What is feedback in recruitment?
Feedback is a piece of information that is given to a candidate taking part in a recruitment process. Typically, it takes the form of a brief summary of the opinion that the job applicant has formed in the eyes of the hiring manager, the recruiter conducting the screening and others who were involved in verifying the competencies of the candidate.
At what stage of recruitment should feedback be given?
On each - it all depends on where the candidate arrived. In our opinion, even a brief opinion is deserved by both a person who had a brief phone conversation with us and one who resigned just before the contract was concluded. After all, each of us strives to be the best we can be in our field, and factual, constructive comments are a real help in the pursuit of excellence.
As Hays rightly points out, in a model recruitment process, feedback should come after each stage of the recruitment process, regardless of whether the candidate moves on further or not. The information can be both positive and negative, but in the case of the latter scenario, it is worth writing something more than just “We regret to inform you that we have decided not to invite you for a technical interview” or “Unfortunately, we have decided to exclude you from the recruitment process due to the appearance of candidates with higher competencies. Such messages don't really add any value, because the candidate doesn't know what caused us to decide not to continue our cooperation.
While we can imagine situations in which providing information misses the point, and it could be, for example, sending a resume that shows a lack of real desire to cooperate, feedback should be a kind of thank you for engaging in the recruitment process. So if you know that the candidate has spent several or even more hours preparing for the interviews, solving the recruitment task or simply, exchanged a few emails with you, it is definitely worth making a nod in his direction and explain in a few sentences why we decided not to qualify him for the next stage of the interviews, as well as point out what his strengths are.
Why is feedback given in recruitment?
Feedback, as we have already mentioned, is an expression of respect for the other person. However, it is worth remembering that it also has an impact on the candidate's later professional development - thanks to your message, he or she may be able to work on his or her weaknesses, appreciate his or her strengths and rewrite his or her resume to present it in a more favorable light.
In our team's experience, about 85% of candidates outright expect feedback or are happy to receive it. This also coincides with statistics - according to the survey, about ¾ of respondents consider feedback necessary, and ⅔ of those surveyed would like to receive it more often! But it's hardly surprising - probably no one likes to find out that they are making mistakes at a time when their effects can no longer be fixed, and constructive feedback on the performance of others can counteract this.
We can also guarantee that constructive criticism combined with highlighting the candidate's strengths builds the ground for future cooperation. Just because we haven't decided to hire a junior doesn't yet mean that in 3, 5 or 10 years they won't fit our criteria perfectly. A culture of feedback has a huge impact on Employer Branding, and this applies both to feedback expressed during regular team meetings and at the recruitment stage. It really pays off!
In what form should feedback be given?
In our opinion, the bare minimum is a short statement of three sentences sent via email or Linkedin. Although such a volume of text allows you to bullet point the most important observations made by the recruiter, it is worth spending a little more time composing it - tips, advice, and even a few kind words will certainly have a positive impact on both the candidate experience and the chances of getting interviews when a possible recruitment for a similar position is initiated.
However, practice shows that the oral form works much better - giving feedback during a phone call or face-to-face interview makes it easier for the recruiter to discuss the candidate's image holistically and explain all the nuances. It is also a great opportunity to ask additional questions, both about the current recruitment process and with an eye toward the future. The itMatch team practically always chooses this form of communication, although emails are used, for example, when the resume sent to us completely does not match our requirements.
Regardless of the form, the purpose of providing feedback always remains the same - the idea is to make the candidate more likely to make progress on the career path. The more often it appears, the better, of course! Let's also add that it doesn't have to be limited to verbal or email form - a conversation after which the candidate will receive some feedback from us in the form of a message is an excellent solution. One of our clients recommends that we share book titles to better prepare for future technical interviews 🙂
Why don't recruiters give feedback?
The reasons are certainly many, but it seems that by far the biggest problems are lack of time and low awareness of the consequences of not giving feedback.
These are the main, but not the only, reasons.
As Bartek, who is the CEO of itMatch, pointed out, until recently, all recruitments happened extremely fast, and the workload of recruiters made unitary treatment of candidates essentially impossible - there were simply too many interviews. While such a state of affairs does not excuse the obvious mistakes that were made by virtually everyone, it is certainly a valuable lesson for the future.
The times of overheating of the market are gone, and yet, recruiters still happen not to give feedback. How is this possible? Our research shows that in many organizations, the lack of feedback is the aftermath of ineffective communication within the team, poorly constructed criteria for evaluating a candidate based on the recruiter's subjective opinion, and out of fear of damaging the company's image. At the same time, it is worth noting that this phenomenon is gaining momentum in those organizations that have not decided to hire an IT recruitment agency. By working with professionals, managers know that the recruitment process will be carried out without harming the image of his company.
Why is insincere feedback harmful?
What we know from some candidates is that recruiters sometimes give feedback that doesn't quite correspond to reality. While schematic messages arouse mild distaste and do not encourage further cooperation in the future, confusing candidates or praising someone for a virtue they do not stand out at all can have a disastrous effect on the organization's image.
In most cases, insincere feedback is simply the result of overworked recruiters or extremely ineffective communication within the team. Sometimes, however, it happens that the person responsible for giving feedback does not want to hurt the candidate and downplays his flaws or replaces them with others.
Insincere feedback never makes sense - first of all, it can bring us a big image loss that will follow the company for many years, making future recruitment more difficult. Candidates try to get the most out of our feedback, so they analyze every word and there is a very high risk of catching even minor shortcomings and lies. Equally importantly, constructive and polite criticism helps us identify areas that need to be worked on - lying makes this completely impossible and is simply detrimental in the long run.
Summary
Each of us wants to grow in the professional sphere, and the growing culture of feedback definitely encourages this. However, as IT professionals, we need to remember that although the Polish labor market has made huge strides and we are sharing feedback much more often, we still haven't reached perfection and there is a lot of work ahead of us. In a decade or two, will all recruiters be constructively and thoroughly pointing out both advantages and disadvantages to candidates? We don't know, but we are hopeful.