11 Ideas on Treating Your ‘Prospective Internal Customers’ Well
Tanmay Vora
I wrote a post earlier titled “Points to Ponder on Your Internal Customers: Your People” listing some of the important considerations when managing your people. Internal customers are your people, and it is important to treat them well. Obvious!
Today, I want to touch upon your “prospective internal customers” – people who you interview and screen for open positions within your organization. If they make it through the hiring process, they are going to be your internal customers. But even if they don’t make it through, they still remain your “prospective internal customers” because they interact with you and share their ideas. They ultimately go back into the marketplace with an “experience” you extend to them during the hiring process.
If you are a human resources professional managing the hiring process, a business owner or someone on a technical interview panel, here are a few things you MUST consider for extending a great experience to your prospective candidates:
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Remember that every candidate that walks into the doors of your company is your brand ambassador.
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People are more connected, physically and virtually over social media. They talk about companies and experiences.
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They start “feeling” your organization the moment they walk in. Why not make that feeling a pleasant one?
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Treat them well – as an interviewer, you have to be humble and give due importance to what candidate has to say.
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It is important to share larger perspective with them. Introduce them to your organization (read “sell”) and be transparent in sharing the details.
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Seek to understand them – ask right questions to get the right details. Elaborate your questions so that they are easily understandable. Short and direct questions are sometimes incomprehensible.
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Remember that an interview is not about “quizzing” the candidate. It is about engaging them in a “conversation”. Seek details as a part of conversations, not as a rapid fire round of questions.
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Conversation is important because people only open up fully when they are engaged in meaningful conversation.
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Be generous. Educate them when they demonstrate lack of clarity on something. When you add some value (in form of knowledge) to the candidate, they remember you (because you gave them something).
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Interview them in the right setting, offer basic courtesies and extend a positive experience. It goes a long way in creating a positive word of mouth.
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Earlier, marketing/advertisements were enough for creating your brand. Today, it is people and their experiences with you that creates brand.
People will eventually forget the kind of questions you asked them – but they will remember the “experience” you extended to them during the hiring process.
Make sure you deliver a GREAT experiences!
Good pointers to be taken note of for sure…We all do understand these points, but at times they slip by, when there are too many things to be done..We, HR people need to keep them handy & read them often, so that they become a part of us.!!
Thanks Tanmay
Thanks Deepa – I am glad you liked the ideas presented in the post. My view is that implementing these ideas does not require more investment (in time or money), but only some more thoughtfulness, awareness and discipline.
The idea is to ensure that “people-oriented” methods of hiring become an integral part of your culture.
Great ideas. You always rock the mind through your out of the box representation.
I think almost all of them are applicable not only to ‘prospective’ internal customers but ‘current’ one as well.
Sudev – I totally agree that these ideas apply to internal customers as much as they do for “prospective” internal customers.
I am a staunch believer in treating all customers (external, internal, prospective external and internal) customers with a human approach and extend great experiences. A company becomes great “one great experience” at a time.
Thanks for commenting and have a great day!
I remember one incident when I was interviewed by a great person. I will remember that day forever.
When I entered the room I was welcomed very well. He made me comfortable by telling that it was not an interview but a casual meeting. I was relaxed. Our conversation went on smoothly and at last I was selected. But that day, I was very happy to meet a person from whom I got to learn lot many things. I found that he was a source of inspiration for me.
Sometimes there are interviews in which the interviewer starts bombarding questions one after the other (just like attending viva in your practical exams :-)). I feel that the interviewer is trying to make you feel that you don’t know many things.
It is really true that people will open up fully when they are engaged in meaningful conversation.
Have a great day ahead.
Amit – Thanks for sharing your experience, and I am so glad it was a positive one 🙂
You rightly said that interviewers ask rapid fire questions as if they want to prove that candidate knows little.
Pre-condition of being human with people is to put your own ego and burden of your past accomplishments aside. You have to be genuinely interested in the candidate, his views and gauge his potential in that process.
Interviewers forget that while the candidate is not perfect now, what matters is a candidate’s potential to scale up and deliver, attitude and approach towards problem solving. I have seen people go on a defensive mode when rapid fire questions are asked.
Thanks for expressing your views!
Tanmay
Hi Tanmay, Great Points to take into consideration while hiring people. I believe 80% of the companies fails in following the above written points. We treat “Prospect internal customers” as needy, so the treatment to them is not as human as it should be.
We should always keep in mind that “Prospect internal customers” at Company doorstep are Company’s prospect future. They can benefit you after getting selected (by giving their best in their wok area) and even if not selected (being your brand ambassador).
So now its on us what we are giving to our prospect candidates to take out, A smile on face or a frustration of not treated well.
@Mithilesh – Thanks for commenting Mithilesh – Out of 80% companies you mentioned miss these points, 100% of them know the importance of doing it right. They lack required discipline and awareness when facing a candidate for taking an interview.
Most of the times, they miss it also because technologists who conduct interviews are not very “people-oriented”. Companies need to conduct a separate training for the recruitment team members on how people should be handled. I have always believed that managing technologies and machines is easy. Managing people is difficult – and is also your opportunity to build a formidable brand for your organization.
Thanks again!
Best,
Tanmay
Hi Tanmay,
Excellent points. Such steps are really important to be followed in every organization. Would like to add upon another point here. I have seen companies where HR folks / technical interviewers try to “oversell” the company to the candidates by providing some false information about candidates work profile, perquisites and about organization in general. Such practices should always be avoided and it should be made sure that only a correct and clear picture is given to the ‘prospective customers’.
@Andy – Thanks for adding that point very succintly – on a longer run, professional integrity (what you say = what you do) is extremely crucial for an organization’s branding. I would say it is the starting point of all internal branding activities.
I totally agree that transparency and integrity during the hiring process is an absolute must and helps a great deal in building the right brand for your organization (with your internal people as well as prospective candidates).
Thanks for commenting!
Tanmay
I agree with Sudev’s point to treat ‘internal’ customer as well. Its now time, particularly in IT industry to not only treat prospective candidate as Customer but treat your internal “assets” diligently to get best out of them. Our Indian culture do not allow us to be too much professional. Your true internal “assets” really help you to create right branding of organization without spending much on “advertisement”.
Niraj – In my view (for internal customers), corporations now have no choice but to deal fairly with people and treat them as human beings (not just as “resources” or “assets”) – we are already out of factory model where people were just a part of assembly lines.
For prospective internal customers – people talk, connect and interact on their “experiences” and as prospective candidates, if you deliver great experiences, you start differentiating yourself and create a strong branding.
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