A recent article, by Anita Hofschneider of The Wall Street Journal, was floating around LinkedIn yesterday. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bosses-pick-phone-225200364.html#! In it, she speaks to the challenges that sales managers are facing with staff members of the millennial generation using digital mediums as their preferred method of communication.
The article highlights how things can be lost in translation, how you can’t build effective rapport and how one can make poor assumptions. All of these are absolute truths when using digital mediums, in my opinion. The one comment that resonated the most with me was the difficulty in building rapport.
If you think about what recruiting is, in its essence, it is building both rapport and trust with candidates. Both of these key building blocks must be reciprocated by each party for there to be success in whatever placement or career counseling they are working on together
The fastest and most sincere way to build this early rapport? There is no doubt in mind my mind that it is the recruiting phone call. Not one doubt.
Is it hard for candidates to find the time to speak – yup, it can be. This has been a challenge since the dawn of recruiting. What do the most successful recruiters do to make this work? They make themselves available. It’s that simple. Chat before work, on their commute, over lunch, after hours or on a coffee break. Whenever that 30 minute window will manifest for the candidate, both parties need to capitalize on the opportunity to have a candid, and thorough, discovery phone call.
This initial Recruiting Call will be as much for the candidate, as for the recruiter, if done right. Is the Recruiting Phone Call dead, I sure don’t think so. As a candidate, would I be worried if my Recruiter avoided the phone? Absolutely. What are they hiding? Are they afraid I will ask too many questions?
The Recruiting Call ensures quality for both parties. I hope it never goes the way of the…pager? Or fax? Actually, those two I can live without.