Martin Hunt

Rules for building effective communication

The main tool of a recruiter communicator is correct and appropriate questions to company representatives and candidates. Now our rules for building effective communication.

We ask one question at a time. It has happened to you that you ask several questions in succession, but only get one answer. Either the last one, or the one that your respondent himself wants to answer. To get answers to all questions, we adhere to this rule.

We remain friendly and clarify the details by replacing the WHY question with synonyms. Our psyche is designed in such a way that the question WHY inevitably makes us make excuses and feel awkward. But we don’t want to create additional difficult situations for candidates. And stress interviews are no longer a trend.

We ask open questions without prompts. We pause and wait for what the candidate himself will say. This is the only way we will know what he really thinks, and not get a socially approved answer.

We exclude questions with value judgments. This refers to the situation in the candidate’s experience or the position of the company for which you are recruiting.

What does trust consist of and how to establish trusting communication with candidates

Relationships of trust between people are built gradually. From personal experience, predictability and an inner feeling that your interests are taken into account as the own interests of another person. In other words, if you trust someone, you rely on them as you rely on yourself.

How to build trust with candidates.

• Give feedback to the candidate
• We will call you back! Sometimes this is the last phrase a candidate hears from a recruiter. Then the recruiter, having lost interest in the unsuitable applicant, disappears. Such actions undermine trust in the recruiter and the company.
• To build a strong relationship with the candidate, keep him informed about what is happening. Just because a candidate is not suitable for a particular vacancy does not mean that he will not be suitable for another. Or he will become your next client.
• Even if the decision is not up to you, the hiring manager is taking his time or cannot make the final choice, tell your candidate about this.
• Be emotionally neutral

IT recruiter – external representative of the company.

For a candidate, an IT recruiter is an external representative of the company. And your communication style is the company’s communication style. Whether it will be friendly, correct and humane or formal and unstable depends only on you.

Even an IT recruiter is not immune from negative and difficult experiences and conditions. First, we cope with our emotions and only then organize a meeting online or offline. When you are tired or cannot cope with strong emotions, it is better to cancel the meeting or ask a colleague to back up.

Listen to the candidate.

It happens to you like this. Find a resume, check the formal requirements of the employer – everything fits. Look at the last place of work and you see one of the flagship companies. You know what conditions are stated in this company. You understand the level of problems that employees solve and you already know for sure that your proposal for a startup will most likely not be considered by such a candidate. And yet you did not ask the candidate himself about his wishes and motivation. They just thought of it for him.

Asking a question and clarifying expectations is obviously better than drawing conclusions based on speculation. You should have some evidence that the candidate definitely does not want to work in the proposed project.

When asked directly whether you want to work at a startup, you will almost certainly get a negative answer. Case or projective questions provide a clear picture of what is valuable to the candidate, what motivates them and where they want to go.

Act quickly

If it’s up to you to decide whether a candidate’s experience is relevant, don’t wait. If the candidate matches the application, send your resume to the hiring manager and give a brief description of the candidate and his expectations, support the validity of the choice with arguments. The IT recruiter’s task is to provide complete and objective information so that the employer’s representatives can also quickly decide whether to hire or not. Otherwise, your first-class candidate will accept an offer from another company that is more efficient and faster. If a candidate is not suitable for the position, tell them within the company’s deadline. This usually happens the day after the interview.

Rely on reliable sources

Verify the information that hiring managers and candidates give you. Confirmation, figures and facts are available in official sources. Without evaluative and emotional coloring. The brain is designed in such a way that it trusts ordered information that is based on numbers and facts more. This means that candidates will trust what you say more. If a job applicant has not received an answer to a question that worries him greatly, he will look for the answer himself. And we don’t know where he will look for him – whether it will be comrades, colleagues or the Internet. We can eliminate the appearance of candidates’ conjectures by citing sources. And thus reduce the risk of false, unverified information about the company.

Be humane

The more facts and figures, the more trust. And this does not exclude a human attitude towards candidates – respect, affection and interest. Nobody likes to communicate with robots and emotionally poor people. Show your emotions and show feelings, but respect the person you are interacting with. How much of your emotions a person is ready to withstand. Is he ready for informal communication? Maintain a friendly, neutral, comfortable tone of communication. This reduces tension and increases trust levels. Just what we need.

Establish long-term connections

The IT market is a professional market. The faster and more accurately an IT recruiter selects the only suitable candidate from existing candidates, the higher his value. The contacts you create here play for the long haul. The current candidate could be a candidate for your next great job or even become your client. Therefore, build trust and maintain good contacts with candidates. The stronger the candidate-recruiter connection in the present, the better the contact will be in the future. It has become good form to add candidates to professional social networks and directly invite them to keep in touch, even if going to work did not happen this time.

Correspondence or personal communication

These modes of communication work differently at different stages.

Correspondence is suitable for formal information. If the facts are obvious and unambiguous. Date, time and place of meeting. Company regulations and rules. Stack query and projects.

To convey feelings or emotions or support we need more descriptive words. Each message reader is in a different state, and we cannot determine what he is thinking or meaning when viewing your message.

Personal communication is necessary if there is a misunderstanding or a difficult situation. With intonation, tone of voice and its timbre, we clearly express emotions and feelings and hear the state of the other person.

If you see that your reasons or arguments may be perceived ambiguously in correspondence, call the candidate or hiring manager and clarify the issue.

Don’t get confused about the readings

Before sharing company information with a person, check with the hiring manager and co-workers. Typically, during the first meeting with a future employer, IT recruiters determine what information about the company is intended for “official use” only, and what can and should be broadcast externally. When an employer and an external recruiter say the same thing about the company, conditions and expectations, it accurately shows consistency and unambiguity in the presentation of information.

You shouldn’t dump everything you know about the employer on the candidate. Keep your focus on what the candidate values. And we will ask him about what is valuable to him during the interview.

When talking about stability, give specific examples of stability in your company. For example, even in a market crisis, the company found a way out and supported its employees – maintaining the level of salaries or social benefits.

When you promise prospects and professional growth, confirm this with incidents from your life. Five people rose from middle to senior level in six months. The senior created a new project within the company and became a team lead.

Organize clear communication and people will be drawn to you. Both customers and candidates.