just not good enough.

The fake job

If you have just posted a job online you cannot tell a candidate 24 hours later that you have found an internal solution, changed the job profile or that you found someone from your network. It screams “fake job”. What were your trying to achieve? I don’t get it and I don’t think that posting a fake job all over the Internet will increase your credibility. You might raise your website’s ranking if you are a newly established recruiting company but who will come back to you a second time? You go back to play hide and seek with the kids in Kindergarten or Shared Services. I don’t think you are ready for school yet. 

Is there hope?

Maybe, after all, there is hope. Maybe we should bond or we should look for disruptors in the field. I’m not sure what to make of it but I needed to voice this once and for all. We can be stronger together!

Let’s ask the candidates about their wishes. Apart from a job, they mainly want to be respected. How can you treat them with respect? How can technology be an enabler and not just an annoyance?

Please share this edition of the "Club Sandwich" with your best friend, grandmother, and anybody who could profit from it.


Angie Weinberger