Chiswick Consulting Providing a bad experience to job applicants during the recruitment process can irreparably damage your employer brand. But good practice can be gleaned from these four mistakes typically made by employing organisations:
Mistake Number One: Employers don’t explain the reason for assessment
Psychometric tests are increasingly used to sift and select candidates. However, recruiters often fail to explain why candidates are being asked to undertake these tests; why the information is needed; how this is relevant to the job; what the organisation will do with the data and who will actually see it.
Good practice is to very clearly explain why you are using assessments as part of your selection process. For example, if you are using a personality questionnaire, you could explain how certain personalities lend themselves to certain roles in the organisation. You could also state that the results would be used to inform an interview with the candidate.
Mistake Number Two: Employers don’t offer feedback after conducting assessments.Everyone who uses psychometric assessments has to take part in accredited training that meets the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS). Among other things, these requirements stipulate that organisations must treat data with confidentiality and they should provide feedback to candidates.
Good practice is to offer feedback to candidates. This can easily be provided by computer generated feedback with an offer to supplement this with more detailed feedback, if required.
Mistake Number Three: Employers don’t tell the candidate why he or she was unsuccessful
In the absence of any information from the organisation, candidates will often form their own opinions about why they were unsuccessful in their application. Their conclusions are often wrong.
Good practice is to provide specific feedback to candidates on why their application was unsuccessful. Ideally this should include details of where they were strong against the required competencies and where they were weak. Suggested development points may even be offered. This is particularly important for a business-to-consumer organisation, as any candidates are also likely to be your customers.
Mistake Number Four: Employers appear uncoordinated throughout the selection process.
Some organisations don’t use all the data they collect from assessments or they don’t keep a centralised record of the candidate’s information. As a result, candidates can be asked the same questions by different interviewers. Overlapping the selection process not only causes duplicated results, it also irritates the candidates. If the application process isn’t seen as valid, some candidates will drop out of it. The hiring organisation therefore risks losing talented people through inefficiency.
So, in summary, good practice is to be clear about what information you want from candidates; to proactively plan the process from their point of view; to use relevant assessments; to communicate clearly; to offer feedback to candidates throughout and to use – and share – the resultant information.
Ultimately, good practice – and the real way to deliver a great candidate experience that enhances your employer brand – is to treat your job applicants with the same care and consideration as you would treat your customers.