“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that we all make decisions about people based on appearances and a few short minutes of interaction, and that many hiring managers make hiring decisions within the first 5 minutes of the in-person interview.
Your office lobby is the first place candidates ‘meet’ your company in person. What kind of first impression is it making?
The minute they walk in the door, they’re imagining themselves in the job
Interviews go both ways: The employer is thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to have this person working here every day…”, while the candidate is thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to come to work here every day…”
So the minute a candidate walks through your door, they’re looking around thinking, “Would I like to come here to work every day? Is the prospect of spending 40+ hours a week in this environment appealing? Would I ‘fit in’ here? Do I really want to pursue this opportunity, or does the thought of walking into this lobby every day fill me with despair?”
What message is your lobby sending to potential employees?
Here’s the lobby of Google Zurich:
This lobby says: ”We’re creative, non-traditional, and interesting – and we’re successful enough to be able to spend money in our surroundings. Sure, you’ll probably end up spending a lot of time here – we work a lot – but you won’t mind, because it’s so much fun and we’re all so invested in our work!”
Now let’s look at random clinic office:
This lobby says: ”We’re serious. We’re so serious that we don’t believe in having a personality of any kind between 9am and 5pm. We think that spending a lot of money,time or energy on our surroundings is frivolous. Hey – this is a workplace, not a funhouse! We believe competency is more important than innovation.”
If you were an A-list candidate with 2 job offers, which one would you choose?
We’ve picked 2 extreme examples here, of course: Hardly any lobbies or offices are as consistently appealing as Google’s, and it’s entirely possible that the photo of the ‘boring’ office was taken just after they’d repainted, and they hadn’t yet had time to replace the signage and decor.
But it’s worth thinking about. Go take a look at your lobby, and try to imagine it through the eyes of someone who’s never seen it before. Is it an accurate reflection of your organizational culture? Your brand? Is it likely to be appealing to your ideal new employee?
