How rude. How unprofessional.
As a whiz-kid salesman, I was as good as they got. My prospects simply loved me. I would sweet-talk their receptionists and sugarcoat my proposals. I would travel to meet them and wine them and dine them and they would all – and I mean every one of them – tell me what a swell guy I was. I was a hotshot whiz-kid and they were all – and I mean every single one – hot to trot.
Odd, then, that after a huge investment of my time and my money and my emotional capital these same “It’s-a-done-deal-call-me-Monday” prospects would suddenly go into hiding. They wouldn’t return my countless phone calls or my “RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Our lunch last February” emails. They would even ignore my eventual pleading for the professional courtesy of telling me I was a sorry schmuck and the deal was dead. As if I really needed telling.
This same scenario plays out every day in recruiting too. It could be your own attempt to nail a client or get a hiring manager to respond. And don’t for a minute think that candidates don’t sometimes feel this way and for good reason.
There are three things I suggest you start doing if you find this is happening to you:
1. The easiest and most important thing of all: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Need I say more?
2. Establish a firm and clear agreement as to what is going to happen next and when it’s going to happen. You need to agree in your “up-front contract” what those things not happening really means, and what is going to happen if the contract is broken.
3. Have respect. Respect yourself, respect your professional standing, and respect the contract. If the contract is broken, you’re moving on. You’ll find that you will get more accomplished this way. You’ll also be shown the respect you deserve – without having to beg for it.
I believe that we are so quick to accept wishy-washy commitments or deny the obvious blow-off because we are so emotionally vested in the game that we tend to forget this is business. Recruiting, like sales, is no place to get your emotional needs met. Stop it.
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Unfortunately, when I migrated everything over from the original WordPress blog to the Blogversity domain the comments for June ’06 got lost in the shuffle. Bummer.
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Dec 8th, 2006
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