There was a time when I used to work as a Placement Consultant.
Placement business is a pure people business.
There is more to it than resumes, matchmaking, and getting the ideal job fit for the involved parties.If we look at any placement firm that boasts of surviving over five years then it would qualify as being good at being people friendly.
Let me give you an emotional perspective.
People who are in the people business have to treat people as important. Since we cannot always know who deserves to be called important we stick with presuming all people as being important.
If a man walked into your office in a shabby dhoti and barefoot, looking like a tramp, with a resume, how would you treat him as a potential candidate for placement?
Suppose you could not put a label on him?
What if he was Mr.Ambani junior, how would you treat him? What if he was the rebellious teenage son of your most important client?
There are no rules here. But as a placement consultant, the safest marketing bet is to be nice, without mindsets.
Placement firms that are “Not nice to people” have a very high death rate.
One of my jobs over the years is to constantly find a large number of new placement consultants for including in each new edition of The Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Consultants. And I can vouch for the fact that hostile, suspicious or rude companies do not live long.
People who are in the people business make it a habit to be generally nice and polite to people. After a while it becomes a natural part of one’s personality.
Success in the people business is about how well they handle people to create a network of goodwill. Goodwill cannot be calculated but it is like manure spread on a field, if it rains then who knows which seed will wake where.
Niceness is serious business.
I was 11 years old. My cousin won a medal for some Boys Scout achievement, and my aunt managed to get me a free invitation for the ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi.
Here I was at a tea party. I wore a sari for the first time in my life (that I could not handle) I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere- A gawky, kid, all alone.
Then a nice man came up to me and asked me if I won any medal. I said “No.”
Then he said “I welcome you to have tea and samosas. I hope you enjoy it”.
That made me most comfortable. I enjoyed the rest of the party.
My Aunt told me later that the nice man was ‘THE President.’
Why do we remember people or feel positive about them? Not because they are great or famous or even important - But because of the way they treat us!
The Placement industry is a fitting example of how the people business should be run. Maybe we should apply it elsewhere too.
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
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