Hi Recruiters,
Remember TLC? No, not the wildly successful 90s R&B girl group (RIP Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes). I’m talking about tender love and care.
Still, we might as well revisit this classic.
(I love a good throwback.)
Back to tender love and care. I bring it up because it’s an extremely powerful idea.
For one, it’s impossible for anyone to misunderstand the meaning of the phrase. Secondly, apply TLC to just about anything and you get remarkable results. One could even go as far as to say that everything good in this world is an outcome of a little TLC.
It’s the magic that brings shelter and health to abandoned, stray animals. Or inspires a care package delivery for a sick friend. Or offers a warm hug to a grieving family member. Or encourages a child to express themselves without shame.
The cool thing about TLC is, it unlocks greatness in people. Why? Because it’s the thing we all really need.
Give and Receive
You might be wondering what this has to do with recruiting. The answer is, everything.
People (AKA job candidates) just want to be treated in a way that makes them feel loved and cared for. But the more we confuse working humans who have entire lives, skills, passions, interests and goals with “pools” and “qualifications,” and put up more and more screens and digital distance between us and them, the harder it becomes to see who they are beyond their resume. As Brian Fink put it, “Imagine a world where hiring is based on a real connection, on understanding the person behind the paper.”
Yeah, I want that.
The massive scale of modern recruiting and the ever-increasing speed of business is not an excuse to suppress our ability to act with love and care. In fact, the sophisticated recruiting tools we have to engage with job seekers today (and each other) should be used as high-powered TLC-shooting cannons. Because when love and care is received, it’s often returned.
Build Bridges
Nobody who’s made it far in this industry has done so by burning bridges — with candidates, customers, or fellow recruiters (AKA people). And those who have had great success will tell you they’ve very intentionally done just the opposite.
What does that look like?
Take it from Jeff DeModna, VP of Recruiting Services at ExtensisHR. In a recent speakEZ episode, Jeff dropped the mic when he said “Your employee experience starts with your candidate experience. If you want happy employees, you have to give candidates a good experience.” For Jeff, part of providing that experience is to ensure candidate communication is always high quality.
Or expert tech recruiter 🅗🅔🅐🅣🅗🅔🅡 Heather Colvin, who recently said “I can't control how others perceive my actions, but I can certainly control how I treat them. I choose to operate with grace, focusing on positivity and being an active listener to better understand where a person's current perspective is. My hope is that my mindset and actions serve to inspire others to adopt the same approach.” Beautiful.
Or Jason Moser, M.Ed., SHRM-CP, PHR, HR Generalist, who shared, “I make it part of my discussion with candidates to ensure they will not be ghosted, and will receive a message no matter what the outcome.” Jason even makes it a point to send a personal message to every rejected candidate.
No Scrubs
There’s a reason why the world listened when TLC said, “No, I don’t want no scrub”. Recruiters, job seekers, employers, customers… we’re all in this thing together. There’s no room for scrubs.
Okay, that’s not actually why the world listened. But it sounded good when I wrote it.
As Jimmy Rodgers sang, “Tender love and care makes life worth living.”
What else is happening in hiring?
Kunwar's Korner
Kunwar Ishan Sharma here! There's nothing I love more than talking, lunch and coffee.
Oh, that's not what TLC stands for? Whoops.
Well, someone who definitely knows about TLC is Dan Lockhart, especially the love he has for his two beautiful dogs 😍.
