Dude, I'm Digital, But You Can't Ask Me to Only Use Email to Communicate With You...
February 24, 2011
Candidates who go off the voice grid because they can - it drives me crazy, and it's worth rehashing the following post (you can always tell what I'm dealing with in a given week...)
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Back in December 2008, I played a little game of "hiring probability" and asked readers to tell me whether they thought I would get an accepted offer from an elusive candidate. To refresh you, here were the circumstances:
-Position - Sales Pro, good opportunity to earn with a company in a position of market leadership.
-Me - Found candidate with the background, great phone screen and ongoing conversations
-Hiring Managers and Next Level Influencers - loved the candidate in person and on the phone. Prepared to make offer.
-Confounding Variable - Competitive situation. Other medical software providers (not competitors) like the talent too, and are circling.
-Commitment - We make verbal offer, and follow up with the details in writing. Great offer, no comp issues.
-Confounding Variable #2 - The candidate responds positively to the offer, but then goes "off the voice grid", and doesn't return calls. Oddly enough, returns emails though.
-Confounding Variable #3 - Candidate "kind of" accepts offer, sending background workup back and saying that they have to work through a couple of issues before they can sign the offer letter, but they'll be ready to go on 1/5. Also says that they'll be on an early Christmas break over the next week, and they can only be reached via email.
-Me - Since the candidate won't return my calls, I politely ask (via email) for commitment via signed offer letter, citing time line, other candidates, etc. Offer to help candidate work through issues he has regarding offer letter, like non-compete, etc.
So, what happened? I'm glad you asked. Most of you guessed the probability of signing the candidate to be low. After all, as many of you pointed out, a motivated candidate doesn't play games with phone contact if he's going to come to work for you.
Still, we wanted the candidate, and I put the hiring probability at around 10%. As you see from my last contact, I was willing to play the game a bit longer under the remote possibility we would land the candidate and it would end up being good for everyone.
Unfortunately, my hiring manager wasn't. He sent an unprofessional, cut to the chase email that I'll informally paraphrase as follows:
"Dude - your unwillingness to commit and the fact you are telling us you can't talk for a couple of days is freaking me out. Put up or shut up by telling us whether you are coming or not by 10am tomorrow or we're out".
Signed - "Still love ya, but for the love of Shatner make a call - The hiring manager"
About 20 minutes after that email, the candidate indicated (via email, of course) he had changed his mind and would pursue other opportunities, and also asked for mileage reimbursement for the travel to the interview.
Hiring probability - 0%, as many of you guessed.
That hiring manager probably avoided hiring an extremely high maintenance candidate.
Good on him. (or her)
Why are we so afraid to call people on their shit?
at least if they knew they were being moronic, they might have the wherewithall to correct the problem.
Posted by: Tammy Colson | February 12, 2010 at 10:34 AM
When you start to get that queasy feeling that a candidate isn't being upfront, you're probably right. Great approach by the hiring manager and very entertaining story (and lesson for everyone). Every recruiter wishes they had a hiring manager this straightforward.
Posted by: Mike Hard | February 12, 2010 at 11:00 AM
That's a solid hiring manager, he did what you probably should have done. It's amazing how the best of us even have a hard time doing the hardest things sometimes.
Having spent many years on the dark side (headhunting), one of the things that was drilled into my head during this time was this: As the recruiter, you can't pull apart a deal that is meant to come together. My interpretation was that once you have interested parties on both sides, take away the opportunity early and often. If you tried to take away the offer from this candidate by establishing a hard walk-away deadline and he let you, he was never going to accept it, he was just using your offer to get more money out of the job he really wanted.
Posted by: Jason Lauritsen | February 12, 2010 at 01:51 PM
Cost of recruiting (direct + indirect) = $2500
Time spent developing closure strategy = 2 hours
Not having to change sales pro's diapers if hired = priceless
Posted by: Steve Levy | February 16, 2010 at 01:07 PM
And think how amazing it would be if the candidates could be the same way to the revcruiters and hiring managers. Demanding straight answers. That would be awesome.
But just wait a couple of years and the retiring of the baby boomers just might get us into that situation. Will be interesting to see the industry adapt:-)
Posted by: twitter.com/c_almgren | February 25, 2011 at 01:23 AM