Become a Social Pariah in one simple step

A good friend of mine found herself single and alone after a 9-year relationship when her “soul mate” cheated on her.

The concept of dating filled her with dread, as she had not been on the social scene for quite a few years. So she was shocked when she discovered the world of dating has changed dramatically in almost every way. She downloaded Tinder on her phone and spent multiple hours a day (literally) sifting through images of prospective partners… She struck up conversations with a small number and effectively stalked them on Facebook to find out if they were genuine or not and then arranged to meet the number one pick! All the while her friends from work and family made sure she was supported throughout the whole process. Six months later and they are looking at a life together and she is far happier than she had been a year’s before.

Contrast this with colleagues and associates I have in the IT industry looking for their next role and the story is cyclic, repetitive and more than a little disappointing.

Over the past 4 years I have had the opportunity to both contract and consult with some really interesting businesses, working not only in the UK but in the USA , EMEA and beyond and with this sort of role you meet lots of new people. The cream of the crop quickly make themselves known and those are the ones even after a few short days of interaction that you keep in touch with.

Almost three years ago one of these contacts was forced to take redundancy, they had a reasonable pay-out for years served etc. but these things rarely become life changing so with three months wages in the bank he started to look for a new position. I noticed the change on Linked in and reach out to offer support, his plan was fairly standard:

• Contact recruiters
• Trawl LinkedIn Job pages
• Reach out to colleagues and friends from the industry
• Draw up a list of ideal companies and track recruitment pages
• Re write the CV and make sure that references are set up and prepared to take all the very many calls!

I offered what little support I could in this instance, I happily checked the CV (iterations 1- 99!!), introduced him to people who I knew were recruiting, introduced him to my friendly recruiters, and wrote a reference in LinkedIn. Most importantly, I made a mental note to pick up the phone to him as often as I could not, just to update or to get an update, but also to support and ensure he knew he wasn’t alone. Three months down the line and no job had materialised …. We met for a coffee to discuss strategy and potential issues, to review his CV and to ensure that every I was dotted and T crossed.

What came out of the conversation shocked me more than that fact that an A-grade player had not been snapped up within a couple of weeks.

He had contacted a number of the head-hunters and recruiters in our space and they were all happy to add him onto their systems but none of them followed up past that point. The odd recruiter would try and fit his round peg into a square hole but none of them took the time to really engage of introduce him out to there own contacts and really market him. But far worse than the apathy from recruiters not a single other personal or professional contact had bothered to respond to emails , call him back after he left messages and certainly no one picked up the phone to him to offer support , no one had referenced him or forwarded potential positions nothing of any conceivable value had been offered.

A few weeks later after putting significant effort into the task we managed to find him the perfect role, two interviews and a couple of tests later and he was working for a Tier 1 vendor at VP level earning great money. So where did he go wrong and why so badly?

Well the short answer is he didn’t. I have seen this over and over again to the point of sickening regularity and constant disappointment. I have two friends at the moment who are senior level people, very good at what they do in different departments (so this is not just Sales) and they have very little, if any, support from people they have worked with for years previously. Calls get pushed to voicemail; recruiters rarely pick up and hardly ever call back. In the few instances where they get interviews, the roles are poorly qualified so they either choose not to progress or are not put forward and even then when feedback is gold dust, they rarely get any.

This madness has to stop.

We owe it to each other as professionals to take a little time to support those we have worked with or around who are in that transition phase.

Check on LinkedIn for those people struggling to find a job, as your network is different to everyone else’s.

Pick up the phone and offer support and words of advice, actually make the intro when you promise to do so. Make time to meet them for a coffee and introduce them to other people who might help. Validation from someone is worth far more to a recruiting manager than almost anything else.

Finally if you are a recruiter or a hiring manager, please give feedback honestly, in a timely manner and every time you interview someone. Not only is it good practice but it makes your business look professional to the outside world and your feedback will certainly help the person to close out the next role.