Suky discusses a question that has come up a lot lately in the recruitment world – is it really necessary for recruiters to meet every candidate in person?
Transcription
Hi I’m Suky from Professional Selection. Today I’d like to talk about a question that’s come up quite a bit recently as to whether the recruiter, whether they’re internal or external should meet every single candidate face-to-face. Well the the honest answer is there’s not a definitive yes or no it’s really going to depend on the circumstances. Now for example you could be based in Toronto, you could be doing a hire in Vancouver, or you could be open to where this individual might be based. It’s just physically and commercially not possible to get out and meet everybody. It could be financially, could be timing. But also what about those candidates that are relocating for the particular job? Especially if they’re out of country likelihood is you’ll find that even the hiring managers have not met them until the individual starts.
So how are they getting around that? Well this day and age we have Skype, we have many different ways of getting face-to-face time with this individual. So that’s an option now.
The other question was well if it’s the senior candidates, should you meet them face-to-face versus a more junior candidate? Again I don’t see that, I don’t see a lot of difference. At the end of the day if you can meet the candidate face-to-face why wouldn’t you? If the candidate is local, yes ask them to come in or arrange to meet them. That’s easy to do, but as I said if the candidate is internationally based or based out of your region, you can’t discount a candidate for that.
So you’ve got to start thinking of alternatives, and using all the technology that’s available to us and the one everybody knows about is Skype. All right, what I would say is though at the very least get on the Skype call. Right so there’s a telephone call but get on the Skype call if you want to get the look and feel of that individual. Skype is a perfectly good solution.
So at the end of the day if you can meet your candidates, meet your candidates face-to-face, but does that make the hire any less probable to last, the culture fit going to be any much of better fit if you’ve met him face to face? I don’t think so. You can get exactly that information via Skype as well.
Anyhow, I’m sure there’s plenty of other thoughts and comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for listening.
