Lee Andrese: Rejected Candidates Matter Most

 

Full Podcast Transcript: Rejected Candidates Matter Most

Katrina Collier: Lee Andrese, welcome to The Hiring Partner Perspective podcast proudly supported by the beautiful people at WORQDRIVE. I’m so excited to have you here today. Welcome, welcome.

Lee Andrese 0:59
Well, thank you for having me. And Happy New Year.

Katrina Collier 1:02
Oh, yes, that as well. 2022 ugh. The only way is up, surely. I’ve had that on a loop in my head. So for people who don’t know who you are, which would be surprising because you have your fabulous LinkedIn Lives and you’re very present and always helping the industry? Can you share a little bit about what it is that you do?

Lee Andrese 1:23
Sure. Today, I oversee training, learning and development for a company called Onward Search. The capability is brand new, and the goal there is to create a learning culture and environment that allows recruiters to expand their capabilities and careers in the sales and servicing side of staffing. But I’m a, you know, I’m a former high school teacher who became a recruiter. You know,

Katrina Collier 1:51
That’s a novel way in

Lee Andrese 1:53
We don’t exactly plan to be recruiters.

Katrina Collier 1:55
No, I have met two, in 18 months, 18 years who planned to join recruitment?

Lee Andrese 2:02
Yeah, it’s it’s a different, it’s a different beast. Yeah.

Katrina Collier 2:05
You know, before we, before I hit the record button, you were saying, you know, over the last 10 years, it’s become quite heartbreaking in recruitment. Do you think some of that’s why? Because we don’t have a formal path in we just fall in, and then don’t have support?

Lee Andrese 2:21
No, I think that it’s the, it’s, I think that the world has just excelled at such a pace. And technology has helped, you know, support that pace. So when you look at what I would call the perfect storm of human behaviour, when you’ve got the speed, the tool, the drive, the demand for speed, you tend to forget that there’s a human being involved.

Katrina Collier 2:57
Which is kind of ironic when we’re human beings, isn’t it?

Lee Andrese 3:01
It is, but you know, you’re a human being, regardless of what your job is. And recruiters are just as much, you know, susceptible to human behaviour as anybody else. So I just think what I think is sad, is that we’re not we’ve become a body shop, you know, we fill seats, we don’t, we don’t give enough consideration. It’s not always, but it’s not consistent in the consideration that that we give the candidates as to what they want, they should be our first customer. If the candidate is happy in the job, the hiring manager is going to be happy. It’s not the other way around.

Katrina Collier 3:41
Yeah, very true. And actually, the podcast that just came out with Suzanne Lucas, we were talking about that, you know, it used to be ‘oh be grateful to have a job’ now it’s like employers should be grateful they have employees, which is a similar thing to what you are saying, it’s a switch.

Lee Andrese 3:57
Yeah, and I don’t know that that is new, like a George Eastman, I always go back to the story. So George Eastman head of Eastman Kodak Company. So he is one of the, you know, back in the day, when very large manufacturers and their employees were fighting to get unions in place, The Eastman company never did. Because when George was alive, he said, we’re going to pay the best, we’re going to treat our people the best and there’s not going to be a need to have a union. And so, unfortunately, that changed too right as you know, Mr. Eastman left this world, but if we just do what’s right by the people who are helping stand up our companies and, and make them what they are. You know,

Katrina Collier 4:42
You won’t end up in this situation we’re in at the moment where everyone over fired and is trying to over hire and it’s all becoming a palaver. But I’m loving it because I feel like the patriarchy is falling. So one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was I saw your post ‘Dear hiring managers and leaders you are the candidates, ghosting candidates after they’ve spent six hours with you, shame on you.’ And then you had a thread of stories. And this was you’d relayed somebody else’s, like quite heartbreaking story. What I loved that you wrote there, though, was hiring managers and leaders, you sort of push the responsibility onto them, which was, I wanted to like delve into that more, what prompted you to do that.

Lee Andrese 5:25
So culture starts at the top. When you’re hearing a CEO communicate to senior leaders, what they should be focused on, and if people are not part of that focus, you’re going to get, just get them in and get them out, I don’t care. Right, you’re going to just hire these people who they think they are, blah, blah, blah. If leaders aren’t saying, we need to carefully, think carefully, about the people that we bring into the organisation, and because we think so carefully and thoughtfully about those people, we need to take care of those people. We’re going to invest in them so make sure that the experience is really superior. The other part of that is we no longer have the, what’s the word I’m looking for, we no longer have the luxury of being snobs. You know, because we’ve got the job. We need to be able to say the most important person in the hiring process is the person that we reject. When we really think about it. What’s that experience like for them, when they get rejected? Because people hear no all the time? How they hear no, is what’s going to be that lasting experience. Because those people will also talk about that experience, and encourage others not to buy your product, not to support your company.

You know what’s amazing I have only ever seen, and they refer to this case study all the time, one company actually looked in this, which was Virgin Media case study from like, five, six years ago, where they looked at the amount of money they lost by the number of people they annoyed by rejecting them poorly, or giving them a bad candidate experience. It’s crazy that there’s not more emphasis on that.

Why rejected candidates matter!

And then there’s more facts to that. So I just posted again this morning. Charlotte Beasley just aggregated a bunch of statistics about recruitment. And we’re talking two times the amount of people who are ghosted, who don’t get follow up, they are very likely to spread the word. ‘hey, this is how the company treats their people.’ Why would we want to support their existence? Why would we want to feed them? Because every time every dollar you spend with a company, you’re fuelling them? So once you take that fuel away…

Katrina Collier 7:41
It’s gone. Tribepad who have created the End-Ghosting.com, which is a little like The Circle Back Initiative. They’re both very similar. They did some studies, and I’m sure you saw my LinkedIn rant about this where candidates are left down or depressed. We as recruiters, when we’re ghosted, it’s irritating, we might even feel angry, but most of the time we just dismiss it move on. But we don’t feel down or depressed. And I just find that so, like you, heartbreaking.

Lee Andrese 8:15
Well, the recruiters aren’t, you know, today, the recruiters are even in a there’s two sides to that. So the recruiters are sandwiched if they don’t select the company that they work with very carefully. Recruiters need to be very selective on the brands that they represent. Because if they’re not, they’re going to they’re… a recruiter is only as good as the candidates who follow them.

Katrina Collier 8:40
And actually, that applies for in-house as well.

Lee Andrese 8:44
In house, external, I don’t care who it is. That’s it’s either way, a recruiter is only as good as the candidates who follow them, especially if their niche. If they’re niche, like if they’re in marketing, communications or technology. The hiring manager of that talent acquisition capability is going to hire the candidate, hire the recruiter who’s got the following. Hands down. So if that recruiter doesn’t manage their portfolio, well, then they’re going to be in a situation where they don’t have a choice. They’ve got to go fast. They’ve got to be furious. They’re gonna let balls drop, they’re not gonna follow up. And if the recruiter selects a company that doesn’t have the right tools for them to do their job, Heaven help ’em. So it’s the recruiter. If the recruiter doesn’t mind that, then that kind of says something right there,

Katrina Collier 9:38
Oh, yes. Sorry for the podcast. We were pulling faces at each other because of course, you can’t tell that we’re doing that because it’s just audio.

Lee Andrese 9:45
That’s right. And so if a recruiter, if a recruiter stays at that brand, and either the brand has a bad reputation, or the tools aren’t right or systemically, there is something there is a culture that says ‘People are disposable?’ If and it exists, that that belief does exist at many companies. If they’re there intentionally, that tells me more about the recruiter.

Katrina Collier 10:11
It does. Actually we saw that over the pandemic? Didn’t we by the companies that were like, well, you must have a zoom open all day, or they put monitoring software on the computer because they don’t trust their staff. And we won’t even go into the whole.

Lee Andrese 10:26
Yeah, that’s a whole other conversation.

Katrina Collier 10:27
Yeah, but it’s the same for recruiters who are aware of that they know what they’re entering into. And who’d want to recruit for a company like that?

Lee Andrese 10:34
They need to be very picky the recruiters. That’s how I would coach a recruiter in their their career search.

Katrina Collier 10:40
Do you think that’s because we’re older and more confident that we would be like, I’m not working for them?

Lee Andrese 10:45
No, I don’t think so. You’re either you either have that a bit? Well, it depends if people have economic situations where they do have to take something because they’re just no choice. You have to forgive that. I mean, that just is what it is. But the goal is to always try to move to a company that you can support wholeheartedly, without any reservation whatsoever. Where I, where I lost faith, I began to lose faith. Well, if I didn’t lose faith, where I were, there was a bullet that was taken from me is when I talked to the head of acquisition for a high tech company. And she said to me, Lee, let’s face it, if it recruiter doesn’t have a job, or somebody doesn’t have the job, they’re really no good during a pandemic.

Katrina Collier 11:36
Say that again!

Lee Andrese 11:38
The head of talent acquisition. Yeah, she has since actually gone on to another company, the head of talent acquisition at a technology company. Said to me, Lee, if somebody doesn’t have a job, they’re probably no good.

Katrina Collier 11:56
Oh, okay. So the recruiter had been, for example, they’re recruiting recruiters or they’re recruiting something else. Yes. Recruiting, I happen to be in the hospitality industry, all the travel industry, and they lost their job. So they weren’t any good. Wow, I love the compassion there.

Lee Andrese 12:12
Right? During a pandemic.

Katrina Collier 12:14
During the pandemic! I do wonder how some of the people in those particular roles get to where they get to, I had somebody tell me and I’m going pre pandemic. And I’d just been going through like being proactive and sourcing because you know, you’re looking for technology professionals, or whatever it was. And she said, ‘Oh, no, my team are maxed out. They don’t have time to learn.’ And she was proud of it. And I was just like, you’re proud of the fact that your internal recruiters do not have the bandwidth to learn. Whoa! It’s your responsibility. You are bringing in the people to the company, like we started this conversation with.

Reject candidates without turning them against your company or client.

Lee Andrese 12:52
Yeah, and I think the pandemic revealed who these people truly are, right? They were always this way. So as a recruiter, if you are being if, if I’m being told, if I’m a recruiter, working for a hiring manager, and I’m being told that don’t worry about ghosting, too, you know, we don’t have to have automated processes in place that make you sound like a human. Because you can automate human sound, right? Human voices, your feelings, to a certain degree,. Saying, ‘Hey, thank you in the email. Thank you so much for taking the time to apply. Right now. I’ve got over 400 candidates, so I’m sifting through’ that can be an automated email. Just at least let the person know you got their information that you are human. And you can only do so much that if you don’t hear from me, here’s why. Yeah, if you just change that outbound message, you’ve changed the entire experience,

Katrina Collier 13:46
And sign it off with your name!

Lee Andrese 13:50
Yes, yeah, humanity!

Katrina Collier 13:52
Because you might get 1 in 400 who might actually pick up the phone and contact you most unlikely, you might get another email back, or you might get a LinkedIn connection or a Twitter follower, an Instagram follower, or they might come to you another way. But don’t you want those people? This is a huge bugbear this whole ‘Kind regards the talent acquisition team or the recruitment team’ or… Oh my God.

Lee Andrese 14:15
Yeah. When you take it to the next level, what that column was that you saw posted on LinkedIn that was about people who are going through the hiring process. Two, three, four, sometimes five interviews deep and then nothing. Nothing from a hiring manager. Nothing from the recruiter. How awful does and we’re talking about the C level. People I represented at the C level. CMOs are saying to me, ‘Lee, they just fell off.’ And you know, what’s even more horrifying, is that they’re from the top, the the top recruitment firms and I’m not talking about your typical recruitment firms. I’m talking about executive placement firms.

Katrina Collier 15:00
Like they’ve ghosted post as well as the company?

Lee Andrese 15:04
They’re ghosting.

Katrina Collier 15:06
It’s just really short sighted because, you know, when you are executive search or your agency recruitment, obviously it’s the client. But there are far more reasons. It’s also short sighted.

Lee Andrese 15:15
Now, not only will that candidate never work with that firm, but that candidate who now has a C level position at another company will not bring in that firm. That firm has lost her as a client.

Katrina Collier 15:29
Yeah. Or and who do they know?

Lee Andrese 15:32
Exactly, exactly. They’re not only going to hurt not that, that situation, that particular situation negates that relationship with the staffing firm, but as well as the executive recruitment firm, as well as the company that that recruitment firm represented. So now you’ve got somebody who is a CMO, with a bad taste in her mouth, on two brands. Talking about that experience…

Katrina Collier 16:02
And very well connected

Lee Andrese 16:03
Over and over, and very well connected. Top in the field, top 100 in the nation. You know, it’s just, it’s sad. And unnecessarily, it doesn’t have to be. Right.

Katrina Collier 16:15
It doesn’t have to be that way. And it’s, I think there’s this kind of weird, I’ve always said, we’re in a rejection business. And it’s a horrible thing to say, but you’ve got one job and you get, you know, 10, 20 100 people, however many interested, you’re saying no to most of them. Why is it that recruiters on both sides, in-house or agency, are so scared of that conversation?

Lee Andrese 16:35
Littigation.

Katrina Collier 16:36
If they got better at that. In the US? Yes. But that doesn’t excuse the rest of the planet, that’s less litigation focused. But that also goes back to the hiring manager. And getting the information from the hiring manager.

Lee Andrese 16:48
It’s it’s communication. It’s, there’s so there’s systemic, right? So there’s systemic processes, where the people just somehow they only find time for the things that are going to benefit them. Right. There’s no niceties on any other side. There are, there’s the feedback from a hiring manager, hiring managers are also human beings. And they’re caught up in the fray of, you know, a boatload of tasks, right and outcomes. So they’ve got to prioritize that feedback. If they are not told to prioritize that feedback, they won’t.

Katrina Collier 17:21
So actually, not only do they need to prioritize it, but from what you’re saying, which actually, what’s in it for me. So it’s like, Katrina, bit slow today? How can we make it so that feedback is of benefit to the person delivering it? So that’s what we need to manipulate.

Lee Andrese 17:38
Yes, those are processes. So when a company has that process, that recruitment process in place, and it’s very well defined. So if you want the solution to the problem, create a process that allows for the hiring, that allows, that sets the expectations of what the experience is going to be from the job posting, all the way through to the date that they start. through onboarding. Right. What is that hiring process going to be? The sourcing process, the hiring process, the evaluation process, when you get those expectations together, and they are followed and managed to, you’re going to see more consistency in superior experiences for candidates, the hiring manager, and you’re going to hire superior people, right? And so you’re much more likely to reach your company’s goals and missions. People are at the foundation of the success of a company. And but if people don’t have the right processes, if they don’t have the right tools, and if the culture isn’t just so…

Katrina Collier 18:39
It’s pointless. So yes, I mean, that is that’s a bigger picture, because that’s C suite, making sure that the people that bring in the people understand that they need those things. But I also think,

Lee Andrese 18:51
People first. We’ve always said normal first, we used to say web first and all this mobile.

Katrina Collier 18:56
People first. Human first.

Lee Andrese 18:57
It’s people first, yeah, first.

Katrina Collier 19:00
And it also goes back to, you know, chapter five of The Robot-Proof Recruiter, I’ve just actually writing addition two so I’ve just been through it again. And I’m like, Oh, my God, you know, that stuff Steve Levy gives you particularly in that chapter is like mind blowing. But it goes back to reiterate it. When you’re in your intake strategy sessions, as ‘Right to remind you, this is the process’ and then how do we work together, How is best for you? How is best for me? How are we and there’s just not enough focus on that one hour up front, that will save so much time, but again, I think we need to go more into the not only having those processes that we need, but the what’s in it for them, which wil help the culturehelpful.

Lee Andrese 19:39
The other thing is, you know, I there’s another term that’s always been thrown around now for quite a bit the term empathy. It’s like telling me I built great relationships. That’s fluff. If you tell me that you’re empathetic without telling me how , and we’ve got a we’ve got to be responsible for that. So we’ve got to realize as recruiters that the people we’re talking to probably lost somebody in their life, probably are financially strapped, they have lived through a time in history that we hope to never repeat, but we made it through. And if we’re not empathetic to that situation.

Katrina Collier 20:20
Yeah. Well, that’s actually probably compassion, isn’t it? Because narcissists can be empathetic. They can read your energy and manipulate you. But you’ve got to have the want the best, don’t you that compassion.

#BeHuman!

Lee Andrese 20:32
You’re talking about being human. Again, so you’re going back to are you human? Are you human? Or are you really going? Just like your book? You’ve got to be robot proof.

Katrina Collier 20:41
Yeah, which is human-first.

Lee Andrese 20:43
In so many ways that title applies. So it’s, yeah,

Katrina Collier 20:50
You talk about the impact. So I’m having a conversation with a friend of mine. Now. To be fair, I’ve just been through her CV, or resume as you would call it, it’s dreadful. Bless her. They’re really hard documents to write. And I remember, when Kogan Page approached me, I still can’t believe they came to me and asked me if I’d like to write a book. And I knew immediately, we have to get around this thing of technology can replace recruiters because people cannot write their resumes. They can’t write them in such a way that they get hired. So she’s having a really bad experience, because not one single person has gone. Okay. I can see on this document that she has eight years of recruitment experience, why don’t I call her and see if she can explain better than this piece of paper? Nope, reject. Can’t see what I’m looking for reject. It’s just because there’s no empathy and compassion for this, the pickle that she’s ended up with by being made redundant. But because she’d actually moved into a HR tech company, and of course that got hit quite badly. But due to the pandemic, there’s just no empathy and compassion. I’m having a little rant, imagine me having a rant on my podcast.

Lee Andrese 21:55
What a novel idea.

Katrina Collier 21:57
That’s why I brought it in.

Lee Andrese 22:00
I think that, I think that, if we can, if talent acquisition leaders really want to make a difference and want to make changes in our profession, and within their organizations, they’re going to take the time, Katrina, to take that step back and say, what how are we being perceived. Look at it as a user experience. Bring in a user experience professional, and say, you go out and look, this is not a marketing and branding exercise. This is really about understanding how our audience, how our customers, which are future candidates and future hiring, you know, talent, how do they perceive us and and then build it backwards, you know, build it from that feedback, but that that’s my recommendation, totally.

Katrina Collier 22:46
Go an run through your own job application process on your mobile phone. And just see, like, and have

Lee Andrese 22:53
a third party person, do it. Because we’re too myopic. We’re too biased. We’re in it, we are too, too close to see. Yeah, seeing the problems, but

Katrina Collier 23:02
and you could get that person to go through your competition, you know, if you’re a tech company, go and see what they’re doing.

Lee Andrese 23:09
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And they have and when you when you turn to somebody who isn’t in recruiting, who really looks at processes, tools, technologies, and how the interaction goes, you get a whole different read, all different reads. That takes a leader who has a level of humility, to say, I want this feedback. We, we know that there’s problems, I just don’t know what they are, or I can’t articulate them well enough. So let’s get some adult supervision on it.

Katrina Collier 23:40
Any thoughts on how we can persuade our leaders?

Lee Andrese 23:44
Yeah, absolutely. So when you look at costs, right, so CEOs, the C level suite is really looking at profit, at revenue at profitability. So that’s the top and the bottom line. What the talent acquisition person has not an indirect, they have a direct link to top and bottom line, meaning that if it is taking them longer than, say 30 days to get a hire, there’s a problem. That’s costing the company money, if the company has turnover rates that are really, really high, and the talent acquisition person isn’t stepping in to say, why are we feeding the turnover? Are we hiring to turnover? That’s not cool. So if you’ve got a strong TA leader, they’re going to that C suite and saying, We got to stop this, we have to stop the bleed. Let’s figure out where the problem is. If they’re if the TA person finds that they’re getting less qualified people in the pipeline, and they are not bringing that that’s another expense. So now you’re recruiting unqualified people spending all that time, multiply that time that you’ve lost times $100 an hour. That’s how much that company is losing on recruitment costs.

Katrina Collier 24:57
Yeah. And then the other way is obviously, you know, we haven’t bought that person in that project, it’s not being delivered. How much is that costing? That hiring manager should know that as well.

Lee Andrese 25:06
That’s the other side of it. So there’s the practical part of it the process of the actual TA function. Yeah, there’s the hiring mediocre people, which is far worse than hiring, bad people. And then you’ve got hiring no people at all, so the work isn’t getting done. So if you look at those three things, there’s build your case on those.

Katrina Collier 25:27
Totally, and there needs to be more of that. But it’s interesting that you keep saying strong TA leaders, because I see a few problems, which is to leaders have been promoted into the role and not supported and helped to be great leaders. But also, I see a lot of undermining from HR, because there’s almost this weird competition, whereas I just see, HR looks after the people and TA brings in the people. And they work together side by side. But there’s this weird, honestly, you’ve pulled a face, but it’s a big focus of my work with my workshops. Is the communication breakdown between those? Because I don’t I personally don’t think TA should sit in HR when it gets to a certain size. But that’s another whole conversation.

Lee Andrese 26:07
Yeah. That is a whole other conversation. Because if you would think that if they are overseeing if they have management oversight, the same senior leader overseeing the two that they would there would be harmony. But if that’s not happening,

Katrina Collier 26:22
Not often. There are exceptions, of course, but again, it’s just another area of you know, in a way, in-house recruitment is a new function. That’s, in compared to the other business functions.

Lee Andrese 26:35
It’s funny, you should say that, because I do think that there is a trend, that like I said, when you hire a great recruiter, you’re hiring the people that they know in their network. Right. So that’s, that’s a huge part of that. And my my, my question for that is, are they bringing more in-house people? Like they’re hiring from the staffing industries, like mad? They’re just they’re building these capabilities that are incredible. They’re just building their database of people. And if that’s all thereafter, then recruiters are being taught not to worry about the experience.

Katrina Collier 27:09
Yeah. My issue is that bringing a lot in, in a way, I think ex-agency recruiters make great in house recruiters because they have the drive to fill the role. Slightly more than what I’ve seen come up the HR administration role aside, however, there are exceptions, of course. But again, I think it comes back to there needs to be more training and understanding of Okay, so if you did something wrong at an agency the impact was Okay, pretty bad the agency mightn’t get used, but it wasn’t as great as people won’t buy our products and services. It ruins our future hiring because we get bad reviews, etc, etc. Think it’s far more detrimental.

Lee Andrese 27:47
And here’s the other thing I would say is that we don’t want to throw good people into a bad situation. You don’t want to throw good training in a bad situation. So again, it starts at the top. This is this is this is top down. Always has been, always will be

Katrina Collier 28:04
Yeah and so that takes the it is top down. But it’s taking where you aren’t at the top to persuade them.

Lee Andrese 28:13
Yep. And I think that those leaders, those talent acquisition leaders, who can articulate the impact that they’ve made at an organizational level, to say we have changed organizational performance by bringing in superior people, creating a superior experience, and boosting our brands that we’re actually hitting new revenue, because people we want a waiting line of people coming into the store to get into this company. We want to create a waiting line those are the TA leaders that I would be after.

Katrina Collier 28:43
Yeah, I like that. So that was stops being how it is at the moment where it’s impossible to recruit. It’ll actually be they line up. Oh a bit like they do with Google and the like, they line up people want to work there. They’ve created a

Lee Andrese 28:55
lineup people that who want to work there. And and that hasn’t changed for quite some time. And what’s even better is when you’ve got people at Google, who stage a structured kit, they’re a community of have a voice, they have a voice. So Google has done a great job of hiring independent thinkers, who will stand up for what they believe is right. To me, that is the sign of exceptional leadership, and the leadership listens to them.

Katrina Collier 29:27
I do think that’s where we will end up it might take another 30 years. And you and I will long be retired by then. But I do think, I do feel like the patriarchy is starting to fall. I think so much got shaken up by the fact. You know, the pandemic hit and all of these rigid processes. Oh, you can’t work from home. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. It’s all gone out the window. And I think, you know, it was funny. Someone I mentor just logged on to LinkedIn. She hasn’t been in for a bit. And she just went, Oh my God, so many people have resigned.

Lee Andrese 29:56
Yeah, it’s been happening.

Katrina Collier 30:00
Yes, the US is ahead of Europe.

Lee Andrese 30:02
So the genie has been out of the bottle. Yeah, genie has been let out of the bottle. That and this to me is a big boost for inclusivity is that there are no more excuses to why people can’t work from home. absolutely, positively None. No. And I give our credit, I give credit to our senior leaders. They’re not bringing anybody back in. They are letting go of the real estate. They are like you guys are doing great.

Katrina Collier 30:25
Yeah, most companies have been more productive. I think very few have actually gone the other way. They’re probably the micro managers. But it’s also then imagine if you then got really amazing and just went actually, it’s less about the hours. And it’s more about the when are you productive? And oh, you know, Lee, you’re really great in the afternoon, Katrina you’re great in the morning, whatever, and just let people work when they want to work. That would be even more exciting.

Lee Andrese 30:46
As long as the work is done. I tell the team, these are the hours that our customers need us be available. Other than that. When you do it, do it.

Katrina Collier 30:53
Yeah. Even that’s just a quick reply. Isn’t it? So often answer the phone. Yeah. Interesting.

Lee Andrese 30:59
Yeah. So I think that getting back to the ghosting is the easiest thing to solve. Just get back to your candidates. Is this, this isn’t brain surgery. Just follow up with them until there’s closure.

Katrina Collier 31:13
Yeah. And I think that just recruiters have just got to me, actually, the litigation thing, though, that’s a problem.

Lee Andrese 31:20
It is a problem. And I think the way that we get around litigation, the way that a recruiter can really also set themselves apart as a recruiter is to act like an agent and not like a recruiter. An agent. If you talk to a talent agent, they’re very picky and choosey about the people that they represent. They also set the expectation of what it’s going to be like to work with them. Yeah. So if I tell you, Katrina, you and I are going to have this relationship, if I don’t have anything for you, you’re not going to hear from me. So don’t don’t take that as I don’t care about you. But I have nothing to talk to you about. However, it’s a good idea. If you just want to say hello to me. And by the way, Katrina, I go through at least 100 candidates every single day. So if you want to keep in touch with me, please don’t hesitate to connect with me on LinkedIn, don’t hesitate to connect with me on social, you know, blah, blah, blah. So that’s what this relation, however, Katrina, when you and I engage, and I represent you, whether I’m an in house recruiter or staffing, it doesn’t make a difference. I will make sure that you have closure and next steps from day one until the very end. And I will I will like a dog track that hiring manager down for feedback to give you something that you can use.

Katrina Collier 32:32
Yeah, I want to see more of that.

Lee Andrese 32:35
Yes, yeah, it but it could also be true about systemic issues. So Katrina, my company policy tells me that I won’t be able to provide you with specific feedback, all I’m going to be able to do. Set the expectation upfront, so that person knows what is coming down the pipe. And stick to it.

Katrina Collier 32:53
Yeah, that gets around those no feedback policy, which I’m dead against. But it does get around that if you at least say, Look, I know you’re going to go through six interviews and not actually got some substantial feedback, I guess. And then people can choose.

Lee Andrese 33:07
Eaxctly, choose to opt in. Katrina, do you want to go through a hiring process and then as a recruiter, I can go back to my manager and say I lost this great candidate, Katrina Collier, and because she didn’t like our hiring process. Exactly. I saw a recruiter in the ladies room one day, this was before the pandemic. And she was crying. And I said, so and so, what’s going on. She said, I’m tired of lying about the jobs. I’m tired of lying to candidates about how good it is. Now we were not at the same company. That’s what that’s what some recruiters are going through right now. So I looked at her and I said, you know, you don’t have to lie. You know that this is a choice, you know, that you can leave. But I can’t afford to leave. But you can afford to start looking.

Katrina Collier 33:59
Yeah. And you can choose to be bit more honest and get applicants that choose to stay in the process.

Lee Andrese 34:05
Yes. And you can also be honest about what that candidate is going to want, you know, going to expect and that candidate may very well say, Okay, I’ll make the best of it. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Or the candidate may say, yeah, we’ll see about that. Just get me in the door. I’ll change this company.

Katrina Collier 34:23
That might be up for a challenge. They might want to, they really might want to. Oh, exciting times ahead. If people wish to get in touch with you, Lee, what is the easiest way? Is that the usual LinkedIn spam, or have you got preference?

Lee Andrese 34:38
Yeah, no, have them connect with me on LinkedIn. That’s the fastest way. I’m also on Twitter under @LeeAndrese. So Twitter and and LinkedIn are probably my two most favourite social media. Yeah, hit me up there.

Katrina Collier 34:52
I am so grateful for your time and, of course, your pearls of wisdom. Thank you so much!

Lee Andrese 34:57
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Katrina Collier 34:59
Thank you for listening to The Hiring Partner Perspective unedited podcast proudly supported by the people at WORQDRIVE. Hopefully you really enjoyed what you heard and have left feeling inspired. And if so, I would love your help to create real change. Please pass this podcast on to your hiring leaders and other recruiters and HR, even share it on your social channels, if you feel so inclined. The more reach we can get, the more change we can create. So please remember to subscribe, of course, on your favourite podcast platform. And do come and say hello @HiringPartnerPerspective on Instagram where I share behind the scenes of what’s going on. Until next time, thank you.