Last week my most engaged LinkedIn post was not about Black History Month. It was about how the lack of feedback across all levels is making candidates crash out.
You can find the post here or if you are too lazy to click (because we all have these days, my friends) here’s the screenshot below, Raging Barbie meme included (my new obsession).
Black Barbie making a face at a table
What I didn’t anticipate is hearing that candidates aren’t getting feedback no matter what level they are. In the comment section there are CPOs and executives who have gone 7 rounds and been rejected with a generic template (I’m in the group too) as well as individual contributors who have been ghosted entirely. I don’t know who’s teaching Recruiting School these days but this is not the way of the strong company builder.
There are, of course, the basics in Recruiting which sometimes makes people think anyone can do it. This is your standard creating job descriptions, posting jobs, your process of reviewing candidates, having an interview plan, collecting feedback internally, and then making a decision. There’s some bits in between but really GREAT Talent Acquisition professionals are subject matter experts in these areas. What’s that you ask?
That means not being an order taker but rather being a strategic advisor on all of the above and more. That means writing job descriptions that tell a story of the job accurately and gets you the most qualified candidates, knowing where to post jobs, ensuring your interview plans are about candidate experience and the quality of hire, ensuring that hiring team decisions are precise, fair, and equitable for the most qualified candidate, and giving helpful feedback to candidates who advanced beyond a phone screen. I would even go a step further and say TA pros should be able to give feedback to any candidate who has had a conversation with anyone in your organization but most people aren’t ready for that hot take. I mean if we are gonna use AI tools, why can’t we use them to communicate data better?
I would venture to say there are two reasons for lack of feedback. One, the hiring plan was not set up structurally to emphasize the importance of measurable quality feedback so that you can give that feedback back to candidates. This is not a one sided process, friends. Candidates have long memories and sometimes they are customers with very long memories.
The second reason is because your team isn’t trained to give actual measurable feedback so therefore you’re making decisions possibly rooted in gut feelings (bias) and immeasurable assessments that are unfair to everyone in the process.
The good news is that all reasons can be fixed. And this is why Equity Activations exists because we have options for your organization. The Interview Arc trains your team for the latter and my Audit and Advisory packages address the former. Even in a market that doesn’t favor the candidate, smart companies are thinking proactively (realizing that technology is not a magic pill because you will still need people) and ensuring candidate experience as well as employer branding are favorable for now and the future. Nobody wants to be in the trash bin of a candidate’s mind.
If this interests you, I'm building a new workshop for leaders who struggle with storytelling. Storytelling is already being touted as one of the most important skill sets to have in the workplace. For leaders and emerging leaders, it's really important because you will not have cohesion, collaboration, or engagement if they don't know who you are or why you are there. Just hit reply to this newsletter if you want to hear more.
Rhona Barnett-Pierece and I did a session on Storytelling in TA for HR.com that’s now available for on-demand viewing! We talked about how storytelling for Talent Acquisition professionals allows them to advocate for themselves (pop your collars at work, friends), proactively engage candidates, and build employer branding harmoniously. You can catch it here.
There’s no need to let your talent problems continue. Recruiters are busy recruiting but we can solve your training challenges to ensure you are getting the best candidate assessments you need to make your business stronger.
