Online recruitment best practice: responding to candidates What happens when a candidate applies for your job can be crucial in whether your online recruitment campaign in successful or not. What's more, it can also have a major impact on the reputation of your company.

The online recruitment experience

You have written your ad, posted it on your chosen job board, you've set up your screening questions and, at last, the candidate applications are beginning to come in. Your inbox is filling up with applicants and CVs and, sometime later today, you'll get around to going through them.

But something happens later in the day and you decide you'll look at all those applicants tomorrow. Something else happens tomorrow so you say that you'll definitely get around to dealing with them the following day. And the following day. And the following day. And all the while, the candidate is wondering what on earth happened to that application for that really good job with that highly-regarded company.

Spare a thought for the candidate

Sadly, you are not the only employer who doesn't get round to responding. Research conducted by the job board Totaljobs (reported on the Bornpodcast) suggests that up to 73% of all job seekers' applications do not receive a response. This is a shocking statistic. If candidates were customers, and 73% of them got no answer to an enquiry, someone would get fired. Candidates really do receive poor treatment from online recruiters.

A golden opportunity for employers

Such poor service to candidates is often the result of bad internal practices by recruitment agencies and large employers. There are a thousand reasons why there might be bad practices. But the important point is that you shouldn't let it happen. Besides, such poor candidate touch offers a real opportunity to careful employers. It's easy to shine when all those around you are covered in mud. All that is required to make yourself shine as a potential recruiter is a prompt initial response to the applicant. For example,

Dear Applicant 

Many thanks for your application for the job of (job name.) We are in the process of reviewing your application. We will contact you (when) to let you know if we wish to proceed to the interview stage.

Best regards,

Your name

 

That really is it! If you send that initial email response, you will be distinguishing yourself from all those other recruitment agencies and companies that do not respond. All the money in the world and all the brand strategy experts you can find will be unable to do more to enhance your recruitment brand than sending that simple email.

Keep them informed. 

When you do eventually get around to reviewing the candidates, tell them promptly whether they have been successful or not. It is not necessary to indicate in the rejection email why you are rejecting them, but it would be advisable to take note of your reasons in case there are any complaints in the future. If you wish to invite a candidate to interview, you can inform them of this too. But, in truth, it would be better to give them a call.

Article updated: March 2008

For more information on topics covered here, please visit the following links:

Bornpodcast, Online recruitment news podcast "Job Seeker Frustration."

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