If we are so fortunate we will at some point experience grief.

Because you don’t experience grief if you haven’t lost something treasured.

I was first aware of grief as a process when my Dad died in 2013.

I said to my wife the other day, ‘I can’t believe this was a quarter of my life ago’.

I was very lucky in our relationship - the love of a son for his father, our friendship, and the mutual respect of our professional lives.

And when he died, after a long, painful illness, full of emergencies, I went through the full cycle of emotions you’d expect - sadness, anger, regret, and even relief that my own burden was over.

But at the same time, I found myself sitting with my emotions, recognising that they were a consequence of what had happened to us and that each instance wasn’t singular, but was part of a tableau of emotions in the journey of our relationship.

It was a weird thing to marvel at while going through a profound time.

If you’ve ever experienced grief, have you gone through the same process of emotions?

I found this happening again in 2020, during the early part of the pandemic, something I’d speculated might happen with Dad, way back when.

Although we thought it would be Ebola. We also talked about the advent of AI, World War 3 as a set of proxy wars, climate change, and the inevitable cycles of civilisation.

What a time to be alive!

To experience these things, and recognise how we react to these stimuli, well it’s pretty much AIDA, isn’t it?

A couple of weeks back I ran an advert for what proved a common skill role - it might have been uncommon a couple of years back, but now there are many great candidates.

450 applications, 85 of whom were viable candidates on paper.

I emailed each of the 85 basic questions, confirming salary expectations, that they were happy with the working arrangements, etc.

This reduced the pile to around half - despite the advert stating the salary clearly, many were waaay above budget, which ruled them out; same with location and their requirements.

The remaining half was halved again because despite responding to my first question, they didn’t reply to phone calls and emails to discuss further. Who knows why - maybe they changed their minds, maybe they got another job, maybe they just didn’t want to talk.

What was notable though, was that two of the candidates were responsive in the right way. Timely, showing relevant interest, and asking great questions.

These alone didn’t make them suitable candidates, yet my experience of them made me want to reciprocate their care.

I found myself sitting with that notion.

Why exactly did this prompt my intrinsic response?

Probably more that I hadn't identified.

The process I carried out was fair and effective, although I made a few mistakes due to the volume. The feedback from the client was excellent too.

From one vacancy, they’ve offered two candidates who have both accepted.

Can you guess which two it was?

Their behaviour and attitude were consistent with how they represented themselves in their CV and in person.

A sign of ‘how you do anything may be how you do everything’.

The flipside of the relationship they built with me and the employer in this process, is the relationship we built with them.

A relationship you can see through their unconscious feedback, their responsiveness and the words they choose to use.

Would they have behaved in this way had the experience I gave them been different?

It’s no coincidence that they commented on the ‘human’ nature of my advert, my responsiveness and the care I took.

Instances I’ve learnt to provide throughout my career, because of the impact I know it has, and because it’s a natural part of my personality and aspirations.

These are things I do because I know that candidates don’t respond to situations in an instant, they do so as a tableau of their emotions in the journey of their career.

In this same process, the opposite happened too, from my post on LinkedIn , with examples of how wider bad experiences intersected with mistakes I made.

For people who’ve had a very challenging job search, reflective of many of the 450 applicants for this seemingly common skills role, what experiences have they had that shape their behaviour and decisions?

How can we stand out, so that the inertia of their experiences doesn’t interact with our actions in the wrong way?

What are we doing to stop ideal candidates from expressing interest in roles that are ideal for them?

It all comes back to their experiences and emotions.

Recognising that what we experience of candidates isn’t the whole story, is a step towards creating better experiences for them while serving our recruitment goals.

Whether it’s more accurate job descriptions, transparent processes, showing what’s in it for them, being responsive to their needs, creating a safe place to ask for help, or all these other steps we have control over that can make a difference.

But to see these benefits that make it easier to recruit, you have to cross the gap between our own needs (inside out) to placing their needs first (outside in).

By being mindful of what a candidate might go through, feel and experience in our recruitment processes, we can deliver a better process.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. I’m waiting for formal signoff on a senior sales role in the next couple of days, but other than that I’ve filled all my vacancies. Let me know if you need any help filling your vacancies (I’m a bit needy, mind) or improving how you recruit.