Corporate Social Responsibility Base Camp
Posted by Mitch on 14th September 2009
I rarely ever hear of medium to large sized SMEs ever attempting to develop any kind of employment brand or being bothered about their employer reputation. I hardly ever see any evidence of it in any of their external recruitment communications either.
Amazingly, they then compound the problem by treating those applicants (i.e. human beings) who do respond to their self-indulgent job announcements with very little respect. These applicants are people who invariably live within a 30-mile radius of the company’s offices and are always people who know lots of other people who live within the same 30-mile radius.
Ironically, these are often the same companies that can be heard complaining about how unprofessional recruitment agencies are and how they don’t want to pay fees to find people – but often end up having to.
So, by way of recognising these businesses contribution to their local communities, I thought I’d offer them a free template letter that they could use to send out to unsuccessful applicants to their future advertised job vacancies.
Dear (misspelt christian and surname)Thank you for applying for the advertised job of (insert job title here).
We could clearly see that this was a job that you’d be ideally suited for. After all it’s not everyone that’s got 5 years of relevant work experience. Furthermore we could practically smell the hours of effort you put into the covering letter and the CV. Printing it out on expensive textured paper was a nice touch that helped set you apart from the other applicants. Coming into our reception and dropping it off in person during your lunch break was also greatly appreciated. Nice suit by the way.
We could have told you two weeks after the deadline for applications stated in the ad that you were not going to be selected for an interview, but we thought we would wait until the person we did give the job too made it through their probation period.
We gave the job to the Sales Managers wife’s sister’s boyfriend who is fresh from university and who did a weeks work experience for another company in our sector. We think he’ll fit-in well here because his uncle is the doorman at Stringfellows and he laughs at all of our jokes.
Nothing personal. We just couldn’t be bothered to send you this sooner. So when you’d almost forgotten about this application two months later, opening this email before you leave home to go to the unfullfilling and underpaid job you are still stuck with that you loathe with every ounce of your bodily fibre, we thought it would add an interesting diversion to your day.
We will keep your details on file. You don’t really believe us do you? No really, we will. Honest.
Better luck next time.
Yours Sincerely
(insert company name here)
Sending out this type of letter to unsuccessful candidates could not do these companies any more damage than they are already doing by not responding at all.