When your company is growing rapidly, the recruiting and hiring process can be a real grind. You conduct interview after interview, looking for the perfect person who will fit your company’s culture and help the business prosper.
The last thing you want to do when you’re knee-deep in resumes is take a few minutes to give job interview feedback to candidates who interviewed but didn’t make the cut. However, investing that time could be one of the best recruiting decisions you make.
By letting the unsuccessful candidate know what she did right and wrong during the interview, you’re showing that high-quality person that your company cares about her, even though she wasn’t right for one particular position. That could pay dividends later, if she applies for a spot that is a better fit.
Even if she never finds a job at your company, she may have colleagues, friends, or family members who would be perfect for the roles you have available. If she has a positive experience during the recruiting process, she’ll be much more likely to recommend you.
And finally, offering post-interview feedback can be an important culture builder. It shows that you value a person as more than just a cog in the corporate wheel or a number on a spreadsheet. That’s the kind of reputation you want to have in a competitive labor market.
When you do take the time to offer post-interview feedback, it’s important that you do it the right way. You don’t want to invest the time and energy in letting someone know how they did only to see your efforts backfire.
Here are some suggestions to help you master this often-ignored part of the recruiting process and give great job interview feedback:
Get organized before the interview.
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Advance preparation will help you provide meaningful feedback while also saving time. An article from the Undercover Recruiter recommends that you create a template upon which you can record a candidate’s performance against specific metrics.
“It can be extremely difficult to scribe and listen at the same time, so you might find your notes are hard to decipher afterwards,” the article says. “Creating a simple system to rate a candidate’s abilities, skills, and behavior will help you take away more thorough information and make for easier direct comparison with others.”
Don’t delay.
Once you’ve completed the interview and determined that the candidate will not be hired, provide job interview feedback as quickly as possible. The longer the unsuccessful candidate sits around wondering what she did wrong, the worse it is for her and for your company.
Set a standard timeframe for this, maybe deciding that you’ll communicate specific ideas to each candidate within one week of an interview, for example. That will give you a solid deadline to put on your calendar and spur you along.
Be honest, but not brutal.
As the Undercover Recruiter article notes: “There is no need to rip an ill-performing candidate to shreds all in the name of honesty, but it’s also unhelpful to gloss over mistakes. Feedback should provide unsuccessful candidates with compelling reasons they weren’t selected to move forward.”
This can be tricky, but it’s important to get it right. According to an article from Workable, if you tell someone she did great when she knows she messed up, you’ll lose her respect. But likewise, if you’re rude, you’ll leave the candidate with a bad taste in her mouth.
Be creative in your suggestions.
If you’re going to fill your post-interview feedback with hollow phrases that have no real meaning, you might as well not waste your time—or the candidate’s.
“Candidates might think you’re trying to dodge their feedback request, or that you’re being euphemistic,” the Workable article says. “Instead of using these empty phrases, give details of real examples from their interview and offer advice for improvement.”
Don’t raise false hopes.
While it’s a good idea to use specific examples in your feedback, be sure that you don’t mislead a candidate or give her expectations for the future.
For example, you don’t want to indicate that she was missing only one crucial skill, and if she had it, she would be a surefire hire—unless that’s truly how you feel. If she develops that skill and applies again, it could leave you in an awkward position.
Share results of skills tests.
If your job candidate completed a skills test as part of the interview, be sure to share those results with her. This will help her see areas in which she needs to improve, and she’ll be grateful for the guidance.
“For example, if the candidate had to create a writing sample during the interview for a documentation position, tell her how she did,” advises an article from The Balance. “If grammatical and spelling errors and incoherent sentences were present, she needs this information.”
Beware of legal pitfalls.
As the Workable article notes: “When you provide (candidates) with written feedback, you should be extra careful. Even if you didn’t discriminate, your word choices could expose you to legal risk. For example: ‘We wanted someone with no obligations outside work who could be constantly on call.’ If your rejected candidate is a working mother, or pregnant, this could mean trouble.”
Following these tips will require some time. However, providing job interview feedback could help your company in many ways, from maintaining and growing your talent pool to burnishing your business brand. Those outcomes make such conversations well worth the effort.
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