How Is Your Rejection Process?

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

I sat with a recruiting team this week to discuss aligning staffing with their business strategy. In this case, the strategy was inclusive of how those not hired felt about the company and its brand. For some of their positions, each candidate could be a future customer, future employee, or potential competitor. Holding those thoughts in focus for a moment triggers some questions about the candidate experience.

The leader of this group asserted recruiting is the business of rejection. They have a 50:1 applicant to hire ratio. This means that 98 out of 100 people that express interest do not get hired. They clearly know what happens to the fortunate 2%. His concern was how the candidate experience impacts the 98% who get rejected.

This recruiting leader had initiated a conversation with the company’s leadership team about recruiting process improvement. Everyone agreed the candidate experience impacted potential downstream relationships. As such, a recruiting process that delivers a positive brand message and leaves the candidate feeling good – win, lose or draw, was essential.

Most application processes are a one-way information black hole. As an employer you want to get information to make your hiring and rejection decisions. One way to enhance the candidate experience is to give as much as you get in the application process.

The candidate is a decision maker too. Candidates must be in better position to determine if the job is right for them at the conclusion of their application process. And as such, it is reasonable to assume they should get useful and valuable information about the job and job-fit to make their decision. That is a prime consideration for the value of using simulated work samples via pre-employment assessments. Candidates get to take the job for a test drive and experience many aspects of the job demands.

In a recruiting experience that treats both parties as decision makers, the candidate can be armed with information to put them in better position to accept or reject your job. Think of the efficiencies you might enjoy if more candidates rejected a job before you invested any recruiter time with them.

A great candidate experience evaluation question is: Did this process provide you enough information to decide if this job is right for you?

At the end of a Virtual Job Tryout, we ask candidates that question. Over 90% of candidates select Strongly Agree or Agree. That is pretty strong endorsement of a process that both evaluates and educates the candidate. The work sample experiences arm them with data relevant for their decision. Well informed candidates who view your process as providing valuable information may leave with a favorable point of view toward your company. Regardless of who rejects whom, candidates experiencing a balanced exchange of information are more likely to hold your company in a positive light. That is a step in the right direction for the 98%.

This article provided by permission from Joseph P. Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group. Deliver an exceptional candidate experience with Shaker Consulting Group’s Virtual Job Tryout^®.  Obtain a work sample that predicts on-the-job performance. Identify best-fit candidates at the click of mouse. Click here for a 3 minute overview.