“Human first”: what it really means for candidates

"Human first" is an expression that I always use. But its meaning does not come from a model, from a method, or from a manual.

He comes from years of real conversations, in real rooms, with real people who were looking for a job, or who weren't looking for one.

This article does not speak of the slogan. He's talking about practice.

So here's what "human first" actually changes for a candidate, from the point of view of someone who built a Cabinet about this idea.

1. Human first, it's getting an answer. Always.

One of the greatest lessons I've learned in recruiting is that the candidates are opening up to you to the respect you show them. No more.

If you leave someone without news after an interview, you've already told him what you thought of his time. In our home, each application receives an answer, each interview gives rise to a return, and a refusal is explained. Not by an automatic message. The person who conducted the interview.

Human first starts with what you choose to do when there's nothing to gain.

2. It's letting people give their rhythm, even when planning says something else.

I for a long time accelerated the interviews by thinking that "efficiency" was a form of respect. That's not the case.

The most important elements of a journey appear almost always just after the moment when one is tempted to move on to the following question: the long break, the nervous laughter, the return to a "no importance" experience that actually explains everything else.

But it takes time. Of the real time, not the one we notice in a interview frame for the shape.

Human first is slower. And it's voluntarily slower.

3. That is to say the truth about the position, the salary and the process.

What a candidate wants to know before he or she engages often comes up with three questions:

• how much the post actually pays, from the first exchange, not at the third interview;

• how many steps await him, with whom, and within what time;

• which, in this position, is difficult, and the announcement does not say.

Human first treats this information as a due, not as a bargaining lever to keep for the end.

4. It's recognizing that everyone brings their culture into the conversation, I understand.

When recruiting from several countries, it is easy to think of themselves as "neutral". But neutrality is a myth.

The formulation of a question, the rhythm of my speech, the expectations that I bring unconsciously into a room: all this influences what a candidate feels allowed to say. A silence in Tokyo, a direct response in Berlin and a hesitation in Lyon do not mean the same, and I must know that before I judge.

Human first requires humility:

• know that exchange is influenced,

• knowing that we don't know enough,

• and continue to learn the cultures in which we recruit.

5. It's telling clients the truth, even when it's disturbing.

Sometimes the most "human first" thing you can do is say to a client: "Applicants decline your position, and here's why."

Or: "Your process lasts too long, and you lose the best on the way."

Or: "The profile you describe does not exist at this salary, but it exists, and it is worth being met."

Human first is not about protecting businesses. It is about respecting people, and trusting good businesses to be up to this franchise.

6. It's building a process that treats people with dignity, from first contact to last.

Human first is not only played during the interview. That's all that surrounds it:

• The way we approach someone who wasn't looking.

• The way we explain what we do with his data.

• The way we announce a refusal, and at what speed.

• The way we keep in touch after taking a job.

Ethics, logistics, boundaries. They count as much as the quality of the shortlist.

Human first is not a moment in the process. C.is the process.

Why it counts today

Automation and screening tools are transforming recruitment, and on some days it is felt that they are transforming it faster than we can respond to it. But if technology can sort, rank and restart, what it can't do is look at someone and understand why it hesitates.

For me, to be human first Nothing nostalgic or sentimental. It's strategic. It's ethical. And that's what makes this work worthy of being done.

If my previous article It explained why recruitment must become human again, which explains how we are doing it in practice.

And I hope that it will be useful to you, whether you are a recruiter, a leader, a candidate, or simply someone who is trying to better understand the people he meets.

Claire Vasseur is the founder and associate director of Cadran Talents, an independent recruitment firm that assists companies in the recruitment of their executives and experts, in France and internationally.