Part Two : Attracting the Empathetic Employee
Job Posting Traits
The way you post a job can make or break the start of your hiring process. A job posting is a first impression and will call out your values as a company and how that aligns with the position and the best candidate. If you are looking to attract the empathetic employee, you must also possess the traits outlined in part one.
When making a job posting, Gallup research identified that communicating your company's mission was one key factor. Beyond that, using language that is compassionate, will resonate with those that think and operate in that way. Finally, in an attempt to find positive and confident candidates, utilize calls to action in the job posting. This is your opportunity to get creative and unique to your brand. Not only can throwing in a call to action help to immediately eliminate candidates that are not attentive to details, but it can allow you direct insight into how they operate. For example, in the customer service arena, I have found that someone’s ability to let go of and move through challenging experiences along with the self-care practices they do are key factors in whether they can be authentically and consistently positive amidst change and challenge. With that in mind, create prompts within the job posting that call the applicant to speak to an experience in which they had to “let go of” or “move on” from a challenging interaction, personally or professionally. Maybe request understanding of what they do to decompress or have fun, or what fills their cup and why. Besides prompts, it can also be extremely useful to require a personality test be taken immediately up front. Not only does taking a personality assessment act as a way of encouraging self-awareness (a vital trait for the empathizer), but it also helps you as the employer to quickly find the empathizer you seek. There are hundreds of personality tests or other assessments available to you. Find the one that speaks to you, because it is like learning a new language and needs to resonate with your brand language. My co-host, David Gaines, of The Third Place podcast and I geek out over the array of languages within personality assessments so much that we utilize an online tool called Cloverleaf, which gives us access to dozens of tests and allows us to then look at the whole picture, individually and collectively.
These are just a few things that can be emphasized on a job posting to attract the empathetic employee.
In Summary:
Communicate and lead with your company’s mission and vision.
Use compassionate language.
Create calls to action up front.
