By Amit Tandon
Ajay went for an Interview with a Fortune 500 banking company. He was made to wait for three hours at the reception while nobody attended him except for an HR Executive, who was also missing for the last two hours. Ajay walked off, swearing never to apply in that company again.
There are recruitments drives that happen all the time with IT and ITES companies, where half the candidates are sent back without any interaction. Then there are numerous cases where candidates are not replied to, or called multiple times for interactions for a position and later on offered a junior role.
Now, imagine a client walking into your office:
1. Can you make him wait for an three hours at the reception?
2. Will you not offer him coffee / tea?
3. In case he has to wait, will you not keep him informed?
4. Even if he doesn’t buy, you will send him a thank you note and look forward to meeting him again
5. You will send him a feedback form or even give him a feedback call
6. If he mails you or calls you, you will promptly reply
Now, are we doing any of these things with our candidates?
This happens in an era when HCL says “Employees Come First, Customers second”, Marico has print ADs selling a career with the company. Every company is focusing on employer branding.
HR team is the first to interact with a candidate. Very often, a candidate’s decision to join an employer is influenced strongly by his interactions with HR. Imagine, you could lose a potential start performer for the company, just because the sourcing team did not clarify his doubts on Job Description.
The challenge is that we do not train our talent management teams as marketing professionals. How about training them on Customer service orientation, Customer delight, Client engagement and Negotiations?
———————————————–
Amit Tandon
Amit Tandon is, Managing Director of Empyrean Partners, a leading recruitment firm; Partner at Mind Cafe, first Board Games cafe of India and has been in the Recruitment Business from the past 7 years. Amit has worked with Start-Ups as well as Global organizations across sectors varying from Telecom, Petrochemicals and IT Enabled Services for over 10 years in operations and business development roles. He was AVP – GSK WNS Research in India and was also the Engagement Manager for the Amit is also a well known Humorist & Professional Stand Up Comedian, with over 250 shows between India and Singapore. He is an avid blogger and his views have been quoted a number of times in ET and Singaporean HR Magazines.
erablogs.wordpress.com 