Why it’s important
A strong feedback culture give candidates support to present themselves in the best possible way. Everyone has the right to feedback, and ensuring candidates have an excellent recruitment experience is good PR for your company.
A good offer process has two benefits; firstly speed and quality of communication at this stage will reduce drop outs. Secondly it allows candidates the chance to feedback to you about how they found the process and you as a prospective employer. This will highlight any areas for improvement for next time as well as confirming what you do well.
Feedback process
Ensure candidates know when to expect to hear back after their final stage interview. Providing feedback quickly gives a great experience and impression of your brand and shows you appreciate their time in applying.
We would recommend that feedback is provided within 24 hours of the final stage where possible, for both regretted and offered candidates. This should be constructive enough to enable them to take the advice forward to their next applications. Managers should be encouraged to make an offer at the end of the interview where suitable – don’t let the candidate leave the room without them knowing you want them!
Where you are using Care Character in your recruitment process the candidate may also want to use their report findings to support this. For example, if they have scored low on particular care qualities, they can use the report to plan for future recruitment processes or interview.
Offer process
When making offers to successful candidates they need to receive feedback (as above), but you also want to use the opportunity to gauge their commitment to the role and your organisation.
You can ask questions around other applications they may have in process, what is the likelihood of them accepting your offer is, and also gather feedback about how they found the interview process.
You will want to explain to your new employee more about the compliance process that is about to start (although they will know about this from discussions throughout the recruitment process). Therefore your offer conversations should feed seamlessly into capturing information needed to begin their referencing and DBS checks etc.
Hints & tips for providing feedback and making offers:
- Every candidate has a right to feedback
- Feedback should be offered at every stage of the process
- Remember to explain how the candidate was assessed
- Structuring feedback is important, and should be done quickly after each stage
- Feedback is a two-way process – how do they feel?
- Encourage candidates to apply again in the future and action feedback
- Use the Care Character report to support candidates in understanding their feedback and how they can develop
- Ensure feedback fits with what you advertised for, and assessed for and that it’s factual (not opinion)