There’s an executive recruiter who’s been calling me for a few months. Every time we talk and we like each other less and less. She asks a lot of questions, never listens to my very honest answers, and then is annoyed that I’m not interested in the jobs she’s trying to staff (which are in direct contradiction to all of the answers I’ve given to her never-ending list of questions.)
I don’t understand why she keeps calling me, on my office phone number no less. And then on Thursday afternoon, I finally realized that I needed to explain to her exactly why she’s having trouble getting people like me (and everyone I know) to take these postings seriously: they don’t pass the BS test.
She was totally annoyed by my advice. I found a more professional way to explain the BS test but the general sentiment is the same – don’t give me some high-brow job description filled with jargon. Tell me what’s amazing about the company and the team and why I want to be part of it. Don’t try to dazzle me with buzz words like “high-level strategy”, “high-visibility”, “senior-level exposure”. Tell me what a day in my life could be like there and what I’m going to learn. And please don’t tell me what my skills can do for a company. I already know that. Instead, relate to what I care so deeply and passionately about – developing products and services that make people’s lives better.
Corporate HR and executive recruiters need to really push their clients, meaning the hiring leaders. Really push them to accurately represent the jobs they’re looking to fill and exactly what those job descriptions are in plain English. Then they need to tap into their other customer base, the people they’re trying to recruit, and listen, really listen, to exactly what it is those candidates want to do and why. Any other path is just an extraordinary waste of time – for recruiters, for companies, and would-be team members.
Christa Avampato 