Giving Candidate Feedback to Your Agencies

They can help you source needle-in-the-haystack and company-critical candidates faster than you could find them yourself. They can also help you screen candidates, manage candidate expectations and find out what it will take to close your top choice candidate. But all that comes at a cost – and we’re not just talking about agency fees.

Direct hire agency recruiters also need some of your time. The number one complaint agencies have with employers is a lack of communication – specifically, candidate feedback. They want to know if they’ve missed the mark, where their candidates stand, and what to expect for next steps.

Your candidate feedback helps them source the best candidates and provide each of them with a great candidate experience.

Fine-tune Candidate Sourcing

It’s a given that agency recruiters need a thorough job description to begin sourcing candidates, but many employer-recruiter relationships fall short when it comes to fine-tuning the search. Agencies need feedback on candidate submissions to learn what you like, and don’t like, about each batch of candidates.

This helps them find stronger candidates for future submissions – whether you need them for the current position or one in the future.

The same goes for candidates you’ve interviewed: providing feedback on candidates after each interview helps the recruiter get a better understanding of what you’re looking for in a hire. The more they can learn about your company and the kinds of candidates you like to hire, the better candidates they can produce.

Whenever possible, provide feedback to your agencies within 24 hours – but no longer than 72 hours – so your recruiters can make necessary adjustments and update their candidates.

Provide a Great Candidate Experience

Set expectations with your direct hire agencies so that they, in turn, follow up with their candidates in a timely manner. Your agency is an extension of your organization, and you want to be careful that they don’t damage your employer brand with a negative candidate experience.

This includes passing feedback along to candidates. 94% of professionals want to receive interview feedback, and 47% thought receiving interview feedback was important to having a positive experience (LinkedIn Talent Trends 2015). Despite this, only 41% of candidates have received feedback before.

Depending on where the candidate is in the recruitment process, who provides the feedback, and in what detail, may vary. Discuss this with your agencies during your agency kickoff meeting to ensure that you’re on the same page. As a general rule, whoever has the best relationship with the candidate should provide the feedback, and be as detailed as possible. For instance, a recruiter would follow up with a candidate who didn’t pass the resume screen to let them know what was missing from their resume to get an interview.

A candidate who made it through the entire interview process, however, may hear from either the recruiter or hiring manager with more detailed feedback about both their strengths and weaknesses as a candidate, with specific examples cited from both the resume and interviews.

Providing feedback to candidates helps them know where they stand, can help them improve their chances of getting the next job, and can leave a lasting, positive impression of your organization. When talent is 4x more likely to consider a company for a future opportunity when constructive feedback is offered, it can also help you maintain a full pipeline for future recruiting efforts.

Your agencies should be happy to help with this, since it provides a better level of service to you, while also helping them build their reputation in the industry.