So, I recently moved house. It wasn’t the smoothest of experiences. The @HRD‘s tweet “Is it unreasonable to expect people to do their f***i
ng jobs? Clearly I must be old fashioned….” describes the people I was dealing with and my feelings towards them quite precisely. I had to fight the urge to fire off some nasty tweets or write a name & shame blog post. There were several stages in the process where I felt powerless, angry and alone.
You could say, that’s just the way it is, that this is to be expected. As a friend of mine told me during the process: “What do you expect? Just think about it, if you were any good in law, you’d practice proper law, not conveyancing”.
But that’s not me, I want to change things, and for every negative experience there’s a good one and only through feedback and recommendations can we change perceptions and lift the standards of industries. So I went to the four big property portals to leave some feedback, but nowhere could I share, warn, recommend. Not even about the estate and letting agents, let alone the lawyers, surveyors and removal companies (if you ever need one Bishop moves is outstanding). There was no opportunity for me to leave any feedback!
Funnily enough, how I felt was similar to the feeling that many job seekers had described to me. And then it shook me, yes, we at Jobsite have launched Recruitrank – a tool that lets candidates feedback on their experience with Recruitment Agencies – but is that enough?
It made me think: Do we really push the envelop far enough? Do we really do everything in our power to make job hunting (or house hunting) or whatever we work in, as enjoyable and rewarding for the individual as we really can make it? Do we really use our unique knowledge, position and experience? Do we really provide a platform that creates a better world and helps to grow a happier society full of decent, self-determined individuals?
I certainly have some more ideas on how we could expand Recruitrank in the near future, and how we can take further steps to ultimately make job hunting as enjoyable as possible. It also gives me even more respect for companies like Amazon, eBay, Glassdoor and (the even purist) Reevoo, who either build their business around recommendations and feedback or see it as an integral part of it.
Painting by Clay Vajgrt
Related posts:
Twitter: Topbananas
says
The only issue with feedback is in certain sectors it hinders buying decisions!
Hotel reviews always include bad ones! I recently arranged a family stay and every New York hotel I looked at suffered from bad reviews even high priced NY Plaza!
Maybe the issue is expectation and number of parameters that could be evaluated? Retail works better such as Amazon, the parameters are more narrow, speed of delivery, willingness to help, expertise in area and quality of goods on arrival.
So to rank a Rec Con how wide are the candidate parameters? Too wide and eventually it won’t help anyone or change anything!
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
Thanks for your comment, Dave.
I think, Jobsite has demonstrated with Recruitrank that feedback can be given in a structured format. The trick is to use the criteria that are important for Job Seekers and these are: Feedback/Communication, Sector Knowledge, Understanding of the individual needs.
I don’t see feedback as hindering buying decisions, but as influencing buying decisions. It is therefore onto the brand owner/recruiter etc to deliver such an outstanding service that he gets top marks (or at least a majority of it) and then gets chosen.
The agencies that take feedback seriously, normally benefit also from a business perspective – just take the finalists and winners of Recruitrank as an example.
Twitter: neiladdley
says
This is a really interesting post about the frustrating reality of customer service – surely its in the interests of the business (in this case estate agents) to garner this feedback? If you have to hide you must be really unsure about your delivery? Worse still if as a shareholder or stakeholder…
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
I agree with you, Neil. Feedback is always positive and should be encouraged. I’m especially impressed with brands that take the individuals side and provide transparency and trust and show that this doesn’t have a negative impact on financial performance, on the contrary.