Making Use of Organizational Culture as a Recruiter
Job candidates have a host of resources at their disposal when applying for a new job and trying to find a good cultural fit with a new company or organization. And today more than ever, candidates are spending more time trying to match their skills and professional experience with an organization that cares, that is creating impact in some way, and has a clear mission and values statement that matches their own outlook on society.
In its 2015 Global Corporate Sustainability report, Nielsen noted that 66 percent of respondents had said they were willing to pay extra for more sustainable brands, while fully 73 percent of millennial respondents said the same. In addition, 81 percent of millennials expected their preferred companies to make public declarations of corporate citizenship.
This represents a shift in how candidates today, some five years later, are thinking about the jobs they want and the careers they want to have. From the recruiter perspective, this information is valuable and should be utilized when conducting first round interviews or phone screenings. Talking about KPIs and salaries are still highly important, but delivering a message to a candidate about an impactful organization is today’s topic of choice.
In order to do this, recruiters need to make the same use of their time that candidates do in perusing company websites, especially if they are working as a headhunter and are not directly with a Talent Acquisition (TA) team at a company.
Website message and branding
Recruiters perhaps need to be even more critical than candidates when browsing a companies website. They need to be familiar with the language the company is using on their site and how the are using it. Thinking about what buzzwords keep appearing or how the organization takes a stance on certain issues is key background information that recruiters will need to know and use strategically when talking to candidates on the phone or via Zoom conference.
If an organization is into “teamwork” and expresses their passion for good leaders, it might be a good idea for recruiters to bring up conversations with a candidate letting them talk about times when they have worked on teams and have in fact exuded leadership qualities.
It is also important to catch differences between an organizations culture online and what they are looking for in applications. Recruiters need to keep an eye out for these differences because sending two different messages to candidates can be confusing and misleading. It is very common for organizations to pay lip service to certain ideas and messages on their website, and in fact run their operation in a way that is counter to such ideals. Recruiters need to be transparent with candidates, but also relay inconsistencies with firms they are commissioned by so the process stays fair and equitable.
A round of interviews
When recruiters do a good job of browsing an organizations website and recruiting for a company over a long period of time, they should become experts in the trajectory of the organization and how the company has changed over time. They need to understand this change and see if candidates will be able to catalyze growth from it.
In this way, a recruiter also needs to be onboard as a brand ambassador for the organization to give off a good message of how much progress the company has made over the years. This is something that usually doesn’t present itself in standard application forms. The recruiter can do this by leading off interviews with a short history of the organization and how far its come.
This will help also help candidates piece together key information they learned on the companies website vs. the recruiters insider position. A good recruiter will be able to help a candidate in this way by allowing them to reflect on both pieces of information. It is the goal of the recruiter to empower a candidate to get to the next stage, not to create a power distance.
Related Articles
Back
Job candidates have a host of resources at their disposal when applying for a new job and trying to find a good cultural fit with a new company or organization. And today more than ever, candidates are spending more time trying to match their skills and professional experience with an organization that cares, that is creating impact in some way, and has a clear mission and values statement that matches their own outlook on society.
In its 2015 Global Corporate Sustainability report, Nielsen noted that 66 percent of respondents had said they were willing to pay extra for more sustainable brands, while fully 73 percent of millennial respondents said the same. In addition, 81 percent of millennials expected their preferred companies to make public declarations of corporate citizenship.
This represents a shift in how candidates today, some five years later, are thinking about the jobs they want and the careers they want to have. From the recruiter perspective, this information is valuable and should be utilized when conducting first round interviews or phone screenings. Talking about KPIs and salaries are still highly important, but delivering a message to a candidate about an impactful organization is today’s topic of choice.
In order to do this, recruiters need to make the same use of their time that candidates do in perusing company websites, especially if they are working as a headhunter and are not directly with a Talent Acquisition (TA) team at a company.
Website message and branding
Recruiters perhaps need to be even more critical than candidates when browsing a companies website. They need to be familiar with the language the company is using on their site and how the are using it. Thinking about what buzzwords keep appearing or how the organization takes a stance on certain issues is key background information that recruiters will need to know and use strategically when talking to candidates on the phone or via Zoom conference.
If an organization is into “teamwork” and expresses their passion for good leaders, it might be a good idea for recruiters to bring up conversations with a candidate letting them talk about times when they have worked on teams and have in fact exuded leadership qualities.
It is also important to catch differences between an organizations culture online and what they are looking for in applications. Recruiters need to keep an eye out for these differences because sending two different messages to candidates can be confusing and misleading. It is very common for organizations to pay lip service to certain ideas and messages on their website, and in fact run their operation in a way that is counter to such ideals. Recruiters need to be transparent with candidates, but also relay inconsistencies with firms they are commissioned by so the process stays fair and equitable.
A round of interviews
When recruiters do a good job of browsing an organizations website and recruiting for a company over a long period of time, they should become experts in the trajectory of the organization and how the company has changed over time. They need to understand this change and see if candidates will be able to catalyze growth from it.
In this way, a recruiter also needs to be onboard as a brand ambassador for the organization to give off a good message of how much progress the company has made over the years. This is something that usually doesn’t present itself in standard application forms. The recruiter can do this by leading off interviews with a short history of the organization and how far its come.
This will help also help candidates piece together key information they learned on the companies website vs. the recruiters insider position. A good recruiter will be able to help a candidate in this way by allowing them to reflect on both pieces of information. It is the goal of the recruiter to empower a candidate to get to the next stage, not to create a power distance.