Whenever our company is dealing with job applicants, I’ve always instructed my department to be customer service friendly towards them. For example, the day an application/resume is received, the applicant gets entered into our Applicant Tracking System. As a result, they are sent a postcard thanking them for applying, acknowledging receipt of their information and letting them know the timeframe in which they may receive a call (if they’ll be called for an interview).
Over the years, I can’t tell you how many applicants have thanked me for the above-mentioned process. Their compliment is often followed by complaints about other companies who don’t acknowledge resumes, don’t return phone inquiries or e-mails, don’t update candidates, etc. And while you might think that most companies do, you’d might actually be surprised at how many don’t.
My feeling has always been that I want to treat job applicants as I would want to be treated. Thus, since I would want to know what the heck is going on, I’m going to do the same for them. So if you call me, I will call you back. If you e-mail me, I will e-mail you back. It’s easier said than done time-wise, but I still do it. And going back to my first paragraph, you’d be surprised at how the simple idea of sending those postcards has cut down on incoming phone and e-mail inquiries. Not to mention that all companies sell some kind of product. So needless to say, I want our applicants to have a good customer service experience with HR, because who knows…they might be buying something from us too. Or they might be a potential advertiser. As they always say, what goes around, comes around.