The most used, best known human resources service in the world must be 'recruiting'. At this point, the fact that applicants have reactions based on their cultural differences should be considered natural. What is the situation in Turkey compared to other countries?

Human behaviour differs from one country to another. We all know this and we try to act in accordance with the traditions of the country we are doing business with. We can tell how to act at a business meeting, how to present our business card.

 When it comes to human management at first there are not so many differences. Especially in global economy, we assume that there are no great differences among the countries.

What kind of differences do you observe in practice?

A Colombian participant at a meeting on employee selection I attended last week mentioned an application that I found quite interesting on the issue of reference checking. We were dealing with the issue of predicting human behaviour during recruiting, selecting the most suitable candidate for the company and the position. We were discussing how we could get the best result in an application where reference check was to be done by e-mail. The Colombian participant mentioned a way of checking references by actually going to the candidate's home, meeting the family, and making particularly sure that he/she did not have any terrorist tendencies. In fact, a couple of telephone calls would be enough to check this in Turkey. Of course, it is preferable to do this with references given by people that the recruiter rather than the candidate has selected. I know that there are some extreme practices on this issue. I have heard that in Germany reference letters have a certain format and that it is not possible to write something negative in the reference letter of an employee that has quit his/her job. So, the practices from one country to another vary widely.

The ad given by one of our German clients doing business in Turkey was so long and detailed that it covered almost everything you would find in the job description. Though they a very high rate of comeback with the same ad given in Germany, the comeback rate in Turkey was almost none. It took the company quite a long time to understand that Turkish people liked practical thinking and that a large majority never read long texts.

How does Turkish culture reflect on business life and the process of recruitment, which is a very important aspect of this life?

In Turkey, one has to know something about Turkish culture to be able to understand people's behaviour. My observations on this issue in my 16 years of management experience and 10 years in the human resources sector are as follows:

For example:

In Turkey people are reluctant to express their thoughts and feelings directly. In order to understand what the person in this group - to which I myself belong - really wants, thinks and in fact wants to say, one must be very careful. Since the Turkish person does not express him/herself directly, during an interview with a candidate you must listen not only to what is said but also to what is not.

It is almost impossible to get the candidate to say the exact salary that he/she is expecting to get, therefore, one has to get that through indirect questions. The best method for this is to ask what the candidate got in his/her previous job and to find out whether he/she found it satisfactory.

While some candidates are extremely serious about the job description, others may pretend to know everything thinking that once they get the job they will somehow learn whatever is necessary.

If the candidate is very timid the best way to get the conversation flowing and to understand the candidate's potential is to; ask about marital status, number of children and even about college entrance exams. The candidate will not perceive these as an attack to personal issues and your communication will be stronger.

If you ask why the candidate is quitting his/her previous job, he/she will probably not dispraise his/her employer or job and if he/she has been faced with improper behaviour or abuse, most probably will not tell you about it. The answer will usually be, "I could not get along with management."

So, can we say that the candidates are emotional or not clear about the answers they give?

On some subjects they are. For example, the candidate will not be very realistic on the salary and after a while will let you know directly or indirectly that he/she is not comfortable talking about the subject. He/she will indicate that once accepted conditions will change with time.

Going back to references, the person you call for this will not tell you his/her true feelings at the beginning. If your candidate was a good employee, no problem, he/she will say this immediately. However, if the employee's work was inadequate, there are two possibilities; did he/she like or dislike him/her? If he/she liked him/her, once again the reference will be quite gratifying because in Turkey everything is based on liking… If he/she doesn't like the said person, the first sentence will be, "I like him/her very much." If he/she doesn't like the said person at all, the sentence will begin with, "we like him/her very much".

You must read between the lines very carefully to understand the rest because in Turkey generally the approach is, "not to threaten anyone's job."

Once you have overcome all these illusions, you will find very practical, solution oriented and devoted employees.