Now I am not saying I am fussy about everything – anyone who has ever sat inside my car before it gets a valet will know that I don’t get too fussy about mess in there (with 2 kids and a dog, it’s hard to be!) however, when it comes to recruitment matters, I do get a rather fussy head on me.
About what you ask? Well…
Poorly Written CVs:
Although I don’t interview a CV (I believe I interview a person, not a piece of paper), it is indicative of someone’s general intelligence as to whether they can spell and use grammar correctly. For goodness sake, with spell and grammar check on every PC, what’s your excuse?
Punctuality for Interviews:
…and I mean with ME as well as my clients. And when a client keeps a candidate waiting too, that is just as rude, in my opinion. The art of politeness is promptness and I start to get heart palpitations about this subject. Really – just ask my husband – “What time do you call this?” (joking!)
Commitment:
If I feel that either party is just “window shopping” and has no real substance to it, I generally get very nervous and actually start getting very fussy about it. I actually cancel interviews (yes I really do) if I feel that either person is not going to progress, even if the other party is the best thing since sliced bread. It can happen a lot in r2r and it’s a matter I divide opinion on – in fact, it’s a subject I recently debated on LinkedIn and I got a lot of support from other moral recruiters…(read on…)
Appearance:
I am quite relaxed about whether someone wears a full suit to meet me as sometimes I just wear a dress, however it is common courtesy to ask/tell me this first and I absolutely expect a candidate to be suited accordingly for any client facing meeting, even if they are told to be casual. Business casual that is, NOT flipflops!
Conclusions:
Are any of these points making me look like Mr Fussy or actually, are they proving another point? That I am actually a very discerning recruiter who has high moral fibre and is relied on for this by the clients who choose to use my service (and ultimately pay for that hidden part of the service)?
I believe that by being exhaustively fussy in what I do as a recruiter, I impart that fussiness (is that even a word??) onto my clients and candidates. And is that such a bad thing? I am not suggesting for one minute that I send out mini Lysha clones into the market! Far from it – although the recruitment world may be a happier, sunnier place for it? But is there any harm in me being overly fussy?
Would you cancel an interview on a candidate’s behalf if you felt “they were going for the sake of it”? I debated this recently as I mentioned and I spoke to another R2R, Jo Grace at Ready2Recruit in Scotland. She agreed with me that it was essential to be “fussy” on a client’s behalf as ultimately that is what the clients NEED a R2R for. Is she the rarity, like me and my colleague Jo? I think so?
So is the fussy factor a universal recruitment trait that is essential in our psyche to be a good judge of character on our clients’ behalf or is it just essential to R2R specifically?
I don’t know the answer to this last part for sure, but I think it’s better than being Mr Couldn’tGive2hoots or Mr SlingMudAtTheWall.
