Tuesday September 23rd, 2008
CU L8er -- Not

The introduction to this Wall Street Journal article says it all:

• After interviewing a college student in June, Tory Johnson thought she had found the qualified and enthusiastic intern she craved for her small recruiting firm. Then she received the candidate's thank-you note, laced with words like "hiya" and "thanx," along with three exclamation points and a smiley-face emoticon.
• "That email just ruined it for me," says Ms. Johnson, president of New York-based Women For Hire Inc. "This looks like a text message."
• Hiring managers like Ms. Johnson say an increasing number of job hunters are just too casual when it comes to communicating about career opportunities in cyberspace and on mobile devices. Thank yous on paper aren't necessary, but some applicants are writing emails that contain shorthand language and decorative symbols, while others are sending hasty and poorly thought-out messages to and from mobile devices. Job hunters are also using social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to try to befriend less-than-willing interviewers.

It's often occured to me that the "job search tips" we're given in high school and toward the end of university are deeply, deeply inadequate. Most young adults haven't developed the social skills to network in real life without exploiting their parents' contacts.

And strangely, we do tell them about "building relationships" with recruiters, with former employers and with colleagues, but we also don't tell them "relationship" is not synonymous with friendship.

Not that the rules are at all clear for anyone. In this article, it's the hiring manager who doesn't want to be "friended" on Facebook. In a study I posted about earlier this month,  it was hiring managers who were using social networking to vet candidates.

I really do think that recruiters need to play a larger role in grooming candidates, especially young people. Good manners, decent communication skills, and setting realistic expectations are all skills to be learned. It may just be that recruiters are the only qualified teachers.

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Comments

Marisa - October 19th 2008 10:33 AM
 
I often receive resumes from high school students at my job, and unfortunately they too are laced with shorthand and spelling mistakes. But I don't necessarily agree that high schools are doing an inadequate job of giving job search tips. In Ontario, at least, the new curriculum has a course specifically based around building resumes and cover letters, how to search for a job and how to conduct yourself in an interview. The problem, a lot of the time, wasn't that the schools weren't trying to teach but that the students didn't really care to learn.

About the Authors

Paul Dodd
Co-founder and President
Head2Head Canada

Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.

Sarah Welstead
Director, User Experience
Head2Head

Passionate about recruitment branding and delivering great candidate experiences, Sarah is a frequent author and media commentator on older workers and generational trends in the talent market.

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