Treat Job Candidates as Prospective Customers in Business and at Work

Any competent professional meeting a prospective customer for the first time engages in similar basic activities:

• Ensure that you’re dressed at the professional level your prospective customer expects;
• Complete your research on the customer, to identify any potential pain points;
• Ensure that you’ve prepared your questions for the customer accordingly;
• Bring a notepad and pen to your first meeting;
• Create a standard electronic and/or paper presentation about the benefits of your organization;
• Dispose of the gum in your mouth, brush off any crumbs from your recent breakfast and lunch;
• Shut your cell phone off, or place it on Do Not Disturb;
• Arrive for the meeting 5 minutes early (early is on time);
• Greet the prospective customer warmly, and ask them if they’d like a glass of water or a cup of coffee or tea;
• Listen for needs and/or pain points during the meeting;
• Ask the customer if they have any concerns or questions;
• Escort them to the reception area; thank them for their time; shake their hand.

From my own experience as a candidate through the years, as well as hearing about the experiences of other candidates – would you treat a prospective customer like this?

• Checking email on your smartphone during the meeting?
• Eating your lunch during the meeting (and not offering the visitor the same)?
• Arriving late to the meeting?
• Making the customer wait 15 minutes or more past the scheduled start time of the meeting?
• Ending the customer meeting early?
• Holding cattle call meetings, jeopardizing the respective confidentiality of your customers?
• Coming to the meeting without reviewing or bringing the visitor’s paperwork?
• Forgetting to bring a pad of paper and a pen to the meeting?
• Asking your prospective customer to share confidential information about their organization to benefit your own?
• Asking your prospective customer to perform more than 15 minutes of work for your organization during the meeting without compensating them?
• Asking your prospective customer to find their own way out of your building?

Especially if you provide business-to-consumer services (even B2B services) in a geography like SmAlbany? Why would your prospective customer (job candidate) ever be motivated to become one of their customers? And you can be assured that they’ll share their negative experience at your organization with their friends and business network, risking harm to your reputation and eviscerating your marketing and sales.

Do you treat your job candidates as you would treat prospective customers (because that’s what they are) in business and at work?