By Brian Fenerty

Building a talent pipeline is not easy in China and you will need all the help you can get.

Those who get to know you or to know about you through a third party grant you a higher level of confidence, credibility and loyalty. According to Dr. Robert Cialdini in his amazing book; Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, this is social proof in action.

This is precisely why the proper care of candidates is so important to your recruiting efforts. China is currently a high-volume type of place. Many of the recruiting systems in place here are based on the more-is-more philosophy. If you are not finding the candidates you need, get more! The problem with this approach is that it is often implemented at the expense of quality and in a candidate short market like this every candidate counts.

Proper candidate care will give your recruiting a strategic advantage and save you money.

Based on the well known Kevin Bacon theory of separation we know that we are all 6 contacts away from anyone we may need to reach. While I am not here to prove or disprove this theory (which must be true because I googled it on the interweb),  I am here to tell you that if you increase your level of candidate care you will inevitably increase your market reputation.

How do I know?

I know because after every meeting between one of our clients and one of our candidates, and sometimes even someone else’s client, we debrief our candidates on their meetings, who they met, what they discussed, how prepared the interviewers were, the quality of the people they met, how long they waited, who greeted them, what kind of material they were presented with, etc. We have about 15 questions we go through to get an idea of how the meeting went and while we are discussing this we inevitably find out how the candidate was treated. The results are predictable to anyone who has been interviewed in the last few years: if the candidate was deemed hireable s/he was often treated well, if s/he did not make the grade things were not always so pleasant. Since companies usually interview, at least, three times as many people as they hire that is quite a few people walking away with an opinion of the hiring company that decreased upon meeting them.

This is a mistake of very large proportions and it is costing you money. If the candidates you are turning away are not leaving with a smile on their face and a better impression of your company than they had before they met you it will cost you in the long run.

Word of mouth, negative word of mouth, is powerful and I have often spoken with candidates who have formed a bad opinion of a company based on the words of a friend. The point is that the candidate you are looking for, paying me to look for, advertising for, and can’t find, is often the brother/friend/cousin/sister/classmate of the candidate you turned away.

Job candidates can become your spokespeople in the market because they have been exposed to your company in a very intimate way. They have met your managers, toured your office, taken your assessment test. Your unsuccessful candidates, when treated well, can also become a valuable source of referrals.

Free for the asking.

If you are interested to find out how your candidates feel about your interview process all you have to do is ask. It should be a simple matter to implement a simple post-interview survey that can be emailed to unsuccessful candidates (along with your newsletter with other job openings that can be passed to friends) or have the recruiter that prepped them for their interview follow up with them.

Too much trouble?

If this all seems to be too much trouble I would encourage you to look at the time it takes you to fill your jobs, the amount you are paying in recruiting fees, and the way your competition is treating their candidates.

In my opinion, most companies recruiting in China do not take good enough care of their candidates to ensure that they leave with a higher appreciation of the company than when they arrived and I know it is costing them money. This is a candidate driven market and it is imperative to move your recruiting strategy to a model of attraction rather than selection.

Brian Fenerty is the General Manager of AdMark China; he has experience recruiting in candidate-short markets in Asia, North, and South America. Brian can be reached at brian@admarkasia.com. For more insights specific to recruiting techniques in the China talent market please visit his ERE blog - or visit Brian on LinkedIn.