People, not candidates!

by: Isabella Pinucci, Career Service Coordinator, SDA Bocconi

We heard this warning from Dave Hazelhurst (a.k.a. Google Dave), a digital marketing expert and speaker at the 2016 MBA CSEA European Conference in Dublin.

Dave reminded us all that in this Big Data era – where customer predictive analytics rule how companies manage their brands – “the more tech we get, the more human we need to be”.

Humans are moved by the power of emotions even more than by facts and figures, as Aristotile cleverly pointed out around 330 B.C.  That’s why the experience of our customers should be coloured by positive emotions in every moment of their interaction with us.

As Career Professionals, how do we engage with our students and employer partners? As employers, how do we interact with our candidates?  Do we really know how their customer experience feels like?

Dave advises: walk in your customer’ shoes. Track your customers’ journey with you and identify the most critical touch points. Explore how they feel and think in those moments, how effortless it is for them to work with you. Use a lot of empathy and tune in on their wavelength.  Get personal, ask yourself: what are they trying to achieve? How can I make them feel better here?

A great perspective to reflect on and a  reminder that the school or employer brand experience begins the moment a person (not a candidate) applies for an MBA program or a job opportunity.  Dave offered many insights and some good tools like the slide below. But for me the quote which nails it all is this one by the poet Maya Angelou: “People may forget what you said or did, but they will always remember how you made them feel”.