11 Ideas on Treating Your ‘Prospective Internal Customers’ Well

I wrote a post earlier titled “Points to Ponder on Your Internal Customers: Your People” listing some of the important considerations when managing your people. Internal customers are your people, and it is important to treat them well. Obvious!

Today, I want to touch upon your “prospective internal customers” – people who you interview and screen for open positions within your organization. If they make it through the hiring process, they are going to be your internal customers. But even if they don’t make it through, they still remain your “prospective internal customers” because they interact with you and share their ideas. They ultimately go back into the marketplace with an “experience” you extend to them during the hiring process.

If you are a human resources professional managing the hiring process, a business owner or someone on a technical interview panel, here are a few things you MUST consider for extending a great experience to your prospective candidates:

• Remember that every candidate that walks into the doors of your company is your brand ambassador.
• People are more connected, physically and virtually over social media. They talk about companies and experiences.
• They start “feeling” your organization the moment they walk in. Why not make that feeling a pleasant one?
• Treat them well – as an interviewer, you have to be humble and give due importance to what candidate has to say.
• It is important to share larger perspective with them. Introduce them to your organization (read “sell”) and be transparent in sharing the details.
• Seek to understand them – ask right questions to get the right details. Elaborate your questions so that they are easily understandable. Short and direct questions are sometimes incomprehensible.
• Remember that an interview is not about “quizzing” the candidate. It is about engaging them in a “conversation”. Seek details as a part of conversations, not as a rapid fire round of questions.
• Conversation is important because people only open up fully when they are engaged in meaningful conversation.
• Be generous. Educate them when they demonstrate lack of clarity on something. When you add some value (in form of knowledge) to the candidate, they remember you (because you gave them something).
• Interview them in the right setting, offer basic courtesies and extend a positive experience. It goes a long way in creating a positive word of mouth.
• Earlier, marketing/advertisements were enough for creating your brand. Today, it is people and their experiences with you that creates brand. 

People will eventually forget the kind of questions you asked them – but they will remember the “experience” you extended to them during the hiring process.

Make sure you deliver a GREAT experiences!