Listening

I suppose it sounds cliche or even drab to repeat the phrase: “It is important to listen”.

But listen.

In medical recruiting, listening is vital.

Our client may say,

“I am concerned about money (or reimbursement)” or “We are not in a hurry right now”.

Well, this is a time not to breeze over these statements but to listen.  And listening doesn’t just mean saying to ourselves, “yeh okay” and then move on.  Listening involves asking the next best question.

In this case, our response would be: “Tell me more about your financial concerns.” or “When would you like to interview the first candidate?” This conveys that we are actively listening.  We are responding in a way which proves that we are in tune with our clients.  We are on their side.  We are not their enemy.

Recently, in another situation, I learned  the importance of listening.  A potential candidate and I were talking about a prospective job.  She had some hesitancy about interviewing for the position and when asked about her reservations she said her mother was sick therefore she could not handle a major change right now.  Not wanting to discuss her mother’s sickness, I moved on to talk about the job’s schedule to see if that would ease the perceived burden of this new job prospect.

On retrospect,  the candidate did not say that her mother was sick; she said her mother had a major medical concern.

Big difference.

Sickness is often temporary whereas major medical concern means debilitation or close to death and obviously requires a lot of time and attention and taxes the caregiver’s emotional, physical, mental and spiritual reserves.

Lesson learned.