Excerpt: Isn’t it decent to reject candidates thoughtfully? Don’t miss the chance to make good relationships with your rejected candidates. Here is the ultimate way how to do so!
Rejection is a component of any hiring procedure when done correctly, rejecting candidates influences how they will perceive and respond to challenges in the future.
This means that the candidate experience at your firm is greatly influenced by how you, as recruiters, communicate rejection to candidates.
Only 7% of applicants get a call from a recruiter or hiring manager to inform them that they were rejected.
By using filters to eliminate unqualified individuals, Applicant Tracking Systems assist in rejecting candidates.
If the rejection is handled politely, candidates may feel better about their chances. In addition, happy and engaged Candidates form a strong talent community and help build a great employer brand over time.
The Importance of Maintaining a Relationship
Maintaining relationships with rejected candidates is as important as maintaining relationships with your talent pool. If you leave the rejected candidates unhappy, then you will lose them in the future game too. When you reject candidates and leave them feeling disappointed and unhappy, you will experience the following:
- You’ll lose them forever: According to research, 69% of candidates who had a bad candidate experience decided not to apply again to a company. This provides your rivals a chance to recruit more candidates.
- They will boost your employer brand: 51% of candidates share their positive experiences on social media sites, which boosts your employer branding and employee engagement.
- Generates money: According to research, candidates who are satisfied with their experience as twice as likely to become a client of the organization.
How to Maintain Relationship with Rejected Candidates?
Maintaining relationships with anyone is important and challenging at the same time. When it comes to rejected candidates, it becomes more difficult as they already have a reason not to be in touch with the company. Here are significant steps that will help recruiters nourish relationships with rejected candidates:
1. Deliver the News with Consideration
Even though rejecting candidates is never simple, it is nevertheless possible to do so with consideration and respect.
First and foremost, be sure to relay the news promptly.
If a candidate didn’t advance to the next round of your hiring process, get in touch with them right away. The ideal procedure is to get in touch with applicants within 48 hours of the interview.
Always deliver the bad news of rejection through the phone. The candidate experience increases by 29% if you reject candidates over the phone instead of via email or text message.
Make sure to send each candidate customized and expertly designed job rejection email templates if you have many applicants and it is impossible for you to call each one.
Please do not send the rejection email at night or in the early morning, as it will lower your company image. You must figure out the best time to send an email to a rejected candidate.
2. Feedback is Always Appreciated
The majority of candidates will genuinely appreciate your opinion. Be direct. Don’t beat around to bush.
94% of candidates want to hear feedback following an interview.
When you provide rejected prospects with constructive criticism, they are 4 times more likely to think about working for your organization in the future.
To be on the safe side and courteous, though, make sure to ask your rejected prospects if they would want to hear your comments before you provide them.
They will most of the time, but don’t push them to if they don’t.
3. Asking for Feedback is Crucial
You should not only provide rejected candidates with your input but also solicit their opinions on your hiring procedure.
This will demonstrate your genuine interest in their feedback and your efforts to give candidates a positive candidate experience.
Unfortunately, most businesses don’t seek candidate feedback on their hiring process. 75% of applicants claim that they were never or sporadically solicited for comments.
Most businesses that want feedback mistakenly request that applicants rank their overall candidate experience on a numerical scale.
4. Connect on Social Networks
Be careful to maintain a social media connection with the rejected applicant. Even if you don’t end up hiring them, this is a straightforward way to make an excellent first impression and demonstrate that you care about staying in touch with your candidates.
Although many businesses urge applicants to follow them on social media, this strategy may not be the greatest in the candidate rejection process because it may come out as impersonal and robotic.
Candidates who have been turned down are unlikely to be excited to follow your business on social media because doing so would imply that your company’s postings will follow them and constantly remind them of their rejection.
Instead, make a personal connection with the candidate you didn’t hire.
5. Deliver your Recruitment Newsletter
Ideally, you already send your talent pool a recruiting newsletter regularly. If you do so, be very sure to include all of the applicants you turned down on your mailing list.
This is a simple, quick, and essentially hassle-free method of keeping in touch with your rejected prospects. After all, they might be the ideal candidate for one of your open positions in the future.
You can stay in touch with rejected applicants through email campaigns, keep them interested, and let them know about your future openings for which they are qualified.
Just be careful not to exclusively advertise your current job positions to candidates. Instead, provide a variety of engaging and practical topics.
Include staff testimonies and reports from your organization’s annual team building to further highlight your corporate culture. Utilize actual images and videos of your personnel and activities.
6. Invite them to Company Events
Inviting them to corporate events may stay in touch with the candidates you didn’t hire.
Does your business host internal educational activities like hackathons, workshops, and meetups? Invite a couple of silver medalists to these events. It won’t cost you much—just a few extra chairs and pizzas—but it will wonder for the reputation of your employer.
You may make the events hosted by your business the top talent’s preferred learning and networking venue with little work. You do not have to look for the top prospects; you can simply invite them to apply.
By inviting your silver candidates to your events, you may start creating a talent community.
In Final Words
It’s impossible to predict where your recruiting plans will lead you. Therefore, it is critical to give every candidate the best experience possible. Create a candidate experience solution that’s scalable, measurable, and memorable. You can do so by investing in the most Bullhorn alternative available in the market.
Even though the rejected candidates aren’t the appropriate fit for the current position, they might be ideal for one in the future. You can create a database of possible future employees by building on the relationship you have already established.
The next time you’re tempted to send the unsuccessful candidate a quick, generic email—or, worse yet, feel too busy to get in touch with them—remember that you’ll be destroying the trust already established.
You may benefit significantly if you design a positive, considerate, and personal rejection process for the candidate.
