How to confront sexist behavior & future-proof your recruiting role

Following the Christmas vibe of episode seven, episode eight is born to kick off a new year! We will prepare for you –  recruiters, a solid skill-set for the post-Covid market. Moreover, we’ll discuss about sexist behavior in workplace. Enjoy!

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Transcript

10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1… Getting ready for 2021, are we? Hopefully, it’ll be kinder than the past year. Welcome back to the Tea on Recruiting, where we share insightful and thought-provoking content that can help you shape your recruiting career!

Now, let’s check out our first piece of content for the day…

Skills Recruiters Need in a Post-Covid-19 Market

How can you future-proof your recruiting role for 2021? Well, we read “6 Skills Your Recruiters Need in a Post-Covid-19 Market”, and we’re ready to share our learnings:

Number one, Adaptability – survival of the fittest, am I right? The location from which you work and your KPIs might have changed. Probably even more. Keep up.

Pointer number two: Objection handling – prospects could try to push you away before you can say blueberry pie. Knowing how to handle it is a vital skill to master!

Pointer number three: Creativity – let your recruiters feel motivated to come up with new ideas and ways of doing things. Challenging the status quo will help you push the business forward!

Pointer number four: Negotiation skills – prospects might have more leverage than before, so having your recruiters know their value and assert it with confidence can help.

Pointer number five: Digital literacy – COVID-19 accelerated the digitalization of processes. Help your team learn what they need, whether it’s how to use Zoom, how to find leads through their CRM, or how to share a video sales pitch via email.

Six: Personal branding – Your recruiters’ digital presence can help them win prospects and candidates. Help them align their personal brand with your agency’s and learn how to be more effective in their communication efforts.

Now, onto our second piece of content.

How Men Can Confront Other Men About Sexist Behavior

We’ve read Brad Johnson and David Smith’s article “How Men Can Confront Other Men About Sexist Behavior”. There are some nuggets in there. Let’s see. Most men support gender equality and they believe they are contributing in meaningful ways. Sadly, this allyship is often only interpersonal, but not public. The missing ingredient is active confrontation. Bringing offensive, demeaning or harassing behavior to the attention of those men who, knowingly or not, are responsible for it.

Why speak up, you ask? Simply put, you’ll probably be more persuasive, since you’re perceived as similar, and you can help those men in the room who fear to be singled out to find their voice too. Still, sounds uncomfortable and overwhelming? There are strategies you can use.

Pointer number one: We often get paralyzed figuring out what to say. That’s the bystander effect. When you hear something offensive or demeaning, break the silence within the first TWO SECONDS. Say something as simple as “Ouch!” out loud, as you figure out how to follow. More good responses are “Did you really mean to say that?”, “That wasn’t funny.”

Pointer number two is Own what you say. Following up with “Come on, Bob. There are women in the room.” is lame. Why? It means that if women weren’t there it’d be perfectly fine. You could say “I didn’t find that joke amusing, Bob. I don’t appreciate the way it demeans women.”

Pointer number three: Socratic questions. These are powerful because they can trigger self-reflection in your male colleagues. You could say, “I wonder if you’ve considered that women might experience this differently?”

Pointer number four: Self-disclosure. Authentically share how bias or sexism was harmful to someone close to you to trigger empathy.

Pointer number five: Sense of humor. When a guy calls a female colleague “sweetheart,” try, “Do you call all your software developers ‘sweetheart’?”

Pointer number six is Carefrontation… Do you know what I mean? Real behavior change is best achieved through an artful blend of challenge and reinforcement.

Ontooo theeeee

CandE Crash

As you know very well, the more barbaric your treatment of candidates, the more demonic their Glassdoor reviews of your company. So, let’s look at our nasty review of the day.

Shoutout to a company we won’t name. So, let’s see… You don’t show up to the scheduled interview. The candidate tries to reach you out when they reach the agreed location and you don’t respond. Your stand-by recruiter turns out to be working from home via Whatsapp.

Let’s talk about your panel. There are no introductions. They don’t even seem to care about the candidate. Well, scratch that. They explicitly say that. I quote “Just ask straight. I’m not interested in your background.” Then they move onto asking a person with 17 years of technical experience what a DataBase is. Interesting…

Got something to say about this? Drop a comment below, we’d love to pick your brains. Help us get better at helping you get better: with your help!

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