Michael Mercer, Ph.D writes about his personal rejection experience and how full disclosure might not be the best policy. Obviously, this is the biggest part of the debate. Even constructive feedback can be viewed very negatively in the fragile mindset of someone who has spent much time searching for work. I’ve been there. You never know how many times the candidate has been told they’re not right for a job. Of course, this is not necessarily the concern of the company, they just want the right people for their jobs.

I really started thinking about this after a recent trip to Houston for  the Rice Alliance IT and Web Forum 9 conference. My wife just happened to be in Houston the whole week for work as well so our two sons were in tow. We decided to take them to see Santa at the mall near our hotel. Unfortunately, we arrived just when Santa left to take an hour break to feed his reindeer.

A half hour into Santa’s well timed break, I became a little stir crazy so I decided to go do a little window shopping. I walked passed a kiosk when a young lady literally jumped in front of me waving a white rectangle of what turned out to be a facial soap sample. I never, ever stop to listen to these sales pitches, but honestly I thought it was a cheese sample and I was hungry. The Pepperidge Farm kiosk was right next door so you can understand my confusion.

She went on to talk about the virtues of their soap for me and after taking a quick glance at my ring, asked if I’d bought Christmas gifts for my wife yet. I stopped her after a few minutes of her well rehearsed pitch and told here I needed to get back to my family. As I was walking away she said, “don’t you care about your skin?” I could have ignored the comment and just kept walking. In hindsight I probably should have.

However, being the curious person I am, I turned around and asked what was wrong with my skin? She went on to explain that as an ageing man (at 41, ouch!) the blemishes on my face, if left uncared for, would only get worse. She continued by asking if I’d thought about doing something about my rosacea. This is where I regretted asking the question. She was only being honest and selling the products as she’d been taught, but those comments hit home. Because they were true. I politely excused myself to rejoin my family which was still waiting for Santa’s return, taking the samples with me of course.

I know this is not a story about the best way to let a candidate know they didn’t get the job, but I learned an important lesson about not asking the question if you can’t handle the answer. It’s also an example of how, as a recruiter (the kiosk salesperson in this case) being blatantly honest when asked “why” is a risk.

I’m a big fan of letting unsuccessful candidates know they didn’t get the job, but the extent of the reason given is open to debate. What do you do as a company? Is complete transparency ever the best solution? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

“How do you think we can address the issues surrounding the poor candidate experience?”

Not an easy one to answer in the time we had available.  But one thing I could and did say with clarity is that the solution is not technology, as some would have you believe if you listen to a lot of the noise around the subject on the interweb.  Now, thats not to say technology can make a difference, it can.  I’m encouraged by the move towards community based solutions such as Tribepad and BraveNewTalent (Just don’t mention “talent communities”) Sophisticated technology can do a great job of managing interactions as can be seen with the way “experiences” are managed outside of recruitment.  However, when you consider the current state of tech deployed in the recruitment supply chain its largely lacking.

Technology solutions in the agency/consultancy side have always lagged behind other industries, primarily because:

• Recruitment agencies have historically been and still are reluctant to invest in technology in their businesses.

• They often lack the internal discuplines to make the technology work properly therefore reducing the demand for more sophistication.  Consultants “not using the database” is a common theme.

• The obsession with “owning” the database has held back innovation.  Despite the fact that candidate information is now largely in the public domain, recruiters still treat the database

Enterprise solutions have provided a more sophisticated level of  technology for organisations but despite that, the overall experience hasn’t really improved there either.  Perhaps the title – Applicant tracking System – gives the game away.  They certainly haven’t earned the nickname “blackhole” for nothing.

And of course, a lot of this centres around the experience of managing applicants at the initial stages, which whilst being possibly the cause of a large proportion of the complaint volume, we should not forget that its only the beginning of the process.  A poor experience can occur at any stage and in the end, its about how you manage it that counts.  Jessica Lee sums it up nicely  in her latest blog - Candidate Experience Broken Down Real Simply… - where she points out that the candidate experience covers a multitude of things.  Another good real life example is this post from Ben Philips about his experience as a candidate having been approached for a role.  It’s a few months old now but as someone who spent a long time in recruitment, not an uncommon one.

Long and short – technology can only go so far, no matter how sophisticated and slick you make it.  So back to the question from Joyce – what is the answer if it isn’t technology?  Well, for me, as I’ve said before, we need to go back to basics and revisit the way we go about engaging in the recruitment process.  Unfortunately in the past 12 years we have built an industry based on managing response – posting jobs for people to apply – and in the process we have moved away from active sourcing.  This creates a process preloaded with disappointment.   The only way to address  this, from where im sitting, is to fundementally shift the way we engage towards proactive sourcing.

But that’s just me blowing off.  ;) Whatsayyou?!

I’m very interested in this subject for a number of reasons and in pursuit of this interest, I set out to find out what was being said by thought leaders with a knowledge greater than I, and also to seek out and find examples of organisations that are addressing this issue head on.  Maybe even find some interesting and creative developments in the market that are aiming to dramatically increase the quality of experience for the poor downtrodden candidate.

But, despite my best efforts, the results of my search can only be summed up thus:

*cue tumbleweed…………..*

This seems odd.  As someone who is immersed in social networks, I do hear a lot of feedback, but it struck me that this is mainly candidate’s themselves bemoaning their lot at the hands of recruiters – mainly supply side it has to be said, but there are some truly awful employer side examples.  Linked in is also humming right now with such tales, but again, its mainly driven by the candidates themselves.  A search on LinkedIn groups for “candidate experience” for example brings up precious few appropriate options.

What I was looking for was more akin to what you might find if you Googled ‘social recruiting’ or something similar – really high quality dialogue between the people responsible for the candidate/employer brand and or those that are proffering solutions.  Instead, what you get when you google “candidate experience” pales in comparison.  Go on, try it.  The results when I tried in June were underwhelming.

There were some positive signs.  Gerry Crispin and the guys at CareerXroads seem to be starting a bit of a movement – check out their report.  They are also collaborating with a number of others to form the Talent Board, a non profit organisation that is all about championing the development f the (Positive) candidate experience.  They have recently announced the Candidate Experience Awards to raise the profile of the issue.

NOTE: Twitter is slightly different although it is only recently that the subject has gained traction here too.  I did a search on the term “Candidate Experience” in April and found only a handful of responses.  Since then, and having encouraged one of my clients to engage on the subject through hashtags etc, the volume has increased significantly.   A search today shows a somewhat more active stream of activity and blog posts.

But all this great stuff is very embryonic, and seems only to be making traction in the US.  What about Europe?  BP have popped a stake in the ground and appointed a Head of Global Candidate Experience as part of a wider initiative to refocus the resourcing effort.  But similar examples are few and far between.  Is it so early days that not enough people are taking it seriously and no real solutions to the issues are yet being developed?  Or is it just that we don’t really give a damn?  Perhaps we have yet to wake up to the fact that candidates are customers are employees.  They are all the same.  In previous years, organisations could keep them nice and separate thank you – “oh no we don’t want those guys talking to each other!”.

Thankfully, those lines are now being blurred and an organisation can no longer control (Despite the fact that they think they can) who talks to who about what.

So, come on folks, if you have any insight, opinion or examples of who is doing what, id love to hear about it.  Leave a comment here or contact me on twitter at @garelaos.

Also, you might be interested in a group started by some good friends of mine on LinkedIn – Candidate Experience Matters – aimed at those in organisations whose role and responsibility actively encompasses candidate experience.  It’s only new but pile on in if this subject is of interest to you and lets get the conversation started.