Is Your HR Dept Damaging Your Company’s Credibility?

Who’s the face of your business?

Think about that for a sec . . . most would quickly answer the receptionist, customer service representatives, sales representatives or other customer-facing staff.

Although people in those roles do interact with your customers first, what about everyone else?

For most companies, anyone who isn’t a customer is – rightly or wrongly – directed to human resources.

And – rightly or wrongly – most human resources departments are ill equipped to handle first-contact situations.

They usually brush people off, tell you they’ll get back to you (and never do) or worse, they build people up, only to suddenly drop off the face of the Earth.

Can’t blame them entirely – the global economic meltdown has meant there are more people looking for work, than there is work. So human resources departments often bear the brunt of frustrated job seekers.

However, when human resources talks to someone – especially when they’ve reached out to a potential employee – the stakes are higher than they think. Regardless of whether or not the potential employee joins the company, in this day of social networking and instant, always on communications, all it takes is one bad experience and a company’s reputation will suffer.

There’s even a website where current, past and potential employees can go to rant and rave about their experiences – Glass Door. These days, it’s not only the potential employer researching prospective employees prior to contacting them -- potential employees can do a lot of background research ahead of time too.

One bad review from someone with sour grapes about not getting their dream job probably won’t harm a business’s bottom line. But several could mean the end of quality qualified candidates applying for the positions needed to keep the business running.

And remember – once something is posted online, it’s usually there forever. In today’s digital world, no matter what you do to correct problems in the past, you’ll never fully recover from a really bad “rap sheet.” The key then is always providing exceptional first contact experiences with everyone – customers and job seekers – to avoid getting into trouble later.

So what can human resources do?

Here are five tips to keep those very precious first contact situations from showing up as negative feedback online:

1. Avoid those auto-responder emails – no one likes talking to a robot. Remember the last time your cable or phone went out, and you called the company only to have to go through a plethora of menu options just to talk to a live person? Didn’t like it uh? That’s how people feel when they receive automated replies – only worse, they have no means to reach a real living, breathing person.
2. If a potential candidate is very qualified, but mentions one or two things that you know just won’t fly, don’t call them to discuss. I had this situation where I was recruiting people for a contract role, and the person clearly stated on their resume they were looking for a permanent staff gig. Still, for whatever bizarre reason, the HR person I was working with called this person, and tried to convince her that taking the contract would be a great career move. Needless to say, this person was not amused, and both her and HR person that made this error just got into an argument about the role of contracts, and how they are the reason there aren’t any “good” jobs anymore. If a candidate clearly states something on their resume, but you’re looking for the opposite, don’t try to twist their arm.
3. Don’t call someone up expecting them to drop everything for you right now. I get approached by recruiters all the time, and they always have a long list of questions. Most ask if now is a good time to talk, some don’t. Instead, they start firing away question after question, expecting me to take the 15-20 minutes or more necessary to answer them, even though I most likely was in the middle of something else. We all lead busy lives. Asking when a good time to talk, or even better, booking a time with them that is mutually agreed to, will make you shine in their good graces.
4. If you make an appointment, in person or over the phone – don’t be late, and don’t break it. When I was younger, fresh out of university, an HR person called me 25-minutes late, and I answered. Now if someone – even a friend – doesn’t call or show up within 15-minutes, I leave and go about my own business. I call it the 15-minute rule – I’m always early or on time, because I value and respect other people’s busy lives. Anyone who doesn’t value or respect my time, is not worth my time.
5. Don’t get people’s hopes up. Anything can happen during the recruitment process, so don’t go on and tell someone they are the top person on the list. I was working at a company notorious for nepotism. We were interviewing for a developer, and had a final list of candidates lined up which we were starting to schedule interviews with. Next day, I see a resume on my chair – it’s the vice-president’s kid. Not the most qualified candidate, but we knew none of our shortlisted candidates mattered anymore, as the vice-present’s kid became our only candidate. A member of my team had mentioned to one of the shortlisted candidates he was our top pick. I had to diffuse an already bad situation, when he angrily called asking why he didn’t get the job. Way I see it, nothing is done until the ink is dry – and even then I’d wait a bit before considering all things final.

One last bit of advice which we’ve all heard before – treat others as you want to be treated. All is fair in love and war, until someone steps on your foot and doesn’t say “sorry,” then the gloves are off. So if you do make a mistake, forget to call someone, or do anything else on this list, admit your mistake, apologize, and you’ll keep your employer from getting slammed in the digital world.