Every neighborhood has a Halloween hierarchy.
Kids know which houses have the good candy, which ones aren't worth the walk, and which neighbor is going to make them listen to a three-minute explanation about the nutritional benefits of an apple.
Employers develop reputations in much the same way. Candidates talk to recruiters, former employees, friends, coworkers, and each other. They pay attention to compensation, flexibility, leadership, interview processes, and all the little interactions that tell them what working somewhere might actually be like.
So, in honor of Salestober, here are a few houses most people will recognize.
The House With the Full-Size Candy Bars
This is the house every kid is looking for.
Nobody needs to advertise it. By 6:45, children from three neighborhoods away have somehow received intelligence that king-size Snickers are being distributed at 1428 Maple Street.
Good employers develop this kind of reputation too. They pay competitively. Their employees seem to like working there. Their interview process is organized. Hiring managers know what they are looking for and don't take three weeks to make a decision.
There is an important detail here. The house giving out full-size candy bars usually isn't standing on the sidewalk yelling about how great its candy is.
The kids figured it out themselves.
The House With the Bowl Sitting Outside
There is a giant bowl of candy on the porch with a handwritten sign:
PLEASE TAKE ONE.
This is a beautiful experiment in human behavior that generally lasts until the first unsupervised group of twelve-year-olds arrives.
Some hiring processes operate on roughly the same system. Resumes come in. Several people have access to them. Different managers interview candidates differently. Nobody is entirely sure who owns the next step, but everyone assumes somebody is handling it.
Eventually the bowl is empty and nobody knows what happened.
Companies don't need a complicated hiring process, but somebody needs to own it. Candidates need to know what happens next, interviewers need to know what they are evaluating, and somebody has to keep things moving. Hope is not much of an operating system.
Neither is a handwritten sign.
The Apple House
There is nothing wrong with apples. They're healthy. They're natural. A really nice Honeycrisp probably costs more than several pieces of Halloween candy.
The problem is that nobody put on a Spider-Man costume and walked six blocks for an apple.
Employers sometimes make the same mistake when they decide what candidates should value. The company has a beautiful office, but the candidate cares more about flexibility. There is an elaborate incentive plan, but nobody can explain how many salespeople actually hit quota. There is a foosball table, free snacks, a company retreat, and a very impressive espresso machine.
The candidate wants to know about the manager, compensation, expectations, career growth, and whether people seem happy working there.
The apple isn't bad. It just isn't what they came for.
The House With $4,000 Worth of Decorations and One Dum-Dum
This house is spectacular.
There is a twelve-foot skeleton in the yard. Fog rolls across the driveway. Something screams when people walk past the bushes. There are tombstones, lights, music, animatronics, and a witch that probably required an electrical permit.
The door opens. Out comes the one Dum-Dum.
Employer branding can occasionally feel this way. The careers page is gorgeous. There are professionally produced employee videos. The company values have their own graphics. Everyone on the website appears to be laughing while holding coffee.
Then the candidate gets into the actual process and finds below-market compensation, five interviews, slow feedback, and a hiring manager who hasn't read the resume.
Marketing can get somebody to the front door. There still needs to be something worthwhile in the bowl.
The House That Runs Out of Candy at 7:15
They meant well. They bought candy. They decorated. They turned the porch light on. They were ready.
They just bought one bag.
Companies occasionally start hiring in a similar state of readiness. The job gets posted before compensation is finalized. Candidates start interviewing before everyone agrees on the profile. The hiring manager is leaving for vacation. Finance hasn't formally approved the headcount. Somebody important won't be available for final interviews until next month.
Then everyone wonders why the search is taking so long.
A company doesn't need every detail perfectly settled before it starts talking to candidates. Hiring always involves some adjustment. But there is a difference between adjusting a process and discovering halfway through that nobody bought enough candy.
The House Where the Owner Guards the Bowl
“One piece.”
The child reaches toward a Snickers.
“Fun size.”
Understood.
Some employers bring this same energy to offers.
They find somebody they really want to hire and then become intensely focused on winning every small part of the negotiation. A few thousand dollars on base compensation becomes a major discussion. An extra vacation day needs approval from three people. A reasonable request for flexibility suddenly raises questions about commitment.
There are times when an employer absolutely should hold the line. Compensation bands exist for a reason, and candidates can make unreasonable requests too. But there is also a point where protecting every last piece of candy becomes more expensive than being a little generous.
The kid remembers this house.
So does the candidate.
The House Giving Candy to the Parents
These people understand Halloween.
The kids get candy. The parents get something too. Everybody leaves happy.
There is a recruiting equivalent. Good employers understand that changing jobs rarely affects only the person sitting in the interview.
A new position can change a commute, travel schedule, childcare arrangement, family routine, benefits, vacation plans, or household finances. A relocation obviously affects even more. This is why experienced recruiters ask candidates questions that can initially seem a little nosy. Has the family discussed the move? Does the travel work? Is everyone comfortable with the compensation? Is there anything about the change that could become a problem later?
A company doesn't need to recruit someone's entire household. It helps to remember that an offer may be discussed around a kitchen table before it is accepted.
The House With the Porch Light Off
No decorations. No pumpkin. Curtains closed. Porch light off. Nobody knocks. Then at 9:00 the homeowner looks at the untouched bowl of candy and wonders where everybody was.
There are companies with surprisingly similar recruiting problems.
The careers page hasn't been updated in years. The job posting reads like an internal HR document. Compensation is unclear. There isn't much information about what the team does, why the position is open, what success looks like, or why a good salesperson would leave a decent job to come work there.
Then the company concludes that there aren't any good candidates in the market.
Maybe.
Or maybe the porch light is off.
The House Everyone Knows About
By the second or third Halloween in a neighborhood, kids don't need much instruction.
They know where the full-size candy bars are. They know who gives out apples. They know which house runs out early. They know where somebody is guarding a bowl of fun-size Milky Ways like they are family heirlooms.
Candidates develop the same kind of knowledge about employers. They hear things. They read reviews. They talk to people who have worked there. They notice how recruiters communicate with them and how hiring managers behave during interviews. Once they get into a hiring process, they start forming an opinion pretty quickly.
Companies can spend a lot of money trying to build an employer brand, and some of that is worthwhile. But the actual experience eventually becomes the brand.
Every neighborhood knows who gives out the full-size candy bars.
Nobody needs to see an ad.
