The Career Tree Network Blog

Dealing with the demands of individual candidates is a pain.  In this post, I’ll identify three easy ways to treat candidates poorly.  This will ensure that less applicants come forward, which reduces the burden on you.

1.  On your outgoing voicemail message, say something like:  “Due to the number of phone calls that we receive, I am unable to return phone calls from candidates”.

The last thing you want to do is talk to a candidate who has an interest in your company!  Including this outgoing message will make it very clear that you don’t like talking to candidates on the phone and even if they leave a message…it will never be returned. 

2.  Use a general HR email account. 

Developing a personal relationship with candidates is time consuming.  Even with the convenience of email it’s too much of a hassle to reveal your personal email address and communicate directly with candidates.  Setting up a general mailbox provides a nice smoke screen to keep your personal email account safe.  Candidates can send their email to the “black hole” and will then be less disappointed when they don’t hear back.       

3.  Require that candidates apply on-line.

Never spend time dealing with potential candidates.  Don’t put your contact information on job postings.  Any questions that a candidate has can be answered during their interview.  Forcing candidates to jump through your organization’s on-line application process will weed out those people who only have a casual interest in a position.  If they don’t have 30-45 minutes to formally apply (like anyone who has a family), then why should you bother with them?

Conclusion

Avoid contact with individual candidates so that you can stop building time consuming personal relationships.  Another avenue is to pay a headhunter (30% of salary) for all of your recruitment.  Then sit back and let them take the time to develop relationships with your candidates. 

When a candidate does join the organization to become an employee, flip the switch and treat them well so that they’ll help you become a “Great Place to Work”.  That garbage about making a good first impression is so overrated.