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3 Reasons You Should Give Recruiters Feedback

  • admin
  • June 14, 2018

Think candidates are the only ones benefiting from feedback? Think again.

Feedback is one of the most important things candidates want out of the recruiting process—besides the job. But your “no” pile will almost always outweigh your “yes” pile, because in the end there’s only one lucky winner. Giving each candidate constructive criticism or relaying it to their recruiter will take some time, and it only benefits the candidate—right? Wrong.

1. Feedback helps recruiters improve on our end.

As much as we’d like to be all-knowing, mind-reading recruiters we just aren’t. Recruiters rely on hiring managers to communicate their placement needs in order to get butts in seats. Instead of risking huge opportunity costs, share your thoughts and feelings early and often throughout the process. The more honest your communication is the more value you are potentially providing to your company and your own self as a hiring manager. A connective, communicative network works better for you, and a strong networking relationship with your recruiter can fill open positions faster.

2. Feedback gives companies a competitive advantage.

The employer or hiring manager that understands the importance of evaluating candidates, even the wrong ones, has a competitive advantage in finding the right person for the job and retaining the best employees.

You obviously know to closely examine your pool of candidates, but you should look even closer at those who wouldn’t be a good fit for your company. Providing unsuccessful candidates with criticism helps you realize exactly what you’re looking for, and it helps them improve for any future job opportunities (more on that next). Providing feedback to less-than-ideal candidates is a good way to narrow down and visualize what your perfect fit looks like.

Feedback is also important for new hires. Not only are they thirsty for validation that they are doing a good job (if they are), but they also want to know if there are areas where they can improve, best practices to implement, any tips and tricks that others have used to succeed in the position, and even some criticism where necessary.

Providing feedback is also a good PR opportunity. Not only can it benefit a company’s reputation as an employer, but objectively justifying a decision to reject someone also reduces liability for claims of discrimination.

3. It’s just the right thing to do.

Giving feedback is not only good for your company, it also helps the candidate understand their strengths and weaknesses. But don’t just tell them a bunch of cliché reasons with no real substance behind them. Brushing off candidates with, “there was someone else we liked more,” simply won’t cut it. A lot of companies don’t give negative feedback at all. Instead, they hope candidates get the message when they don’t hear anything back from them. As awkward as it may be, giving truthful and complete feedback as to why you are not moving forward will be the best thing for the candidate, and for their Glassdoor review of their experience with your brand. We live in a social media savvy world, and candidates have a megaphone for their reactions. Your reputation can be affected by the way you give feedback—or don’t.

So yeah, feedback is an act of kindness that can help candidates with future opportunities, but the feedback ultimately benefits your business by cementing your reputation as a quality employer.