What Job Seekers Really Want – An In Depth Analysis

After talking about what makes recruiters successful, one point stands out above all the others: they must have a sixth sense about communicating with job seekers. This intuition does not come naturally. It can be acquired quickly, but it almost always gets sharper after dealing with many types of jobs and candidates. The first step is to listen. The question, “What are you looking for?” will almost never get the whole answer. In fact, many do not know what they want. The obvious answer is that they want a job, but communication is always tempered with a hidden agenda that can throw a curve ball into an otherwise well orchestrated recruitment campaign. Linear thinking only works sometimes.

It doesn’t require rocket science to know that doing meaningful work is at the top of everybody’s list. People need to feel productive and that they are not only using their acquired skills but also growing and learning new ones. Compensation and benefits are other things that always rank highly among the necessary requirements for work. Beyond basic needs of providing for themselves and their families, rightly or wrongly money is often seen to be the measure of worth of an individual. Job seekers also want to be able to feel pride in what they do. Working with a good company with a good culture and good coworkers is a mix that often cannot be expressed clearly. They may not be able to describe this dream company in words, but they will know it when they see it… or know that it is a wrong fit.

Nowhere in the recruiter job description does it state that it is required to make people happy. Job seekers want to be happy. They want their needs to be met and want someone to help them solve their problems. A good deal of the communication with a job seeker is to set expectations about what they can realistically expect to be given to them. Often hard work is required on their part and if they don’t already know this fact then they have to be told by someone. Many job seekers learn the hard way that they are doing it wrong after suffering rejection after rejection. They should be helped along the way and learn that a job search sometimes requires THEM to do the heavy lifting. Learning does not always require a teacher, but it helps.

Somewhere in the evolution of our society we have also trained ourselves to want instant gratification. This is true on both sides of the interview table, but often there is often a sense of urgency on the part of a job seeker that is not visible on the surface. Job seekers will expect to be told the status of their candidacy often and in a timely manner. Their reluctance to discuss the details of their personal situation is partially out of an attempt not to appear desperate about their situation. It is also due to the unknown machinations of a confusing process and they don’t want to make a critical mistake. Since both sides are dealing with unknowns, two-way feedback is critical.

This only scratches the surface of a complex interpersonal drama and is the first in a series of five articles on job seeker wants and needs. Over the next four days we will examine a few of these topics in more detail.

 
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