Give Me Feedback!

Okay, so you may have opted against using a recruitment agency! “No, that’s crazy” you hear us scream.  Sadly, many smaller businesses lack the resources to employ a full time HR personnel to manage the recruitment process and often land themselves in hot water over poorly managed processes.  But, what many employers and small business don’t realise is that your recruiter can offer more than just fantastic Adobe Campaign or Eloqua candidates to fill your role.  They can give you sound advice on the whole recruitment process. So what are the top tips for getting it right?

Feedback

Adobe CampaignIt never fails to surprise us how often clients don’t give feedback.  Whether you are using a recruitment agency or not, feedback for the applicant is an important part of the process, but unfortunately only around 41% are provided feedback after an unsuccessful interview.

There is nothing worse for an applicant than submitting their CV to never get feedback, and even worse when they don’t hear back on how their interview went.  Unsurprisingly around 83% of applicants say that a poorly managed interview experience will actually put them off the role and the company.

But, don’t panic thinking that you are going to get bogged down in a deluge of administration around CV and interview feedback. Just a few well crafted templates is all you need to make the overall applicant experience a better one.  And if you do have a fantastic Adobe Campaign recruitment partner, such as ROD, then most of this work can and will be done by them!

For further advice on the interview process,  read our helpful resources guides.

Use Scorecards

As a hiring manager, you probably find yourself interviewing candidates one minute, then running off to internal or client meetings the next.  Sound familiar? What usually happens in these situations, is that interviewers then rely on rushed notes to put their hiring suggestions across to their HR team to process offers and applicant feedback.  And, if like us you find yourself interviewing 5 or 6 candidates in a day, you can often forget the finer details of an applicant.

This is where scorecards come in handy.  Scoring applicants against their soft skills and technical skills, such as Adobe Campaign implementation projects, as you interview them, not only helps you to compare multiple candidates quickly.  But means that you can rely on factual decision making, if you find yourself struggling to recall individual applicants.  And more importantly avoiding those expensive mistakes through relying on your gut-instinct.

Note Taking

Regardless of the number of applicants you are interviewing, making notes immediately is important. Jotting down particular skills, accomplishments, or projects an individual has worked on is a handy way of reminding yourself about an applicants strengths.  However, be very cautious with your note taking.  Under the Data Protection Act 1998 an applicant is entitled to request the personal information you hold on them and how this information will be used.  Interview notes may therefore, full into personal data.   So keep your notes factual, and do not make notes that are deemed to be ‘personal’ and certainly not discriminatory.

Keep it timely 

Setting realistic time frames within the business to respond and process interview feedback is fundamental in ensuring your applicants, even if they are unsuccessful, will have a thoroughly positive experience.

At least 80% of the companies we have dealt with, have at some point experienced the loss of a potentially good applicant, because they took too long to get back to the applicant following an interview.  And quite frankly it hurts.  The time and effort that a takes to organise multiple interviews, ensuring that hiring managers are off client site, and possibly traveling to central locations, all adds to the overall recruitment costs.  Our advice is to avoid having to restart the process all over again, at all costs.

Constructive Honesty

Telling an applicant they aren’t successful is never pleasant, but sadly it is a necessary evil. A whopping 94% of applicants want to have interview feedback, good or bad. But providing feedback is not about saying “Thanks for considering us, but not at this stage”.  Its about offering something more constructive and transparent.  However, many companies avoid feedback for fear of recriminations and accusations levied at them by the applicant. But feedback if done well and honestly, can be hugely beneficial to the business, in that it drives great PR across social media.

In the digital marketing and marketing automation world especially, word and bad experiences travel fast. Therefore always make sure your applicants have a really positive experience, even if unsuccessful.

Resource On Demand (ROD) is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Agency. They were founded in 2007 and are highly respected across the entire Salesforce ecosystem. Their specialist areas of recruitment include; Salesforce (SFDC); digital marketing and marketing automation technologies, which include Eloqua, Marketo, ExactTarget and Pardot; Human Capital Management (HCM) technologies such as Workday and SAP HCM and SuccessFactors. For more information contact ROD on rod@resourceondemand.com or on 020 8123 7769.