Helping global talents succeed in Zurich has been part of my job for years. I am holding a workshop on the topic with HR professionals, and I revisited the five steps. They have not changed over the last decade despite advances in technology and an even higher talent shortage globally.
On the one hand, we have many open positions in Zurich; we hear that employers cannot find the right candidates, there is a war for talent, a shortage of talent, and all that. On the other hand, I speak to many global talents and expat spouses who cannot seem to get a foot in the door and not even land one interview while applying to positions.
We are talking about highly qualified, well-experienced, and reliable professionals with the right attitude and skill set. I blame the process, not the people.
1 – Up Your Recruiting Game for Global Talents
After a frustrating week for my clients on LinkedIn, I started to complain about recruiting on social media. By the end of the week, I was more constructive. When I started this company, I did not intend to reform recruiting, but Recruiters are the evil twin sisters and brothers of Global Mobility Managers.
We have so much in common. We came from the same womb of shared services. Today, we are both trying to get out of kindergarten of the center of expertise we were dumped into because we are considered “difficult to handle.”
Take my hand and let’s walk this path together.
Sisters and brothers, listen up. I am writing this post for you. I want to help my clients have a better candidate experience. I will share my client’s stories and we can always share our pink lunch box to discuss this further.
You can start by writing more inclusive job postings.
2 – Upgrade Your “Applicant Torture System (ATS)”
Most of the applicant tracking systems I currently see are a milder form of torture. Why do they never allow you to save a process in the middle? Maybe you did not yet write your cover letter. Maybe you get a phone call or you are interrupted during an upload. Also, they never give you enough space to upload your extensive collection of testimonials and certifications. They hardly ever give me a status update. That should be so easy to program. Here is where you are, then you get a drop-down or similar with a few status updates: We received your valuable application, one of our staff members has reviewed your application, we have forwarded your application to the hiring manager, you are in the pile of rejections, we might take a second look, we will call you for an interview, we will call you again. Maybe you could get an amazing copywriter to make it sound appreciative.
3 – Ditch Cover Letters and Motivation Videos
Do we really need cover letters and do we have to make them several pages long? If you really want a well-written cover letter it will take the candidate at least 30 minutes if the person is a native speaker and good at writing. If not, it will take them an hour or two. Or, they will ask ChatGPT and produce a really wordy and boring document.
Just to go into the black hole or to receive a robot response. If you want to get a candidate’s motivation it’s simple: We need to make a living in one way or another. We have studied hard, worked hard all of our lives and now we had to face a job loss/ offshoring/ burnout/ international move of the partner.
You will not get a lot of additional value from the cover letter and if you must make it compulsory, can it not be a field where you can just write 200 words instead of an A4 Letter?
And do you really need the video? Or would you not rather use the valuable time of the candidate by meeting them online?
4 – Humanize the Robot Response
The robot response is a little bit disheartening even if you are packaging it nicely. With the GDPR I am not even sure if it is legal that you keep the candidate’s profile in your database. Have you considered writing a line that is a little more personal? In the old days, we used to give candidates feedback and give them a chance to call us by telephone. I guess that’s no longer possible since you are now based out of Wroclaw or Pune.
But maybe you could give a hint, WHY the application did not match (especially when LinkedIn thinks you have 7 (10) skills.
Was it because the candidate seems too lazy as he did not write a cover letter?
Was it because the candidate did not adjust his resume to the role?
Did you maybe think they were too old, too expensive or too xxx? Give us an idea of what to improve next time.
Did you think that their level of German was not good enough (even if it doesn’t really matter to the role)?
5 – Stop Being a Black Hole and Stop Faking Jobs
It’s hard for most of my clients when they receive a lot of robot responses but for many of us, a robot response is better than 0 response. I don’t understand how you can do this and still look in the mirror in the morning. A busy person is using 30 minutes to 2 hours of their precious life to communicate their interest to you and you do not even find it necessary to send a thank you note? Where you raised by wolves? Seriously, sisters and brothers, this is just not good enough.
If you have just posted a job online you cannot tell a candidate 24 hours later that you have found an internal solution, changed the job profile or that you found someone from your network. It screams “fake job”. What were your trying to achieve? I don’t get it and I don’t think that posting a fake job all over the Internet will increase your credibility. You might raise your website’s ranking if you are a newly established recruiting company but who will come back to you a second time? You go back to play hide and seek with the kids in Kindergarten. I don’t think you are ready for school yet. If you must post a fake job for any political or whatever reason at least have the decency to check if the candidate matches other roles. Give them a call, try to see if you can work with them in the future. Maybe they would be great as freelancers.
Employers complain about talent shortage. Maybe we would find more talents if we took a different route and asked talents more about their needs. Examples could be a four-day week (at 100% pay), decent pay and benefits, home office options and family time. And for heaven’s sake could you please eliminate age brackets and other discriminatory items from your job profiles.
Could you also consider that the requirement “native speaker” is discriminatory? In my experience, most of the positions you advertise do not require native speakers but fluency. Be careful how you advertise language skills and you could have a lot more qualified candidates.
Maybe, after all, there is hope. Maybe we should bond and not wait for disruptors in the field. We can be stronger together! Candidates and recruiters. You could be Ginger and Fred, going on amazing dates, dancing wonderful shows together if you just learned to speak each other’s languages better. Ask the candidates about their wishes. Apart from a job, they mainly want to be respected. How can you treat them with respect? What would you do if the candidate was your next date? How would you treat them? What if the candidate was your next manager, supporter or friend? These are questions you should be asking yourself, my dear recruiters. Now, do your homework and then you can come to school with us in the fall.