We all know how stressful it is dealing with irate candidates, and to the best of your ability, you are the calming factor to them while they deal with the frustration of not having a job.

Sitting in an office of recruiters, I have noticed the ever emerging double edged sword when it comes to dealing with your candidates, or potential candidates politely. Sometimes they forget their manners, and the consultant becomes their new punching bag. Naturally, you as the recruiter was to be professional, and put that across to your candidates.

All you want is to place your candidate on the right path, and help them nurture their careers, so when they become unruly and create ridiculous expectations, it is a recruiters worst nightmare.

Let me break these candidates into 5 categories, and share light on how to deal with them accordingly:

1. The Ego Elitist

This type of candidate usually has ZERO work experience, and expect the perfect job to fall into their laps. With the perfect salary to go with it. The frustration starts when they keep pestering you, and fail to understand why you are taking so long to place them (because they are so perfect, right?). Even if they do possess an impressive skill set, the delusions of grandeur are even more impressive, and telling them that will backfire in the most dramatic way.

How to deal with and help them:

The easiest way to deal and help these candidates is to make them realise their own shortcomings. When these candidates are forced to think about their inadequacies, a more realistic way of thinking may set in.

 

2. The ‘whatever’ candidate

Recruitment is tiring and beneath them. Why would anyone want to have a good work ethic, surely that is for losers only? The candidates are the ones that typically cancel an interview an hour before it starts because they couldn’t be bothered.

How to deal with and help them:

Somestimes, and it is unfortunate, but you have to cut your losses. Why stake your reputation on someone who doesn’t actually want a job. Unless you are the reason they have become so unreceptive (in which case, apologies and try rekindle the relationship), these candidates will be ‘unmarketable’.

 

3. The ‘umm’ and ‘err’ candidate

These candidates never have an answer to your questions. They fumble with their words, and honestly have no idea what is going on half the time. Researching isn’t an obvious choice, and GOOGLE is a foreign entity.  Sometimes, this is because they are inexperienced. They have never been for an interview and are unsure of the work needed to progress to the second stage of interviews.

How to deal with and help them:

Job applications can be daunting and stressful, but if you think these candidates have potential, invest in them! Coach them into becoming interview machines! It never hurts to mentor, and build a strong relationship.

 

4. The ‘I need you’ needy candidate

You’ve just done their first face to face interview before sending off their documentation to the respective client, and your cellphone hasn’t stopped ringing. These are the candidates that over-think everything. From what font to type out their C.V’s in, to what colour socks they should wear to their interview.

How to deal with and help them:

They need to establish boundaries, for themselves and for you. The only way to truly help them is to keep them updated when you have information, and not respond to every single whatsapp you receive from them. Each consultant has several candidates they are looking after at any given time, so a precedent needs to be set. For fairness sake. Plus, you need to let your candidate try and figure out the answers for themselves.

 

5. The Obnoxious and Rude candidate

These candidates want a job, but heaven forbid you pair them up with the wrong industry.

‘How dare you put my CV forward for a sales position that is beneath me! They are the kings and queens of the condescending voice tone, and it’ll be hard to get them to answer their phones.

How to deal with and help them:

Do they understand the error of their ways? Are they aware of the fact that they easily offend people? Sometimes the best way to get them to understand their bad manners, is to tell them, point blank.

If they are truly keen on finding a job, and allowing yo to help them, they will change their attitude and be more amicable.

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!

 

 

A lot of candidates that I speak to find themselves in shock when I say that they don’t need to pay a recruitment fee when registering with Measured Ability.

The truth of the matter is, you should never need to pay a ‘sign up’ fee when you are going through a recruitment agency.  There should be NO HIDDEN COSTS. We as a recruitment agency, invest in you. We market you to our clients when a suitable job spec comes in.

The magic comes in with our online database. All you need to do is go to our jobseeker page, select your skill level, fill in a basic online application form and upload your CV. Please make sure your CV is in word format and less than 2MB. If you are not sure what is meant by that, please read here.

Here is a quick walk through of how the process looks:

First, you will need to visit our jobseeker page and select the skill level you fall under. 

 

Secondly, you will be taken to a page that looks like this. There is a disclaimer at the bottom that you should read.

 

Thirdly, scroll down and you will see the beginning of the online application form. Please try and fill out as much information as possible. The more information you have, the easier it is for our consultants to find your information when looking for suitable candidates. To learn more about the recruitment process and the search techniques we use, read our blogs on Boolean Logic and the overall recruitment process. 

 

Lastly, you will be asked to upload your CV and press submit. The program will ask you a few more question about your employment and education history. 

Once you have completed the free online registration process, you will be captured on our database forever, no payment needed, ever.

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!

 

 

Ever wondered what it takes to be a leader and a mentor? This blog article aims to help highlight how you can, in fact, be both.

I’m pretty sure that every human on this earth longs for a work environment that is conducive to progress. We all want to learn. We all want to be appreciated for putting in the effort to learn as well. The push and pull of leaders and their students is a two way street however. The mentor must be willing to teach, and mould. The student needs to be willing to learn, and apply what they have learnt.

I’ve always said the fundamentals to becoming a great leader is to learn how to mentor.

I have found, in my time, that your designated leaders in each job are often not well enough equipped to take on the ‘extra task’ of actually mentoring. Be it for reasons of time or energy, or the most common reason, not wanting to.

The truth of the matter is, you will not help anyone by just ‘managing’ them. By managing your staff, you are only telling them what they already know. That’s why they got the job. By mentoring, you may be surprised at how their performance increases! Your young employees, especially, are the future leaders, and why wouldn’t you want to be a part of what makes them great future leaders?

When you finally come around and realise how rewarding mentoring can actually be, there are a couple rules of thumb to follow:

1. Always make sure your purpose is clear. There is no point in trying to mentor if you have no plan. What are you hoping to achieve? What sort of growth will you be facilitating?
2. Learn how to read body language. Sometimes a discussion needs to be drawn out, for all points to be uncovered and further discussed. Your learners may be nervous at first, but if they know they are in safe hands, with ears that are always ready to listen, your lessons will be well received.
3. Try not to leave important discussions for the last minute. Rather have small discussions frequently. Try not to give off the ‘we should have a chat’ vibe, as this may seem rather off-putting.
4. Remember you have chosen to be a mentor. So walk the talk.

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!

 

 

So, how do recruiters search for their candidates?

BASIC GUIDE: BOOLEAN STRING SEARCH

Firstly, who was the brilliant person who came up with this search technique?

Mr George Boole, a well renowned British Mathematician, whose work on logic helped lay the foundation for the digital revolution we all live within today, left us with the amazing Boolean logic, a theory in which all variables are either ‘true’ or ‘false’, or ‘on’ or ‘off’.

Most of you may not know, but this logic is apparent in all digital devices, and exists in almost every line of computer code. It has also become the main logic that all recruiters use to find the perfect candidate.

SO HOW DOES BOOLEAN SEARCH WORK?

Boolean search uses three main operators:

• AND
• OR
• NOT

And by using a combination of these three, you can produce more relative and accurate results when searching for your perfect candidate.

There are 5 elements of syntax to remember when using Boolean search:

• AND
• OR
• NOT
• ()
• “”

AND:

AND is used to ‘narrow’ results down. Only profiles that have both of the keywords in them will be shown in the search results. AND is usually used between the required skills in a job spec. The things a candidate MUST have.

E.g.: Sales AND Manager (this search will only provide results that have both those words in it).

OR:

OR is used to expand the results of a search. It does not mean either/or, but rather ‘any one of’.

OR is usually used for synonyms, or for less important skills (not required, but an advantage or preferential).

E.g.: Sales OR Manager (produce all profiles that contain the word ‘sales’, the word ‘manager’ or both).

Only profiles that contain one or more of the keywords will appear in the results.

NOT:

NOT is used to exclude words from your search.

E.g.: You want to search for company directors, but you keep getting Artistic Directors, then you can search for Directors NOT Artistic.

The only danger with this, and why you need to be careful when using NOT, is that if there is the word artistic anywhere in a candidates profile, their profile will not show up in your results, and they may be the perfect candidate.

Here is an example of what a Boolean search string looks like: 

((“marketing strategy” OR “marketing” ) AND (“sales process” OR “sales operations” OR “sales management” OR “sales” OR “new business development” OR “negotiation” OR “direct sales” OR “account management” ) AND (“sales manager” OR “customer service” OR “business development” OR “solution selling” OR “presales consultant” OR “salesman” OR “presales manager” OR “area vice president” OR “commercial director” OR “solutions consultant” ) )

This is a basic overview on Boolean Search Logic, and there are more operators that you can use, including quotation marks and parenthesis. We will cover that in the next instalment. Stay tuned!

Looking for a job?

Please visit our jobseeker page, and upload your C.V  to our nationwide database! Should a potential job offer open, and you are considered, we will contact you!

Looking for staff?

Let our dedicated and hard working team of consultants find you the perfect candidate. Please visit our employer page and tell us what you are looking for!