Articles From the Team

The Best Way to Give Feedback

Bill Gates once said ‘We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve’ As a recruiter an important part of our role is providing feedback to a candidate both in a positive and negative light. Now this sounds like a really basic task but in some cases it can be quite a tricky thing to get right.

It is easy to assume that pointing out a mistake made during an interview constitutes as feedback, however it needs to be delivered in the right way as it can be quite a negative conversation which may then affect a candidates’ confidence moving forward.

The way we deliver the feedback needs to be in the most positive way possible, we do this in order to ensure we do not hinder future confidence but also to help them rectify this behaviour moving forward which would hopefully see them become a better interviewee.

Some recruiters have the view it is better to be brutally honest when delivering said feedback, however I believe it is dependant on the relationship you have as a recruiter/candidate this can be tricky and possibly risk the relationship moving forward.

As a candidate it can be hard to hear something really negative, imagine you are walking out of the office after a bad day and then you receive a call telling you the role you really wanted has gone and you were unsuccessful. How would that make you feel?

It is with this scenario in mind that I feel it may be better to deliver particularly bad feedback face to face out of the office environment, this would allow you to spend time prepping for the next interview so they don’t leave the process totally deflated instead they leave with a solution to work with moving forward.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that, as much as it’s important to highlight what went wrong it’s equally important to deliver solutions. This may be the deciding factor in the relationship and if this candidate not only takes heed of the advice for the future but also if they actually use you again.