Why Companies Don't Give Interview Feedback And What Happens As A Result

This post is in honor of the multitude of candidates who go on interviews either through recruiters, networking or job boards and are incredulous that they cannot get feedback on their interviews.  All too often, the interview ends positively with a promise of further meetings, but the candidate  then hears nothing. The experience just goes into a black hole.  

I cannot speak about other industries, but in advertising, this situation is all too prevalent. 

One of my pet peeves – actually all recruiters and HR professionals – is not receiving feedback after a candidate interviews. Some companies look at giving feedback as a nuisance. I once actually had a client tell me that the trouble with recruiters is that they want feedback.  What she didn't realize is that in failing to provide this information, she ended up costing herself more interview time as well as leaving candidates with a poor opinion of the company.  This is especially important when the jobs specs are vague, which is often.

Sometimes when we get feedback it is unspecific.  This is also useless.  We recently got an email after a candidate had had multiple interviews, saying that the company was “lukewarm” on the candidate.  I had no idea what that meant or how to interpret it, especially since he had been through a couple of interviews.  That kind of non-specific comment doesn’t help us, the company or the candidate.  

When professionals are told that a candidate has too much of this and too little of that, we are able to look more efficiently and effectively for additional candidates.  (I have cancelled future interviews of candidates when I have discovered that they would be wrong for a job based on feedback from someone's previous interview. Sending them would be a waste of their time and the company’s time.)  Feedback also gives us additional insight into candidates; after all, another opinion of a person is a good thing for us to have.

So why don’t people give feedback?

I am guessing that very often, the first level of hiring manager or human resources schedules multiple interviews and decides to wait until all people are seen. They would prefer to give simple feedback, like, “Let’s proceed with candidates number 1 and 3.”  But that provides no insight or direction into what is right about the two chosen candidates or what was wrong with number 2; it may well be that the HR professional or a recruiter has other candidates and some may be better qualified, but without the feedback and comparison to the other interviewees (even if we don't know them), it gives us no concrete direction and doesn’t allow us to move forward on their behalf.  Sadly, the manager thinks that he or she is being more efficient.

Another reason people don’t give feedback is that they are so busy that they cannot or will not spend the few minutes to provide insight into their interviews. And if there is no HR person or other middleman involved who can push them into being specific, the interview may just go into a black hole.  They just don’t want to spend the time.  Of course as a result of that, candidates spread the bad word that the company or the person is rude.  Every interviewer’s job is to create positive public relations for their firm. Getting no results after an interview drives candidates crazy.

A third reason hiring managers may not give feedback, is that they are not trained interviewers and simply don’t know what to say. They will interview until their gut tells them a candidate is right and simply accept that candidate, forgetting about the others.  To avoid this problem, all companies should teach their people how to interview (I have given many seminars on this subject). I would also recommend that a company create a feedback form which should be sent back to HR and passed back to recruiters, if appropriate.  It could make the process actually go faster and smoother.

There is a fourth reason.  Sometimes candidates screw up interviews.  But without telling us or them, whatever the problem is or was, we cannot help unless we can identify the problem.  I have never understood why companies are reluctant to give their recruiters bad news.

As mentioned, one of the jobs of a recruiter is to create positive public relations for their clients. Mostly, when I can tell my candidates the feedback, they agree with the truth.  And since I believe in telling my candidates the truth, they are appreciative.  That is far better PR than when we hear nothing.

Sometimes we hear nothing because the human resources person we are dealing with has been unable to obtain feedback from the person who did the interviewing.  When that happens, it is better to tell us or the candidate.  At least it is something.

Everyone who spends time interviewing can and should be able to learn from the experience.

The Recruiter As Magician

I have always said that recruiting is like putting together a jig saw puzzle – there are a great many pieces which seem to fit, but only one is perfect.  It takes time and patience as well as a very good eye to find the right match for the company’s culture.

Clients hire us only after they have conducted their own search and networking and are not satisfied with the people they have met.  This process for them can often take weeks or even months.  And then they call us and tell us they need someone within days. We are always getting jobs which have been open for a long time and then we are given impossible deadlines.  Last week, a human resources person asked us to find someone and have him or her report for work in about sixteen days; and they would prefer someone who is currently working.  When we explained that even if we immediately found someone, sixteen days would be unrealistic because the company could not get them in for all their interviews in two days (reference checking alone could take two or three days).  And even if the company made a job offer within a week, it would then be at two to three weeks before someone could start work because they would also have to give notice to their current employer.

Every recruiter, even those on retainer, has received assignments like this (about three months ago, we were paid a retainer to identify candidates to interview within two weeks). 

What every recruiter knows, no matter how big their data base, each assignment is different, and it can take several days just to sort through and evaluate candidates who are already in our files, even before calling them to determine their interest.  Ironically, we can often come up with a candidate’s ideal job, but the timing may be wrong for them.  Perhaps they just started a new job, they may be working on a critical project and be unable to interview or a thousand other reasons.  

And if there is no one in our files, then we have to conduct a search, which may take days or weeks or even months to identify, locate, interview and introduce appropriate people for the job.  A candidate who was unable to talk in January may suddenly be available in March or, if the client was slow to act, the candidate available in January  may no longer be interested or available in March.  Often, because of changes in assignments or new experiences, candidates who might not have been appropriate a year prior may be perfect now.  All this takes time to sort out.

And of course none of this has to do with companies which give us very difficult job specs.

And more often than not, we succeed, especially when our clients partner with us and we work together; clients can be very helpful in the process, especially when they tell us who they have seen and why they were rejected.  This kind of partnership gives us invaluable insights and understanding of their specs. Even the best of us are not magicians unless we have help (ever notice that all magicians have assistants?).

 

Somehow, good recruiters are often able to pull rabbits out of a hat and find the perfect person for a job. 

Good Candidates Get Gobbled Up Fast

Despite the slowly declining unemployment rate, the job market for marketing executives – advertising, marketing, public relations, etc. – continues to be sluggish.

Existing employees are overworked and, often, understaffed.  Often, they are so busy that they have no time to interview the very people who could ease their burden.  So the interviewing process can drag on, often for weeks, sometimes for months.   The problem is, that when people take too long to finish the process, the people they liked at the beginning of the process may have taken other jobs in the interim or they may simply have lost interest based on the inactivity.

The manager who doesn’t know how to recognize good talent and insists on meeting too many candidates often loses the best ones because of their indecision. A good manager must hone their own instincts and they need to trust the human resources and recruiters who are working on their behalf. If those people have been properly briefed, the people they send should be fully capable of doing the job.

If managers are really busy and overworked, their first priority must be to hire the person or people who can relieve them.  While getting the day-to-day work out is essential, managers must make the time to interview. There must be nothing worse than meeting and liking someone only to have them take another job because the manager debated too long and the candidate lost interest.

Over years of recruiting, I have observed that successful companies tend to be egocentric, or, if you will, corpocentric.  They often believe that everyone is dying to work at their company and will therefore wait for them.  I have actually had people say to me, “Why would he/she not wait for me.  This is a much better company.”  And while that may be true, not everyone is committed to working there.

We’ve seen instances where hiring managers sit on résumés of excellent candidates for days, even weeks, before agreeing to interview.  Even candidates who are excited to interview at that company may lose their enthusiasm.  Or, at the very least, they question the commitment to hire and wonder about the focus of the manager who is to meet them.  We’ve seen good candidates actually talk themselves out of taking a job because the process took so long the candidate became discouraged and lost interest.

Every recruiter – including corporate recruiters – knows that there is a certain momentum to the hiring process. It is important for that momentum to be maintained. When good candidates show up, it behooves the company to get them through the system as quickly and efficiently as possible.