Candidate Feedback to Shape Sourcing Strategy

Candidate feedback—Using recent hires and not hired candidates to assess what is working in your sourcing strategy. Recent hires feedback is helpful in determining what aspects of your organizational brand and culture attracted candidates.  Candidates view other recent candidate feedback about your organization as credible, believable, and trustworthy.  Engaging recent hire feedback in your organization sourcing communication is a great way to cut through much of the sourcing noise that candidates receive.  It is also useful to request feedback on the candidate experience from recent hires.  This can help you define what messages were attractive to prospects and why.  Understanding current candidate needs is important because it is such a challenging and competitive labor market across all industries.   According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “To respond to the challenging labor more, HR professionals are reimagining talent acquisition strategies and deploying a variety of new tactics and technologies.”  Getting feedback on your employer brand and your offerings relative to other opportunities is one of these new tactics.

Rejected candidate feedback is also very helpful in development and refinement of your sourcing strategy.  Although a candidate was not successful for a specific job, getting feedback about their interests, career plans and the type of environment they type of employment where they want to work is possible to obtain by maintaining relationships with rejected candidates.  

At Hire Outcomes HR, we provide feedback to rejected candidates and collect their feedback about the candidate experience. Although it is not required, we provide honest feedback to unsuccessful candidates and let them know of any relevant opportunities we have in the future.  We have found that this is one way to start to create a candidate pipeline.  Past candidates who have a positive candidate experience are more likely to refer others to job openings at your organization and to apply for future roles.  Social media is a great way to continue a relationship with past candidates.  Congratulating them on new roles or providing feedback about their posts are ways to stay in communication with them.  If you are publishing a blog and you know your past candidates interests, you can also forward them information on relevant topics and events. For more information, please go to Hire Outcomes HR – Hiring Solutions for Success.

Source: Employers Are Responding to Job Candidates’ Changing Expectations (shrm.org)