As a company that offers recruiting and staffing solutions to its clients, you would think it’s innate that our culture is one of recruiting, right? When you breakdown the core of any organization, you focus on their people, process, and technology. Having a people strategy and buy-in from leadership creates a powerful value proposition and a talent acquisition utopia. As a company we have created our own, unique recruiting culture, in the hopes that external stakeholders see the value and find it contagious.

Culture can be defined as the norms, beliefs, and attitudes that govern an organization. When creating our value proposition in the market place, the strength and message have to be equally consistent. When small companies begin to scale, each new hire has the ability to make an impact, which could lead to negative outcomes if not properly managed. Collectively, we have identified, by way of the acronymAIKIDO, the characteristics that allow employees to thrive within our organization.

AIKIDO =

Adaptability

Integrity

Knowledge

Investment in others

Drive

Outlook

Ownership is critical in a culture of recruitment– there is no diffusion of responsibility. From executives to new hires, everyone in an organization accepts the responsibility to contribute to a firm’s hiring goals. Not only does this include attracting new talent and future colleagues, but also ensuring that we are retaining and recognizing the best talent internally. Highly engaged employees are the lifeline of a culture of recruiting. We want and expect our people to walk into every new, existing and future interaction with the overwhelming probability that a connection should be had. Some of the greatest success stories have been from a few degrees of separation. Good people know good people….great people know greater people.  The “who do you know” becomes the “who can I introduce you to.”

In an increasingly candidate-driven market, an authentic candidate experience is what sets industry leaders apart. Personalized relationships are established when the experience starts from the first point of communication and is strengthened when consistently carried through by multiple voices across an organization.

A key subtlety to creating an amazing experience is not focusing on the destination, but ensuring you carefully curate the journey. Communicating vehemently to ensure we are managing a clearly understood process along with providing closure whenever possible, is essential to showing empathy for what the candidate endures through the job hunt process. Take the time to personalize the experience and do not get administratively bogged down. These are key values we focus on here at Russell Tobin.

And so we accept this challenge to not settle at wanting this culture, but to make a commitment daily to create it. The candidate experience transforms into the customer experience and ultimately is part of the human experience. After all, it is easy to forget what was said; what is often remembered is how you felt.