Leadership

Letdown Calls Suck. Make Them Anyway.

By Jessica Stillman

Updated on: July 15, 2009 / 8:03 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

The Find: One blog is offering a reminder to hiring managers from the better angels of recruiting: you must call every candidate who hasn't gotten the gig, even if picking up the phone is a miserable job.
The Source: The recruiting blog Fistful of Talent.

The Takeaway: Getting a call to say you haven't got a job certainly sucks, but for that matter, so does making that call, and picking up the phone to say "sorry, but you haven't succeeded" is even more painful in the current job market. Great candidates are being turned away and many job seekers are emotionally frayed after an extended and frustrating search. But as Fistful of Talent insists, that's no excuse to bow out of you responsibilities as a hiring manager. Recruiting expert Tim Toolan of executive search firm Sanford Rose Associates, writes on the blog:

Calling candidates to "let them down" is always tough. In these challenging economic times, it is super tough. Great people trying to land a new gig with more competition from (lots of) others all trying to land the same job. Smart people with families mostly hit hard by bad decisions other people made.

This news has to be delivered and by telephone. No exceptions. If your process in letting candidates down is using e-mail as your primary communication tool - you are doing them a disservice, taking the easy way out - and I think it's wrong. I hate making the call too! OK - let me clarify ---I really hate it! BUT...now more than ever, having an excellent communication plan and process is essential, so candidates know exactly where they are in the search process.

The Question: Job seekers out there, is recruiter bad behavior the exception or the rule?

(Image of man on bad news telephone call by Iain Farrell, CC 2.0)