The Most Serious Complaint I Hear Most About Recruiters And Some Solutions

There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t hear the same complaint from candidates at all levels. Here is a quote from an email I recently received. “About a month ago, a senior talent recruiter for a major [advertising] holding company reached out to me. We had a great conversation.  Said [sic] I’m perfect to lead a global engagement.  Then not even an email or phone call. Nothing.   Is that typical?  If so why do they do that?”

Candidates who interview and never hear back are all too common.  Often this happens, even when next steps are spelled out.  It is a terrible thing to have a good meeting just go into a black hole.

In terms of this issue, I don’t fully have the answer, but I can guess at the reasons this person and many others like him just never hear back.  My thoughts apply to both corporate recruiters as well as outside recruiters like myself.  I don’t believe anyone is intentionally rude, but many don’t know better and are overwhelmed by their workloads and work pressures.  It is easy to drop the ball on candidates when two days has gone by and they have seen a dozen other people and have gotten five or seven new jobs to fill and they have attended six meetings.

Many talent recruiters are seeing far too many people every day – maybe four, six or more candidates a day.  Add to that paperwork and meetings and there is no time left for niceties. However, many bring it upon themselves because they don’t know how to end a meeting.

I am no pillar of virtue, but I manage the expectations of my candidates by telling them at the end of an interview that I will only contact them if and when I have an appropriate opportunity.  I also encourage them to call me any time and I always make time to return their calls.  It is up to the recruiter to manage perceptions of themselves and their company.  Just a few minutes a day can resolve this issue.  One trick for busy recruiters is to return calls when the chances are good that a call will go into voice mail – before 9am, during lunch, etc.  They can be thanked for calling and can receive a message with any status.  That often does the trick. And it leaves the candidate feeling that they have a responsive contact.

I have often believed that it is easy enough to have a subordinate call or send an email to follow up.  That call or email merely has to say the candidate is top of mind and that we will get back as soon as possible.  Also, in this day and age of Outlook and similar programs, it is so easy to program in a follow up call and send a personalized form email.

As in the case of the person quoted in the first paragraph, the recruiter didn’t say if there was anything available, but was trying to say that he/she liked the candidate, without being specific about a job.  After interviewing, recruiters need to recognize that people have selective hearing, so choosing words carefully is important. Being specific can save aggravation and time later. Next steps need to be spelled out and if there are no next steps, the candidate needs to be told so. Why have a candidate follow up and not receive a response; the candidate will only get frustrated and think ill of the company and the person he or she saw.   

I do some corporate lecturing and I remind recruiters, HR people and others who interview candidates that they may be the only person a candidate ever meets from their company.  How they comport themselves and how they treat their candidates is the way people will form an opinion of the entire company. Managing perceptions is really important.

Adventures In Advertising: A Tale Of A Too Nice Office

Once upon a time, when ad agency employees had offices, some were quite nice.  This is the story of one such office.

Years ago, there was a very good ad agency called Kenyon & Eckhardt. K&E was in what was then the Pan Am building (now Met Life).  Almost every employee had his or her own private office. The offices were large, spacious and fairly elaborate.  The most senior executives had office suites which included full bathrooms and showers. In those days this kind of opulence was fairly common.

When I was made a senior vice president, I was given a $5,000 allowance to decorate my office in any way I wanted.

My space became very lush and comfortable.  I had an Eames chair, two very comfortable white leather couches and a thick green carpet.  Everyone liked to hang out in my office.

Many mornings when I came in, I noticed things had been moved.  A picture frame was not quite where I remembered it to be.  The pens that were on an incidental table next to the Eames chair were moved to my desk. The lamp on my table had its shade askew. Nothing important or significant.  I barely gave it a thought and figured that it was the cleaning crew.  

I was working on a new business presentation and had a very tight deadline.  At the time, I was living in Westchester and one morning decided to make a very early train.  So I took the first one out, probably about five in the morning. 

When I got up to my office forty-five minutes later, I found my office door closed and, more surprising, locked. I never locked my door.

In those days we all had secretaries.  Rose’s desk was right in front of my door and I knew that my office key was in her top drawer.  I retrieved the key and unlocked the door, all the while thinking that the cleaning people must have accidentally locked my door.

But when I entered my office I was greeted with a huge surprise.  There on one of my couches was the media director’s secretary, sound asleep.  Linda was on her back, stark naked and so asleep she did not hear me enter.  Her clothes were folded neatly on the other couch, her trench coat was hung over my desk chair and right by my desk was a small suitcase. There was an alarm clock set for 6:30am on my desk. I immediately took her trench coat and placed it over her and gently woke her up.  I don’t know who was more embarrassed, she or I.

I was not sure what to do, but I left the room to give her a few minutes to compose herself and get dressed.  It turns out that she had been living in my office for a couple of months!  She chose my office because it was the nicest and most comfortable at the agency.  And she said my office was nicer than any apartment she had and since she had lost her lease and was effectively homeless, it was better at K&E, where she could be quite comfortable – she could even shower there.   

No one knew she was doing this. 

I had no idea as to what I should do.  Of course, she begged me not to tell anyone.  I decided to tell her boss, the media director, who was also a good friend.  He and I decided to go to the head of operations who was also a lawyer.  He explained the liability and told us that she had to be terminated.  Then he broke out laughing.  He realized that she had been showering in his office because he had noticed that the shower walls were wet each morning.

I am sure that other nice offices, both at K&E and elsewhere, were put to more usual uses after work, but I am sure this was the most unusual.

Adventures In Advertising: How An Agency Blew A Winning Pitch

Many years ago, when ad agencies first became enamored with lifestyle marketing and psychographic research, I worked at Kenyon & Eckhardt (which disappeared into IPG).  The agency had developed a methodology doing this kind of research in order to target its advertising to the appropriate audience (Well, sort of – most of our clients did not see the cost/value benefit, so, despite it being part of most new business presentations, few, if any, clients participated. I subsequently discovered this was true of most clients at most agencies.).  At any rate, we were pitching Holiday Inn and had made it to the finals, actually without discussing this particular research technique.  It was was decided that we would save it for the finals.

There were two other agencies pitching against us. I don’t remember the third, but the second was Y&R.  We were given eight weeks to make a final presentation. The presentation could be anything we wanted it to be, but not creative (which had already been shown, without the benefit of the research).  Among those at the meeting would be the Chairman of Holiday Inn, who had not previously been involved.

I worked for a wonderful man who was head of account management.  His name was George Milliken.  He came up with a great idea.  I would spend two or three days a week in Memphis with the advertising and marketing people at Holiday Inn; George would fly down and spend overnight on a regular basis.  During the weeks that I spent there, I really got to know the entire group in Tennessee, from the CMO and Advertising Director and all their various marketing people. I even met the CEO and Chairman on several occasions.  I helped them do analysis and other chores and participated in marketing discussion.  I became very close to them, as did George.  It was a great strategy and a lesson in how to do a successsful new business pitch.

On our last visit, as both George and I were leaving, a week before our final presentation, they told us how much they liked us and told us that we had the account.  One caveat:  during the final presentation, we were told not discuss advertising research with the  Holiday Inn Chairman because he did not believe in it and thought it was a waste of money.

George and I created an agenda for the meeting. During rehearsals, the senior management of the agency was very upset that we did not want to present our research methodology; they couldn’t believe that the client didn’t want to know about it. (I think it had been alluded to in the earlier presentations, but was not part of them.) The research director actually agreed with George and me and felt that getting the account was more important than discussing something which the client did not want. George stressed to the agency Chairman and ECD that all we had to do was make nice, be smart and stay away from the research. Believe it or not, it was an argument.  But we succeeded in convincing agency management that doing what we wanted was the best course of action.

The entire marketing and executive staff of Holiday Inn came to the meeting.  It was well choreographed and went smoothly.  In fact, it was going so well that the creative director became overly confident and asked our research director to discuss our research capabilities. It was idiotic. I couldn’t believe it.  The marketing people gave George and me quizzical looks.  George tried to finesse it by saying that we just wanted them to know about this as a possible resource.  But there was no way to stop the research discussion. The research director, reluctantly, but briefly spoke about this kind of study and how it might help the client better understand and target his advertising message.

While he was talking, the Chairman of Holiday Inn interrupted and asked how much it would cost.  The answer was given.  At the time it was a lot of money.  The Chairman of Holiday Inn replied with a speech I will never forget.

“Last year we filled millions of bed nights. 90% of them were in cities like Ames, Iowa, Evansville, Indiana and Lubbock, Texas where we are the only game in town. In big cities like New York we are there because we have to be. Gentlemen, have you been to our facility on West 57^th Street?  If you sit in the lobby there and watch people cheek in and out you will know exactly who stays there.  It won't cost more than a few dollars for a taxi.  We don’t need research to understand our business or our customers.  In fact, if you don’t think that we would rather be staying Park Avenue at the Waldorf Astoria then that  place (he actually used a foul description) on West 57^th Street, you are crazy.  So, gentlemen, if you need to use research as a crutch for good work, we will not be doing business with you.”

With that, he stood up and walked out.  His group, of course, followed.

The agency Chairman looked at George and I and said, “He is an idiot.”  Maybe so, but we were warned.  

It was about 11:30 in the morning.  The meeting had lasted only about 45 minutes.  George and I went to our favorite restaurant and had a liquid lunch and then we both went home, devastated.

That is how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I believe Y&R kept Holiday Inn for many, many years.

You Never Know Who Is Interviewing You

No one should ever assume one interviewer is less important than another.  There is always a reason why a company puts someone in the interviewing loop.

Many candidates, particularly senior executives, have confessed to me that they blew interviews because they considered the people they were talking to be irrelevant or inferior.  This often happens when senior executives are asked to meet human resources people towards the end of their interview process. While these interviews may be more courtesy than real, a bad or dismissive attitude can cost a job. 

One very senior human resources candidate told me a story which illustrates this point.  He was almost through the interviewing process at a major company.  He had one final interview. His last interview was with an older person who was nearing retirement and had had this job many years before.  He took this interview for granted - it was at the end of a grueling day of multiple interviews and the candidate just assumed that it was a courtesy interview with the outgoing person. He told me he may have been dismissive.

Unfortunately, he got dinged by the interviewer who thought he was rude.  My candidate confessed that his obvious disinterest in the interviewer cost him the job. Ironically, my candidate was a very senior (and expensive) human resources executive; he told me that he learned a big lesson from this error in judgement on his part. 

When I was an advertising agency executive, Ii was once on an interview to become head of account management at a small agency. While I was waiting for the CEO whose name was on the door, i was brought into a small room which looked like a den. A disheveled woman came in and offered me soda or coffee. She sat down to chat with me while I waited to be interviewed by the CEO. After about ten minutes of chit-chat, I realized she was interviewing me. I had no idea who she was and she certainly didn’t look like an executive.  She actually was wearing a dress, but had stockings rolled down to her ankles. Finally the CEO came in and she sat through his interview with me.

It turned out that she was both the office manager and the CEO’s girlfriend.  I was totally turned off and uninterested in the job. But the point is that anyone who meets you from a company may have the ability to ding you.

These days of casual clothing, people come to meet me, especially on Fridays, wearing ridiculously inappropriate clothing.  One young executive actually told me she would not dress this way on a “real” interview.  Little did she understand that meeting a recruiter might be far more important in the long run than any single person she might meet at a company..

There is no such thing as a courtesy interview.  Anyone you interview with may have the ability to ding you and, on the other hand, could introduce you to other people within (or out) their company.