How important is recruitment process feedback?

By posing this question, I appreciate that I'm opening myself up to the whole, "agencies never give feedback to unsuccessful candidates" diatribe, but you might be surprised to find that times are changing, and fast.

If you're the interviewer, you probably feel interview feedback is not that important at all. You've got what you want, right? (Wrong, but I'll come back to that point later). As an interviewee, it's vitally important, right? Yes.....well kind of.

Why only kind of?

If the feedback is thoughtful, evidence based and constructive, it gives the interviewee the opportunity for learning – this is candidate gold dust. If, on the other hand, feedback is piecemeal and simply hashed together in order for tick box purposes, then no its not useful or helpful. In fact, this kind of feedback can be quite damaging, as the interviewee will process that and try and glean some learning from it, which often just results in confusion, which inevitably chips away at their self-confidence.

In such a competitive market environment, organisations can often choose a number of applicants, according to the quality on offer, so giving constructive feedback is often tough as you are splitting hairs, and it often comes down to who they feel will be the best fit.

So what’s the right kind of feedback?

In this case, in fact in every case, my advice is to JUST BE HONEST. If they blew it, tell them - tell them how they blew it and why - they'll thank you for it. If there was no reason why you couldn't appoint them, tell them too, but explain why you chose the other person. Just be sure to give them some context and understanding.

I'd highly recommend avoiding the "you came a close second" cliché. For almost every appointment, there is usually a second place, and without context to WHY they came second and not first, this can lead to frustration and a lack of awareness to take forward.

At the end of the day, from the interviewers perspective, they have got what they want (hopefully). The process was successful, and they have their new employee. So why then is giving feedback to those people who were unsuccessful important to them?

It’s no longer a one-way street

Apart from common decency, there are actually a few other important factors that come to play:

Future attraction ability

If the unsuccessful applicants have a positive experience of the process and your organisation, they will tell others about it (especially as that is generally not the norm), which will help spread your reach for future campaigns.

Equally, it will encourage them to apply again- although they may not have been right for this role or for this time, they may well be in the future. I promise you (with 20 years of good authority) that if they have a poor experience (clunky process, lack of communication, poorly thought out interview questions etc), you've lost them forever.

Improve your decision making process

If you have a firm commitment to providing genuine, meaningful feedback, it brings a rigour and focus to your interview process. Interviewers will often have a framework to assess each applicant fairly and equally and make notes immediately afterwards which they can then refer to in their reflection/decision stage. Understandably, this results in better appointments in most cases.

Protects organisational reputation

Many roles require or would like industry expertise and that’s definitely common within Housing. Those unsuccessful applicants may be future partners or have relationships with your supply chain. Many organisations work hard to maintain a positive reputation (Inspection results, customer satisfaction stats etc), so it would be a shame to erode that through your recruitment practices.

The above may not break an organisation, but it certainly will have an impact and when you bring in the fact that it is the right thing to do, then I think organisations should start to take it more seriously!

Best practice tips

Here are a few principles that I work to on any campaign:

Be prompt

Waiting for interview feedback is emotionally draining. Aim to come back within 24 hours at the latest.

Plan your feedback

Don’t just call and wing it, it’s never a good look, and the candidate will pick up on your lack of authenticity.

Ensure the feedback is professional

Make sure it is specific to what you were measuring them against and constructive. Be concise and measured - waffling loses the message.

Be specific where possible

This will give them actionable takeaways. Consistency, along with a structured interview process helps with this.

Be honest but also kind

Giving people honest feedback in the right way can be the most powerful thing to do.

Feedback goes both ways

The above feedback discussion has mainly focussed on interviewers giving feedback to interviewees, but there is some feedback that is often neglected which is just as powerful - how often do you, the interviewer, ask your interviewees for feedback on your recruitment process? The answer is generally no, but why not?Often its because the interviewer either doesn't care, or doesn't want to hear a negative response. However, by not asking for feedback, they are missing out on an invaluable strategic tool. There is a huge amount of learning to be had from candidate feedback, which will not only offer an element of self reflection, but also improve your hiring successes moving forward.

Act and Implement

In any of Greenacre’s recruitment processes, we always ask for feedback from both parties (including those unsuccessful candidates – believe me, that is where the gold is) and this helps us to ensure that our processes meet or exceed people’s needs, whilst also enabling us to advise and guide our clients with authority on the best approaches for their needs.

So my final advice on this topic is to pull your big boy/girl pants up, ask the questions and hear the answers.  Then act and implement improvements next time and watch how things improve over time!