My au pair told me on Wednesday that I should start a podcast where I share my wildly unpopular opinions. I get the sense that this is because she’s fed up with hearing them. I told her that I have a blog for this very purpose, however, try as I might, I can’t get a young English girl to read a recruitment blog. We’re sending her back next month.
This week’s topic is one I often mention, but largely in passing. It’s the sticky topic of candidate care. Actually, I’m not going to call it “candidate care”. Candidate care is too broader terms. To most, candidate care means caring for candidates you place, candidates you don’t place, and any moonlighting dustman who sends you a CV for a CFO role. My opinion is that these are three distinct groups and will always be treated differently. For the purpose of this blog, I prefer the term “rejection management”.
Like an academic paper, allow me to start with an abstract to outline my view. Don’t worry, any sense of academic heft will end henceforth.
- The best thing we can do as recruiters is place people in genuinely life-changing jobs. One placement of this type is worth 10 mildly grumpy, wildly inappropriate applicants who didn’t get a rejection email. It’s worth 100 of these guys. It’s worth a thousand.
- Whether LinkedIn commentators have the intelligence to agree with me or not, there is a finite number of hours in a day. Any time (even a millisecond) spent hitting “auto reject” to Huntly-based candlestick makers will, over a lifetime, reduce the number of placements we make.
- Therefore, not every applicant deserves a response. If our job ads are genuinely clear on the absolute prerequisites of the role, and you’re wildly inappropriate for the role (and can’t convince us otherwise), then you are not a candidate. You’re an applicant. You sending me sh*t doesn’t mean I have to send you sh*t in return.
- If candidate care is so important, a generic email rejection is little better, and certainly no more helpful, than silence. We have not truly cared for the unsuccessful “applicant” so we need to stop kidding ourselves.
And it’s this last point where I think we could make some gains. Most recruitment firms and internal functions have a standard auto-reject email they send to unsuccessful applicants. Clicking one button to create an email written by someone long since forgotten is somehow viewed as candidate care. This emails typically goes something like:
“Dear <mail merged first name>
It was with great interest that I reviewed your CV for the role of CFO. The response has been strong, and unfortunately, your skills and experiences do not much the strict prerequisites for the role. We will be keeping your CV on record should any more appropriate opportunities arise. We wish you all the best in your continued job search.
Kind regards,
A recruiter who glanced at your CV for less than 2 seconds, clicked a button, which generated this email written by a former employee”
What a load of shite. Personally, I’d rather not hear anything. It’s like phone sex with an AI bot. I’d rather use my imagination thanks. If we really cared about candidate care, the process would start right at the beginning. Firstly, I think this is where job boards could really harness AI. Gone are the days where job boards can boast about getting high applicant numbers. We don’t want that. We actually want our job boards to discourage most applicants from applying. They only cause us unbillable work. So perhaps if SEEK spot an applicant who continually applies for the same role, but never secures one, imagine a pop-up that said:
“Hey. We’ve noticed that you’ve applied for these type of roles multiple times, but you don’t seem to be getting much traction. Unfortunately, when you keep applying to the same agency, you run the risk that they start disregarding your application. Here’ a few roles that seem to match your current skillset and experience. Also, if you’re looking to change industry, here’s a tool that will help you build your CV to make you stand out, and here’s some entry level roles which may help you transition into this industry. DO YOU STILL WANT TO APPLY?”
Of course we would still be inundated by retired steeplejacks, but would this not at least explain the mentality of recruiters, and give job seekers something of value? Likewise, when it comes to rejecting candidates, it’s perhaps time we did away with standard rejection emails. No, I’m not talking about personally rejecting by the phone the entire Village People Cosplay convention, I mean telling a candidate why they’re rejected without pretending we wrote the email ourselves. Some of you probably do this already, but we don’t. In future though, I want a simple drop-down where I can select one or more of the five most common reasons, which generates an honest rejection email:
“Hi,
Although this is an auto-generated email, your CV has been reviewed by an actual human. Unfortunately, you’re not suitable for the role of Senior Recruitment Consultant for the following reasons:
- You have no recruitment experience
- You have no sales experience
In the current market, our clients want to hire those with relevant and current agency recruitment experience. If you’re interested in pursuing this career, gaining some solid b2b sales experience would be advantageous. I’ve linked below a few reputable agencies who recruit entry sales roles.
Best of luck
Not Sean, but he did read your CV.”
Anyway, let me know your thoughts or if you guys are doing anything interesting with rejected candidates. Have a good weekend.
^SW
