Thanks, I have already

As a personnel consultant, you are sometimes amazed at the mistakes that companies make in recruiting. A good example: An applicant, let's call him Martin P., fully meets the requirements profile for a vacant position as an SAP consultant in terms of experience, specializations and soft skills.

He has read up on the company, so he goes into the interview well prepared. But he is alone in this claim. For SAP consultants, it is essential to know whether the future job will require travel.

The two company representatives, who each take an hour of P.'s time one after the other, obviously don't see it that way. While the first interviewer answers Martin P.'s question in the affirmative as to whether travel time in the consulting position is considered working time and can be billed accordingly, number two rules this out.

Clearly, the technical managers had not taken the time to coordinate or learn about the details of the travel expense guidelines for the position. They did not realize that a courted specialist had taken half a day to get to know their company.

Martin P. is therefore no wiser after the interview. An important element of the decision-making basis for a job change is missing. When the HR consultant asked the company's HR department what the correct statement was, the answer was that half of the travel time would be paid. A third version! Martin P. waves it off in frustration.

The case described is an isolated one, but quite exemplary. It can also happen that the salary is agreed verbally, but is then 10,000 euros lower in the draft contract - without any explanation.

Or that an applicant who is looking for a new job because of chaotic conditions in his previous company cannot be told who his future supervisor would be when he asks.

Or the consultant is suddenly criticized for not having insurance industry expertise, after the company had deliberately left this aspect out of the job posting a week earlier. Even when asked by the personnel consultant whether insurance know-how was required, the company had explicitly denied this before the interview.

The classic mistake made by companies in job interviews is simply to create a cool atmosphere. With highly qualified IT consultants, the race for talent is often already lost when someone thinks to ask standard questions from their high horse: "Where do you want to be in five years?"

In fact, in the job market for highly skilled IT professionals, more employers than applicants drive an application process up the wall. Why is there such a high awareness of the correct behavior of applicants and so many among company representatives who do not take the candidate and the application process seriously enough?

Welcome culture

Professional recruiting is multi-faceted and should be conducted seriously, if only out of respect for the other party. There is no lack of instruments, tools and techniques in companies for finding employees.

The foundation must be provided by the HR department. It should create a welcoming culture in the company and avoid unpleasant online procedures or missing contact data on the websites scaring off the coveted personnel.

But the small rule of hiring etiquette, which decision-makers in specialist departments must also master, is simply: friendliness, fairness, clarity, commitment, reliability and, most importantly, preparation.

That's not much to ask, and ultimately it's the same thing companies expect from candidates. Every company should put its recruiting to the test from time to time. Unprofessional application procedures are reflected in poor ratings on applicant portals, but are also passed on from word of mouth in the industry.

And recruiters, too, or especially recruiters, must be careful with their candidates' time. They cannot waste it with interviews at companies that act unprofessionally at the end of the process or whose contract offers are regularly rejected.

Job advertisements on the website or even success-based recruiting assignments to personnel consultants that turn out to be test balloons damage trust in the labor market and ensure bad cards in the "war for talents".

Oh yes, Martin P. still found his desired position - at a company that met him as an applicant at eye level. After the first meeting, things moved quickly. In the end, the chances of a penalty kick are still good for the shooter. The goal is big enough. You just have to place the ball accurately.