The importance of providing meaningful interview feedback

Lack of meaningful interview feedback is unquestionably the biggest bug-bear for candidates who are unsuccessful during a recruitment process.

Unfortunately it is still all too common to receive either no feedback at all, or to be fobbed off with something generic such as ‘you weren’t quite the right fit’, or ‘the other candidates performed better’. This is very frustrating for candidates and recruiters, and isn’t really much use to anyone.

Other common excuses from employers include being too busy to provide feedback and even ‘I wasn’t given feedback when I interviewed, so why should I provide it now’.

At the time of writing (January 2021) employers are in a strong position when it comes to hiring. The pandemic has created a market flooded with a high volume and high quality of candidates, meaning shortlisting and hiring is relatively easy compared to normal market conditions. This has unfortunately meant obtaining worthwhile feedback for candidates after interviews has become even harder. When employers are spoilt for choice in the current climate, the focus on providing detailed or relevant feedback seems to be even less than usual.

Anyway, enough moaning! I feel it is important to highlight exactly why organisations should be giving meaningful feedback, and also to suggest some guidance on doing so.

Why it’s important to provide feedback:

• It protects your employer brand – reputation is everything in today’s digital world. Think how your organisation’s brand is being impacted by consistently providing a negative experience for candidates. Remember only 1 person can get the job – the other 4 or 5 you interviewed will be unsuccessful. If you provided limited or no feedback to these candidates, leaving them frustrated – who will they tell, will they post about it online?
• You may ultimately lose out on the best candidates – what if a previously unsuccessful candidate applies for another role in the future. They are much improved and this time you want to hire them. Don’t risk losing them to another organisation because they have remembered a bad experience with yours in the past.
• You owe it to the candidate – a good applicant will spend a significant amount of time preparing for an interview . It’s basic courtesy to give them some meaningful feedback, and this doesn’t have to be time-consuming. 10-15 mins per candidate to collate some useful feedback should be sufficient.
• It improves you as an interviewer – getting into the habit of providing consistent and detailed feedback for all candidates after interviews can really help you as an interviewer. You may see patterns which can help you hone your interview technique. Is the reason nobody is getting a certain question right because of the way it is being asked? You will learn from your mistakes, and may even notice some unconscious bias creeping into your feedback around one of the protected characteristics. This represents a good chance to check that you are genuinely following your organisation’s diversity & inclusion policy.
• It helps the candidate – constructive feedback will ultimately help the candidate improve and leave them feeling motivated rather than frustrated. This can only be a good thing!

Guidance on providing interview feedback:

• Refer to your notes straight after interview – you won’t always be ready to make a decision straight away, but try to start collating feedback and comments immediately, even if you use it later. This is far easier than trying to delve into the memory bank a week later when the interviews have become a blur and you have no proper notes to draw upon.
• Be honest with feedback but frame it correctly – ultimately I’m a believer in being very honest with providing feedback, even if it’s negative. Candidates will appreciate this in the long-run and prefer things not to be sugar-coated. However try to avoid a totally negative tone and try to frame things in the spirit of improvement, and try to include 1 or 2 points of positive feedback even for the candidates who didn’t perform well.
• Be specific – you don’t need to address every question in the interview but try to give a couple of specific answers that the candidate gave, and how they could have answered better. ‘The answer you gave was X, but what we were looking for was Y’. Also try to provide test scores and results if that was part of the process, and highlight areas for improvement.
• Break down feedback into sections – try to address the following areas in your feedback:

1. Technical interview performance – did they demonstrate the technical competency to do the job and answer the questions correctly?
2. Interview technique – did they answer the question being asked or go off on tangents? Did they stick to the time limit for the presentation?
3. Research and enthusiasm – did they research the company well enough and convey a genuine interest in the role and organisation?

• Don’t hide behind ‘team fit’ – step back and think what this actually means. This is generally used as a lazy piece of feedback when people don’t want to spend the time to provide proper constructive feedback, and it is also often a cover for some unconscious bias or discrimination. The ‘fit’ feedback is vague enough not to incriminate but it is largely useless to candidates as there is nothing specific attached to it. Try to avoid this and focus on more detailed interview feedback mentioned above.

It doesn’t really matter whether you are providing feedback verbally or in writing, directly to a candidate or via a recruiter but it is important that you take some time to provide some useful, useable feedback – for the benefit of the candidate and your organisation!