How to Recruit Humanely

I recently spent two months interviewing for what seemed to be the perfect job – work from home, high pay, great benefits, and best of all, a respectful, intentional, inclusive company culture. The interviewers stressed that they valued their peers and that the company does as well. For someone who entered the work force in 2003, and has worked in corporate, non-profit, and higher education settings, this rhetoric was refreshing and inspiring. I had toiled as an underpaid adjunct. I had worked in corporations where it seemed like you were selling your soul for a high salary. And while the non-profit world checks off some humanitarian boxes, you’re often going to be working in an understaffed office for half of what you should be paid. I was all in.

The process was long and time-consuming, but the prize of finding a company that truly valued people as individuals – even if I didn’t get the job – kept me going. After a lengthy application, four rounds of interviews, a 90-minute assessment, and eight weeks, I finally reached the end of the road and waited to hear from the HR representative. I had hope, but I wasn’t counting the job as mine.

The next Monday afternoon, I found an email and my heart sank. The subject read, “Company Job Application Update.” I knew I hadn’t gotten the job and was disappointed. But what was even worse was that the email was a generic form rejection: “We’ve decided to move forward with a candidate that more closely represents our needs.”

I’ve been working for nearly twenty years in a hiring environment that chews up applicants and spits them out. I have developed a pretty thick skin when it comes to rejection. But this email actually made me cry.

All of the high-blown rhetoric of valuing people as individuals, of respecting all people whether they were clients or employees or not, was simply that: rhetoric. The clear disregard with which this company sucked up two months of my time and then waved me away with no regard for my humanity would have been disappointing in any situation, but I would have dealt with it and moved on. The added claim that they made, that they placed worth on each individual, had given me hope that there were truly companies that respected workers. The discovery that it was all smoke and mirrors added an edge to the disappointment that keeps cutting.

Now, it is time to change the way we recruit people. The processes I’ve been through have been so inhumane and faceless, and they make me fear for the next generation of young people who are vying for good jobs that seem to become scarcer each day. From applicant tracking systems to video interviews, the process entails less human interaction and more coldness of computerized decision making. While these tools are necessary in our online world, they can be used in ways that serve both applicant and recruiter. I want to pass on a better world to the next people coming up. I want companies to start recruiting humanely, and here’s how.

Have real people involved from the earliest stages

I have been part of the process. I know what it’s like to put a job posting up on Indeed and be inundated with resumes.

The first thing to do is have someone who does the actual job write an intentional job posting. Have them avoid keywords and phrases as much as possible. The job post should not consist of the same generic listing of the same qualities that all jobs everywhere are looking for. Think clearly about your company culture and how to get the right people to respond to the posting in the first place.

But you don’t have to use Indeed, Monster, or Craigslist. Consider not using an applicant tracking system. As Liz Ryan wrote in Forbes magazine, “They are a pox -- undoubtedly the worst application of technology ever employed to solve a human problem.” They are cold, they attract way more resumes than you actually need to look at, and worst of all, they are unreliable. The systems will filter out applicants that would have been amazing employees, but they didn’t check off every box for the computer.

If we want our employees to think outside the box, we need to as well.

Respond warmly

While it’s impossible to send each applicant a personal response, you can make automated responses respectful and thoughtful.

Firstly, your management system can include the applicant’s first name in the automated response. That is simple etiquette but goes far in making the person feel like they are a person.

You can also sort your applicants and have three different responses that are tailored for where that applicant falls; whether they’re too experienced or under-experienced or nearly but not quite there, your applicant management system can send bulk emails based on where your applicant falls and they’ll feel like they were at least acknowledged.

And, please, please, if your applicant makes it a few rounds in to the process, take an extra minute to write a personal rejection to them. You’ve probably only advanced a handful of people, so this is not going to take too much of your time but it will make a world of difference to the person who spent time and effort going through your interviews and assessments.

Think like all your applicants

Each person who is applying for your job is a real person with human emotions – their own senses of humor, their own insecurities, their own feelings of worth. Ask your HR staff to put themselves in the applicants’ place at each stage of the process, from the composition of the job posting, through the interviews, and at each point of contact. This requires budget for real people on your HR staff.

Remember that you’re working with the next potential employees, not just for your company but for employers everywhere. These are people who might be providing you customer service or tech support some day. If for no other reason, treating people benevolently is self-serving. In addition, these are people. Don’t treat them like pieces of paper with education and work experiences listed on them.

Perhaps my complaints about the company I recently interviewed with sound like sour grapes, but I assure you that I have had my fair share of rejections and moved on rapidly. The thing I actually thank this company for is giving me a vision of how a company can build a hiring process imbued with respect and intention; this I know is possible, and I know it can have a beneficial effect on our workforce.