Communication – For Granted?

I sent a candidate an email with a job description attached, requesting her to review and give me some feedback, including why she feels she is qualified for the role, if interested in the job.

Her reply comes back the next day, “I’m interested.” That was it. No signature, no name, certainly no feedback as to why, in her opinion, she is qualified.

In the time that it took me to look her up by email address in our database, I determined she wasn’t qualified for the job, and that I wouldn’t be presenting her to our client. I realize most of you are not asking “why?”, but I’m going to elaborate further for the point of this post.

In every professional job, communication – both written and verbal, is an essential core skill. I’m hired by our clients to find the best candidate – not just in all the specific industry, discipline and technical elements, but certainly as an overall professional capable of communicating in today’s business world. And today, that means a great deal of email communication.

If a candidate cannot reply back following simple instructions, cannot compose a few sentences supporting why he/she is qualified for the role and cannot remember to include a full name (or email signature) in closing on the email correspondence, I have grave doubts about their ability to perform an essential part of any job.

Even though email communication is a more casual form of communication, certain essentials must be included in the correspondence.

Perhaps the candidate assumed that because I was simply the recruiter, she wasn’t obligated to sell herself. Dead wrong. Remember we work for the employer, and every communication we have is an opportunity to judge your professional skills. You may have a great working relationship with your recruiter (I certainly feel I do with many of my candidates), but that doesn’t allow you to become completely sloppy with your communication with them.

Watch how you come across in your continued correspondence with your recruiter and all hiring managers – especially your emails!