How does your business deliver, from your audience’s view?
Is your audience:
1) Your customer
2) Your employees
3) The people you want to hire?
….”Yes” to all.
One of the biggest challenges of every business leader is to maintain direct contact with the customer experience. On July 24th, 2018, Scott McCartney published an article in the Wall Street Journal about several CEO’s of the major airlines who fly in their airline’s economy seats.
Worth noting:
– Not all of the invited Airline CEO’s accepted Scott’s invite for an interview.
– The CEO’s who were interviewed stated that they flew in economy seats for short flights only and flew in larger seats on longer flights.
The CEO’s mentioned the policy of requiring their executive team to take the economy seats in order to maintain a connection with the customer.
TakeAway:
– The CEO’s acknowledged that economy seats weren’t for everybody, adding that roomier seats were available at a higher price point.
While this is a topic most business leaders can relate to, since flying is part of conducting business, how exactly does: How Are You Flying Your Airline relate to the business growth of your company and the candidate experience during hiring?
If airline CEO’s are sitting in the economy seats, why shouldn’t CEO’s experience their company’s hiring process first hand?
What does the marketplace tell you?
While focusing on the customer experience must be considered a top priority for all business, attracting and hiring the right talent must also be considered just as important for company’s needing to grow. It has become a more significant priority while the economy is healthy and the unemployment rate is low, meaning that demand for talent is outstripping the supply.
I hear stories everyday confirming that the hiring process is broken. Here are two examples:
– I recently spoke with a highly qualified professional who had been contacted by multiple contingent recruiters (head-hunters) for the same position. Since the head-hunter only gets paid when their candidate gets hired, each of the head-hunters needed to have this candidate list them as his recruiter. The situation quickly navigated away from being recruited for a position to an arm wrestling match between head-hunters with a candidate stuck in the middle. As a result, this candidate withdrew, and the employer may have lost what might have been a great hire.
– I hear from candidates about the lack of follow-up from the employer during a critical hiring campaign. As a result, qualified candidates become frustrated and loose interest.
As the CEO or business leader, can you avoid these types of broken hiring examples by “thinking about flying your airline” ?
Are you auditing the execution?
While business leaders agree that acquiring talent is a top priority, how frequently is the current hiring process being audited?
The hiring analytics tell a partial story. Statistics may show a 30 day hiring cycle or a high rate a candidates accepting the offer of employment.
However, the critical question involves the candidate experience. Hiring the best talent requires having a proven hiring process with a strong candidate experience.
If airline CEO’s are flying in the economy seats, then why shouldn’t CEO’s experience first hand their company’s hiring process and ask questions like these:
– What is the business challenge being solved as a result of this hire?
– Is the hiring manager taking an active role in the hiring process?
– Does the hiring process leave candidates with the feeling of confidence in the employer?
Summary
If running a business was easy, everybody would be a CEO or business leader. Business is challenging.
Remember, the most complicated parts of every business are: The people who already work there and the people who you want to work there. A weak hiring process can make all the difference between having or not having an advantage over your competitors.
Are you focusing on the importance of hiring’s relationship with the customer experience?
Good Hunting!