I am going to pause slightly on the meaningful conversation blog posts and talk about finding a job as an immigrant. I have recently just changed jobs and I left at a time when my team was really growing, so I had to conduct about 4 rounds of recruitment in short space of time. I came across a number of HR professionals with varied skill set. I also came across candidates that have worked as HR professionals in other countries and are overqualified for the HR advisor post they have applied for. It reminded me of trying to get my first job in the UK after practising as a legal practitioner back in Nigeria and completed an MSc in International Business in the UK. I was unsuccessful with a number of graduate jobs so I turned to administrative roles but came up empty for a while until a colleague back in Nigeria connected me with a business in the UK that needed some legal help.
 
At the time I never really thought about why I was unsuccessful in getting administrative jobs, other than feeling dejected, but sitting on the other side of the table as the interviewer, I was able to identify a few things that would have helped me bag my first job in the UK.

I will mainly focus on the interview stage of the process because being shortlisted means you met the essential requirement of the role, so it’s a matter of convincing the panel that they should go with you rather than the other candidate. So what have I learnt?

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Tip 1: Cultural awareness - As a warmup to entering the workforce as soon as you come into the UK, try engaging in the societal norms to understand the place. Watch British TV, make friends and integrate as much as you can. You wonder why it is important, it helps understand simple things like the right words to use. If you are from a former colony of the UK, the English language taught in schools is actually different from what is spoken in the UK. There are many terms I use that raise eyebrows still. I was a panel member for an interview for a senior role a while back and we had a candidate who was asked how she ensured that her team was motivated and performed optimally. She gave an example of buying a motivational book, issuing copies to all her staff members at a team meeting and asking them to read the book. The impression she gave was a top down approach to motivation but had she told the story in a different way, it would engendered a different response. This may be an acceptable example, say, in Nigeria where the society is hierarchical, but not in the UK where the power distance in the society is low.
 
Tip 2: Learn the art of interviewing in the UK - I call it an art as it is indeed an art especially if you are from a collectivism country as opposed to an individualism country. I won’t go into the details of the difference, please read the work of Hofstede (1980) on cultural dimension theory. (https://www.hofstede-insights.com/models/national-culture/) he examined the difference in the way cultures organised individuals and groups. I think his work is important in understanding of cultural drivers that impact of people’s behaviours that we see at work. Individualistic cultures such as the UK emphasise the importance of self, with this in mind, response to questions should be in the context of self. Find opportunities to have dress rehearsals with either a coach or through a volunteering experience. I am not saying that you shouldn’t be yourself, be yourself with intent, it’s an art.
 
Tip 3: Communicate - This may seem obvious but what I am actually referring to here is not just answering the questions or asking the interviewer(s) questions. Practically what I am referring to is if your native language is not English, when communicating in English, slow down your pace so that the interviewers can understand what you are saying. Many interviewers will be reluctant to interrupt you whilst you are speaking so take your time, they have asked the question now the floor is yours, take your time, and slow down your speech for them to understand you.
 
Tip 4 – Prepare for the interview. This tip is just conventional wisdom. Have worked examples of knowledge and skills being sought after but express it in the British way. Write it down and get your British friend to give you feedback. If you are invited to an assessment centre, ask for as much information as possible, understand what each assessment is trying to test and tailor your contribution to that. 
 
It shouldn’t be hard in the UK, it wasn’t hard in Nigeria.

In my first blog post, I talked about having meaningful conversations, and the next few posts will go into more details about having a meaningful conversation.

But let's start from the very beginning of conversations in the workplace: Recruitment.

Recruitment is one of the examples used at training for giving feedback. I attended a customer mapping training session a few months back and the example used at the workshop was improving the recruitment experience. I attended a service redesign workshop recently and the facilitator was exploring improving a product or a service, you can guess the example used for the workshop: improving recruitment. It got me thinking, what is it about recruitment that makes it a common topic for product or service development and customer mapping? Most working adults have gone through a recruitment process or have recruited people, so there must be pinch points either from the candidate point of view or the recruiter’s point of view.

Why do experiences vary? Probably because, various needs are not met by the respective parties. Where a job advert attracts many unsuitable candidates, the recruiting manager is not encouraged to get back to unsuccessful candidates, it begs the question whether the role was clear enough from the outset.

You have a job opening and you call for candidates. Candidates apply and you shortlist some and some you let go. The natural next step will be to let the people who didn't make the shortlist know they were not shortlisted for the job; a meaningful interaction has taken place in the form of feedback.

The next meaningful interaction takes place during the interview. You both get the opportunity to assess the viability of working together. You choose a successful candidate, and unfortunately for some candidates, the dialogue tends to stop there for the unsuccessful candidate.

The interaction at the interview stage needs to continue whether they are successful or not. Sometimes recruiting managers don’t have the time to give feedback, or sometimes they may be waiting for the successful candidate to accept the job offer which delays the process of giving feedback or puts feedback at the back of the ‘to do’ list.

There are so many reasons why it is important to give feedback to the unsuccessful candidate, I will not go into the reasons why as it is accepted wisdom to do so. However, I would like to propose an alternative to help managers give candidates a meaningful experience: why not feedback after the interview? After all your job description and person specifications are very clear and you know what you are looking for in a candidate. You wonder if immediate feedback would not put potential employees off? Not if it is done in constructive way. Constructive feedback is useful if the person didn’t get the job and indeed if they get the job. Useful as a development tool for the successful candidate in the role and as a learning exercise for the unsuccessful candidate.

Let’s start our people experience with meaningful conversation: feedback on the interview.