08.04.2020

The information Vacuum - It must be Monsters!

Way back when, there was always terrible looking monsters on maps wasn’t there? The big scaly thing breathing fire and eating ships was always placed out of the way in the corner somewhere where few people had ever set foot.

Maybe the reason these fearsome creatures were there was because that in the absence of any real knowledge, there is fear. This is something we can relate to today I am sure. When you get summoned to an unexpected meeting by your boss. Or when you see the top folks in your business huddled in meeting rooms for days on end in heated conversation. You’re wondering what’s going on behind those closed doors. Oh no! this is bad, it’s really bad, and it’s going to affect you…

It’s likely not as bad as you think it’s going to be – but the point is when we don’t know, we fear the worst.   

To relate this to my world of recruitment, how often so we see information vacuums and what does it lead to?

‘Great! You got the job, we’ll generate the contract and get this straight to you’. The candidate then hears nothing for a week… Monsters.

‘Thanks for coming in for interview, you did great, we’ll get back to you when we’ve seen the other candidates.’ Nothing heard for a week… Giant squid.

We see the above examples weekly, and the majority of the time everything is exactly as it should be, the client and potentially the recruiter might know that, but does the candidate? 

If you don’t want people to fear the worst we need to give them the information they need to be comfortable – it can be easy to forget, but it’s so important!

Outside of recruitment I am sure the same applies, do we see this in other industries? Where the not knowing means that invariably you’re going to encounter an enormous horned creature hell bent on swallowing you whole?