The Likeability of Your Recruiters Is About Much More Than Just Being Polite

You’ve got recruiters. They recruit for you. If you’re in a competitive space, the candidates who interact with your recruiters consider the jobs they offer as commodities.

I know. Commodity is a harsh word. After all, don’t these candidates know how special your company is? How the most important asset is people? The values… The opportunity. I could on, but you’d do the same thing you’re candidates are doing – you’d tune it out. At the end of the day, if your recruiters are recruiting in a competitive space, it all ends up sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Blah, blah, blah.

So let’s talk about something that moves your recruiters out of the commodity space and into the opportunity to be a career consultant.

Let’s talk about the “likeability” of your recruiters.

Likeability isn’t about being professional or upbeat. It’s about your recruiters being interesting before, during and after they talk to a candidate.

In order to be likeable, your recruiters need to do some things to separate themselves from the pack. They need to add a vibe of transparency to their professional lives, which means they’ve got to leverage tools like social media to broadcast messages from themselves as individuals, separate but complementary to your corporate brand.

Some of you are saying “what the hell are you talking about, Kris?” I get it. What I’m saying is that your recruiters need to be visible in a way that builds trust and makes them likeable in ways that other recruiters can’t touch.

Being likable means they’ll get calls returned when others can’t. It will bring your company out of commodity status.

Here’s my short list of things that your recruiters need to talk about in their social streams to make them more accessible and likeable:

Pop Culture and/or Sports
Pictures and Video (of the recruiter, the workplace and shared from other sources)
Making fun of yourself in a professional way
Opinions on the jobs you’re trying to fill – balanced pro/con
You recognizing the work of others

It’s only by giving up some control that your recruiters will feel free to become more likeable. And that’s the best path to get out of the commodity status you’re in related to your company’s open jobs.

http://blog.imomentous.com/the-likeability-your-recruiters-is-about...

Comment by Will Thomson on November 2, 2012 at 10:50am: In order to be a "likeable" recruiter, not a commodity, there is one main thing you must do. You must have a genuine interest in others and what they are doing. A recruiter who listens to what the candidate WANTS to do and doesn't try to sell them into a position that isn't a fit is a likeable recruiter. Referrals will start flowing and you will have a reputation above and beyond what others have. Yes, you have to be real. Talking about family, sports, having pictures of your family, being active in the community are all part of it also- but that doesn't get you anywhere if you aren't genuine. Thanks for posting, you have some valid points.

Comment by Sylvester Simon Pascal on November 5, 2012 at 3:48am: Fair enough, thanks Will. What do you think about Mobile recruiting software and its importance in the present day recruiting? Given the percentage of job seekers on mobile is around 77% and one out of 5 recruitment searches is done on mobile. Do you think its high time that the corporates should change their hiring strategy?