A lot is said about values and how important they are to your brand. They guide your actions and tell those you interact with, including of course your customers, the behaviour they can expect from you.
We all know how important it can be to stand by what we say and often it can be the little things that can undo a lot of good work, for example, saying “we care about our customers” and then not returning phone calls.
So if we all know it, why am I writing about it?
What concerns me is that sometimes we engage contractors to act on our behalf but don’t ensure that they adhere to the same expectations that we place on ourselves. I’ve seen this often over the years but what brought it to mind now was how two different recruitment companies acted.
As I’m busy ‘looking for opportunities’, it is interesting to see how organisations treat applicants. Some make you want to work with that team while others make you glad you didn’t get the role. In those cases though, it’s on their heads, so be it.
Recruitment companies are different, when they fall below expected standards, it’s not just their reputation that suffers. If you engage a company that treats applicants as numbers and the whole experience is very transactional – then that is how you too behave. You must own that perception
In future, a rejected applicant who was treated as an unnecessary bother by a recruitment company may be the key decision maker with a potential customer organisation. What will they remember about you?
Remember, if they act for you, they are you.
The Optimistic Cynic 