Marie Norman: Give Good People (Candidate) Experience with the 3 C's. Concede, Create, Consistency

People are your company’s most valuable asset. Yet the interview process is riddled with actions to support otherwise. 

Common Transactional Interview practices like pre-tests, hurdles, hoops, and ghosting do not attract people. In fact, they repel great people. The truth is, people will judge your company on how you make them feel! … not the offer you present to them.

Today’s Quote:

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” 

– Warren Buffett

Guest Bio:

Marie Norman is the Director of Talent Acquisition for Adobe. She leads the Corporate Functions team which includes Global Marketing, Finance, Employee Experience, Legal and Corporate Strategy. 

Marie brings diverse and innovative industry experience leading and building scalable talent acquisition teams and HR programs in the areas of Talent Attraction and Acquisition, Workforce Planning, Career Development and Coaching, Candidate Experience, Employment Branding, and Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. 

Her passion lies in motivating, coaching and building successful recruiting teams, employment branded story-telling and delivering a unique, memorable and delightful Candidate Experience to all. She is also an Adjunct Professor with the College of Business at San Jose State University.

Show Highlights: 

What is “Candidate Experience”
Things that are downgrading your stock in the marketplace
A Process to drive GREAT candidate experience

What is  “candidate experience”? 

Candidate experience
The attraction is more about relationship

Challenges facing today

Managers can no longer play a passive role. 
Managers disengaged
Don't realize they need to be involved
The ability of the recruiter to continue to market the company for future roles
People Fall through the cracks as the process evolves. 
When the candidate is not a top pick, things fall through the cracks and the relationship goes sour
Companies Missing out on quality hires because of quickness. 
Quantifiable metrics
Candidate experience scorecard
Explain the position
Time to follow up
Overall experience
Hiring manager alignment with the role
*** Stats for success between hiring managers
Alignment between the manager & recruiter

Rick’s Input:

Transactional Mindset
Out of sight, out of mind
Give closure

Talent double standard
Miss-judge talent 

How people feel determines how they perform. The purpose of every interview is to get to the truth of who a person is by gathering evidence to support making an accurate decision. 

Ingredients for good candidate Experience

How to give a good candidate experience
Define who plays what part.
Recruiter owns the first part
hand off
Hiring manager takes over
Others- interview scheduler, hr admin, systems, career page, job ad itself - technology-driven, ATS systems - non-human elements 

Process

Easy submittal/application process
Tracking system
Communications set up immediately after application- within 24 hours
Taking action
Establishing a timeline. 
Final disposition
Interview or rejection- communication 
Final communication- honor commitment to respond back

Rick’s two cents

Communicate! 
Be approachable, break  down barriers, hurdles
Be creative: call people who the system screened out. 

Key Takeaways:

CONCEDE that the Candidate Experience is a crucial part of your recruiting strategy
CREATE your plan and communicate/train participants on their roles
CONSISTENCY - be sure to be consistent and repeat the process for every candidate every time!