You’ve selected your candidate, the vacancy has been filled and you’re happy with the outcome. Now all you have to do is let all the other candidates know they didn’t get the job, and why. Often this is one of the most laborious parts of the whole recruitment process and often one which gets mishandled the most.

We completely understand – with stretched resources and various demands on your time running your team and your business, keeping candidates informed of their application status is a constant task when recruiting – and employers often don’t often have the confidence or skills to give objective feedback to disappointed candidates.

Employer reluctance to give proper feedback is the main reason candidates voice their discontent with the job-seeking process. It is difficult enough for SMEs attract top talent and compete against the larger, well-known names. Yet SMEs (and larger corporates) can easily throw away any positive branding during the hiring process merely down to the way they treat unsuccessful candidates. Remember – unsuccessful candidates may also be customers, or potential customers, or related to customers or potential customers.

Here’s the top three ways employers let unsuccessful candidates down…

1. Making candidates feel forgotten: The interviews are over, yet the candidate hears nothing. They end up realising that they’ve missed out on the job simply by default- when the phone never rings.

2. Ignoring unsuccessful candidates altogether: The candidate contacts the employer to find out how the interview went, but hears nothing. The employer doesn’t contact them again for future roles.

3. Bewildering candidates with a lack of information: What went wrong? The employer informs the candidate they didn’t get the job, but gives no feedback.
At the very least you should:

1. Inform each candidate of their success or failure. If you are too time-pressed for a phone call, at least take the time to send an email.
2. Respond to each candidate request for a decision, or let them know if the decision has not yet been made (and ideally when you will be able to let them know by).
3. Provide constructive feedback for the candidates that reached final interview round. Keep the feedback behaviourally based (i.e. what they said or did) and offer one tip they can work on to improve.

Every candidate who has taken an interest in your company and taken the time to apply deserves to hear the outcome of their job application. The further a candidate progresses in the selection process, the more feedback they deserve. By informing them promptly and with all the attention you can reasonably afford to give, you will soon have a reputation as a respectful employer, thereby attracting strong candidates.

HR101 can take all the admin burden of recruiting off your hands completely. If you would like to find out more, please contact Steph on 0121 4055 101.