The post interview follow-up

Sorry I’ve been out of touch the last few weeks, SUPER busy and barely any time to tweet....scary. Anyway, I’m back and hope that this short blog will get me back and dedicated to this.

This week’s topic...post interview follow up. Nothing crazy here just common sense recruiting advice. When you interview with someone for a job or even if it’s just an informational chat you’ve got to do a few things:

1) Ask the person if you can connect on LinkedIn - This is networking in the 21st century 101 here folks. You should be connecting to everyone and anyone you interact with professionally. Built that online network, you’ll need it eventually.

2) Send a follow up thank you - I prefer email but sometimes it’s nice to get something in the mail. If you are going to mail something, use professional stationary and make it nice. Emails, you can you be a little more causal but you still want to make it nice and sincerely express your thanks for the persons time.

3) Stick to your commitments - Said you’d follow up with a resume? Do it. Offer to send some referrals? Do it. Nothing worse than having someone promise to help you with a few things...only to never hear from them again. Don’t be that guy.

There you go, a few simple tips that if you follow them after every hiring related meeting....you’ll find your job search is much more successful!

Feedback to improve your process?

Going back to my airport reading, I read Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker (link here) as part of The Essentials book from the Harvard Business Review. Good article. One big take away was how this would relate to how we recruit. Specifically, how can you improve the hiring process?

Drucker says “The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis” which if you think about it is dead on. Peer reviews, 360 reviews and manager feedback are all critical to self-improvement. But...how do you get this to relate to recruiting? Here are a few quick thoughts:

1) Track your metrics - Any data you can analyze about your process is sure to help you discover your strengths and improve the process. Find your time to fill is terrible but you have a 100% acceptance rate? Maybe your process does such a good job selling candidates that it takes a long time but as an org you’ve decided it’s a worthwhile trade-off. Whatever the data, taking a deeper look and analyzing the feedback will help you discover your strengths.

2) Survey your new hires - That’s right, 30 days after you have a new employee start you should sit down with them and do a post mortem of the process. What went well? What could be improved? Take this feedback to heart, discover the strengths and weaknesses of your process....adjust as necessary!

3) Ask people you don’t hire - File this under “take with a grain of salt” but I think there is value in talking to some of the people you don’t hire about your process. I’m not saying this is the end all be all of feedback but if you have a few selected candidates who maintain a good relationship with your organization you can get a ton of value from their thoughts. That said, I’d use this feedback as a way to verify feedback from the other sources as opposed to changing your entire strategy based on people outside the organization.

For now, happy recruiting and I hope to have another grunge post later in the week!