News travels fast, bad news travels faster!
Providing post-interview feedback can be extremely beneficial to a company’s brand, regardless of whether the candidate was successful or not.
An interview environment can be high pressured and people don’t always come across the same way they do in their actual day to day roles. Constructive feedback enables unsuccessful candidates to better prepare themselves for future interviews and highlights any areas they need to focus on. From a business perspective candidates will appreciate the extra effort you have gone to and are more likely to talk about the positive experience they had whilst dealing with your company.
"Feedback is immensely important to me as it helps to point me in the right direction on my job search by highlighting areas for improvement or outlining my strengths. I have been through many processes where I haven’t received feedback from the interviewer and it has left me feeling in the dark and ultimately, less enthusiastic about the company. Not only does constructive feedback encourage a better interview experience for me, it also promotes a continued professional respect between myself and the employer, even if I am not successful."
Lucy Patten, Senior Executive Assistant
Word of mouth is powerful, regardless of the industry.
”Recent SEEK research has revealed that 43 per cent of Australian workers have applied for a job but never heard back from the employer.Not surprisingly, two out of three people who never heard back from the employer felt more negatively towards the company, and 57 per cent were unlikely to apply for another job there."
It is everyone’s responsibility to have a duty of care to the candidate, from the recruiter to the company. As recruiters, not only are we representing candidates to different companies, we are representing those companies in the market and need to ensure that the recruitment process is conducted with integrity from start to finish. If everybody is invested in the recruitment process we can ensure we achieve a result quicker.
Ultimately, you cannot attract great talent, keep talent pools running, and work in a more agile manner if you’re not running full processes and ensuring that you’re protecting all the people along the way as part of that process.
Timing matters
You should aim to provide feedback within 48 hours of the interview.
The candidate market moves extremely quickly, especially in the Business Support space as companies are constantly recruiting for support services. So if we want to place exceptional talent into specific roles, we need to be responsive and communicate that they are moving to the next stage.
Alternately, other candidates need to know if they were not successful and why, so that they can go out into the market with better resources, tools and understanding of what their capabilities are and also not have all their eggs in the one basket for a role that they haven’t even got. It creates a lot more efficient process.
Provide details
By demonstrating that you appreciate the time people have taken out of their day to interview for the role you will portray a positive image of your company. The best way to do that is to provide detailed interview feedback to both successful and unsuccessful candidates after the interview process.
Be honest and give the candidate constructive feedback. Allow them to learn from the interview experience so they can do better next time.
I would suggest focusing the feedback on candidate presentation skills, their ability to answer behavioural questions and how they build rapport.
Commenting on these areas could drastically change somebody’s interview style for future job roles.
By giving feedback, the candidate is left with a positive impression of your company even if they didn’t secure the role this time!
*Source: https://insightsresources.seek.com.au/recruiter-feedback-why-it-matters-to-unsuccessful-candidates