The New Dictionary of Hiring

Choice Friction

/CHOYS FRIK-SHUHN/

NOUN

Choice Friction is any unnecessary obstacle an employer creates between a candidate's interest and a confident yes.

MEANING

Seven interviews. A disappearing recruiter. A job description written by committee. An offer nobody can explain. A hiring manager whose favorite answer is “it depends.”

‍

Any one of those might be survivable. Together, they make choosing you exhausting. Switching Burden is what a person gives up by leaving their current job. Choice Friction is all the unnecessary difficulty your own process adds. You control much more of the second than you think.

Defined by:
James Ellis,
Employer Brand Labs

Category:

Choice

Related Terms:

MAKE THE CHANGE

Instead of:

Treating candidate drop-off as mysterious.

Ask:

Where are we making a yes unnecessarily difficult?

EXAMPLE

A candidate likes the job until the fourth interview is rescheduled, the salary changes and nobody can explain who they'll report to. The candidate withdraws. The team calls them 'not committed.'

HOW TO USE IT

Walk the actual path from first interest to accepted offer. Remove unnecessary steps, slow decisions, contradictory messages and avoidable uncertainty. Watch where good candidates abandon the process.

SAY IT TO LEADERSHIP

We're losing people after we've already earned their interest. Some of that loss is entirely self-inflicted. Let's fix the parts of the process that make saying yes harder than it should be.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH

Switching Burden: Choice Friction is difficulty the employer adds; the Switching Burden is what the candidate gives up by moving, which exists before you do anything.