Stephanie Cramer is the Vice President of Human Resources, Talent Strategist and Chief Culture Carrier at MGAC.
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After days of searching, you’ve finally found them—the impossible candidate. They have that new "hydra-neo-multi-factor" skill that everyone has been looking for. Well, you’ve found them and have four other competitors that could potentially out pay what you can offer. Now what?
Aside from visualizing your candidate signing the offer (which I still find highly valuable), I have found success in taking a solution-based sales approach for landing the impossible candidate. Based on my experience as a talent strategist and chief culture carrier, I know that it comes down to recruiting with empathy. It requires you to slow down and ask the candidate the question "what problem are you trying to solve?"
Let’s start with, what is solution selling? A quick Google search pulls up a few definitions of solution selling, one of the more apt explanations being, “the philosophy or practice of uncovering a customer’s pain points and then providing products and services that address the underlying business problem.”
The customer in the sales relationship for recruiting is the candidate. They are trying to solve a pain point. Sure, the employer has a business problem, but they are not the final decision-maker in this relationship. In this dynamic, the candidate has the control. They might not be exchanging money for a product, but they are most definitely buying something. They are buying a vision, a dream of what their life could be at your company. As recruiters, we pitch to them.
When was the last time a recruiter called you and said, "I have an opportunity you are going to love." I am? How do you know? You don’t know me. It’s a short-sighted approach that focuses on the what instead of the why. It doesn’t sound like an empathetic approach. Empathy is rooted in recognition and appreciation for the "why." It involves putting yourself in another person’s shoes. When done well, we can better understand and provide solutions.
A well-suited solution is what will carry weight. It’s what will gain you respect and credibility, both of which are needed to combat the droves of bad recruiting approaches in use today. These tenants held by the recruiter set the tone for how the candidate will judge the opportunity. Does your employer have a culture worth investing two years of a career in? Are they true contenders when competing against other employers for the best talent? Gone are the days of posting your job description and waiting for candidates to beg you to hire them. In today’s talent-driven market, employers must use every factor available to set themselves apart.
It starts with employer culture. A recruiter must feel tied to the culture, driven by it. It’s what they are selling. When a recruiter is equipped with a strong employer culture brand and empathy as their guide, they are unstoppable.
How do you implement empathy into a recruiting approach? We start by asking questions and gathering intel. Why are they looking to leave their employer? What do they want to achieve with a job transition? Then stop and validate the candidate’s situation. Empathetic dialog like “That sounds like a challenging position to be in,” or “That’s unfortunate, I’m sorry you are in that position,” goes a long way. We are human—it doesn't need to feel transactional.
If their reason for wanting to leave their current employer sounds like an easy fix with a well-directed conversation, I’ve even gone so far as to coach the individual on how to conduct it. There’s no point in investing time and energy into an opportunity that will crumble at the time the individual goes to resign. With this approach, I’ve not only led with empathy, but I’ve enabled an easy solution for them to follow. The candidates’ best interests are the prevailing concern, and nothing speaks louder for a company’s reputation. This person will be back when they are truly ready to move on and most likely they’ll have three of their friends along with them.
If the candidate does have a strong reason for wanting to leave, we are now equipped with knowing how to solve their problem. They’ve explained what aspects of your opportunity to focus on when pitching your job. If the approach is well received, keep asking questions.
• What type of job is going to get you excited when hearing about it?
• What are the most important things you find valuable in an employer?
• Where do you want to be professionally in two to three years?
The more intel you have the more successful you’ll be. Provide examples showcasing how your job opportunity can resolve the problem your candidate is trying to fix. Help them see what their life could be like working at your company by highlighting what they value. By focusing on what your candidate places value on, you’ve created the lens through which they will determine their interest.
Now, I’d never advocate lying to them. If your company just doesn’t have the thing that they are looking for then, unfortunately, it won’t work. Tell them that. Be honest. By doing so, you’ve saved time, and time is truly the only thing you control in the recruiting space.
An article by Aja Frost, head of content SEO at HubSpot, or the company I lovingly refer to as the king of culture, says this about solution selling: "Selling solutions means thinking beyond the immediate. Cliché as it might sound, it’s about the bigger picture. Product specs and features are important, but they’re not the focal point of well-executed solution selling."
The same argument can be made for recruiting: It’s about the bigger picture. No one wants to be sold to. Recruiting from a place of empathy and solution-based sales is an approach that takes some critical thinking and a solid knowledge base of your employer’s culture and organization—but the ROI could very well be worth it.
We all know the adage, "people will forget what you said or did, but they will never forget the way you made them feel." Mark my words, recruiting with empathy is the only way to be successful in the war for talent.
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