- August 28, 2009
- 19 Comments
Job Seekers Want to Know: “Why Don’t You Call Us Back?”…Pt.2
Thanks to everyone who offered feedback after my earlier post asking recruiters why they don’t get back to job seekers. Just as I anticipated, the overwhelming reason people gave for not responding to job seekers was time constraints:
- One respondent reported receiving up to 500 applicants for one filled position, while another said they had 50 – 100 applicants they were trying to reach each day, adding, “If they [recruiters] called very candidate back that called them they would be fielding candidate call backs all day.” Okay, fair enough.
- Other than lack of time, someone else offered the possibility that recruiters were trying to test job seekers’ follow-up skills, while another respondent turned the tables on job seekers, saying that they often fail to show up for interviews on time, if at all – or are just too lazy to check the status of their applications on-line.
- One last possibility a recruiter offered? “Recruiters are lazy.” Well…alright then.
Is that why so many job seekers responded with similar experiences where employers didn’t call back even after they’d interviewed – and been told they’d hear back either way? Because if that’s true – which I know it’s not for several of you, who even expressed a lot of sympathy for these job seekers – then it’s actually not alright.
In fact, to paraphrase Julia Roberts’ hooker with a heart of gold, it’s actually a big mistake. Big. Huge. And here’s why:
Not getting back to candidates is more than bad manners; it’s bad business – on multiple levels. From an employment branding standpoint, not only does this behavior inhibit spurned candidates from ever applying to your postings again, but it does the same for anyone these candidate talk to (and they will) about their awful experience with your company.
In addition to talent, you’re also losing potential customers, because this lack of professional courtesy is a reflection on the whole company. Case in point: commenter “df,” who said, “Although I have landed my dream job, there are company’s [sic] that did not respond that I will never do business with them whatsoever. In fact I share that information with all network groups I am involved in along the way.”
While job seekers might be able to forgive not receiving a response to an application, they won’t be so forgiving of such behavior after they’ve interviewed (i.e. have been granted hope). Even if you can’t hire them, the vast majority of candidates will always appreciate any effort to keep them informed, and should you ever have an opening for them in the future, you’ll be glad you didn’t burn that bridge.
A possible solution…
One final thing I want to mention that someone brought up, and which could also help with the whole ‘too many applicants to respond to’ debacle…One commenter asked, “How hard is it to have a blanket rejection response that lets you off the hook?” It’s actually not hard at all, you’d find if you read my colleague Amy Chulik’s post about ”My Letters”, one of CareerBuilder’s Free Tools You Can Use, which enables hiring managers and recruiters respond to applicants effortlessly to let them know the status of their application.
If you’re a Resume Database customer and haven’t tried this application, yet, I suggest you at least give it a try – after all, it’s free for you and could save you a lot of time in the long run. On the other hand, if you have used this application, feel free to give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
- Have a response? Join the discussion.
- Categories: Employee Attraction
Loading ...
[...] Job Seekers Want to Know: “Why Don’t You Call Us Back?” [...]
Recently, we were interviewing for an open positoin. We spoke with approxmiately 10 people for the position. We did have an accepted offer for the job, but she could not start for a few weeks–longer than usual for a start date.
It is not undheard of that even after a job is accepted the candidate does not start. We did not contact the others interviewed in light of this possibility so that we could just go to Plan B without the ‘you were our 2nd choice, but the 1st choice didn’;t work out. Wanna work with us now?” conversation.
About a week after the candidate accepted, but 3 weeks before they started, one ofthe candidates remaining on hold sent a scathing email basically saying ‘thanks for nothing and your other person who interviewed was a b!tch’. He was our 2nd choice. If the first person didn’t start, he would have recieved the offer.
I politely responded ot him that while someone did accept, it is not unheard of that they ultimately do not start and rather than re-start the process or say “Hey #2…come on board.” No response from him.
A delay is not a denial.
I agree that in a perfect world recruiters would respond to everyone who submits a resume for a job posting. The problem is that so many candidates send their resumes for jobs they are clearly not qualified for. Again, in a perfect world we would call the candidate and explain why they are not right for the job. This typically leads to a candidate explaining for twenty minutes why they are RIGHT for the job. A waste of time for both parties.
My suggestion to job seekers; don’t submit your resume for jobs unless you have 70% of the qualifications listed in the posting . You are better off spending time looking for new positions where you have a genuine chance of winning the job. Hope this helps.
Nick
I would like to confess that as an HR professional, I have conducted telephone interviews with candidates and not gotten back to them after the interview. Never has this been intentional or purposely hurtful, but I understand how this can lead to disgruntled feelings. So on behalf of time-crunched HR professionals around the country, I would like to apologize for this seeminly rude gesture and promise to give my due diligence to letting people know thanks for their time.
As a HR Director, I think it is totally unacceptable to not notify a candidate (someone you interviewed as opposed to applicants (I don’t think it’s reasonable to get back to each applicant)) as to where they are in the process – if the candidate has been selected to move to the next round or if s/he has been not been selected to move on. It’s just common courtesy to get back to those you have interviewed. Try to remember the “golden rule” what if you were out there interviewing you would want to know – yes, no, on-hold, maybe…
I am a self employed Engineering Recruiter (Thomas Mahon Associates) and have been in the business since 1983. Being flooded with responses to a job opening is one problem for “company” recruiters, the recruiter’s lack of compassion and understanding of EXACTLY what the open position is all about is a MAJOR problem for applicants. I could go on and on but the bottom line is that if an applicant doesn’t differentiate his or herself from all the rest, sending a resume to a Human Resources Department is often like sending it into a deep, dark hole.
We receive about 50 applications per week for 1 or 2 openings.
We notify the applicants that are not selected by a post card. This has worked very….well for us.
What a timely article! I’ve been talking with a prospective employer for a week trying to set up a time to see her. She has expressed a high level of interest in me – to my knowledge I’m the only candidate she’s considering – but has been impossible to pin down to a time. This week she hasn’t bothered to respond to my efforts to communicate with her. Was just thinking this morning of the rudeness in that, no matter how busy she may be. My dilemma: is this a red flag, and should I run the other way when she finally does call? Or should I give her the benefit of the doubt & continue to pursue this seemingly perfect job for me???
I typically will respond as resumes to posted positions come in, saying something to the effect that we got it and the hiring manager will call within two weeks if there are any questions. Anyone we speak to on the phone or interview in person I will cut loose as soon as I have an idea we are narrowing on a candidate, as far as we made an offer and they accepted it. I don’t hold open hope we might consider if it doesn’t work out, or say I will hold the resume– I only invite them to keep an eye out for future postings. I try not to leave any doors open for the respondent to say we did something wrong. I am also careful in my language in that, unless they fill out application, they are a respondent to the posting, not an applicant. (I don’t rub it in their face but I will quietly just refer them as a respondent until and when I get an application, which we won’t give them till we want to interview them.) This is b/c the resume does not contain the proper information about being eligible to work in the US, or signature that all info is true and we can fire them if we find out it’s not. I’ve heard advice that a resume can be considered an application but I stick to my guns and stay consistent, which is ultimately most important. So, at this place of employment, you are not an applicant till you fill out an application. I also strongly am against taking unsolicited applications. (We are a health care facility and people are continually streaming in trying to drop off resumes and get a hold of applications.) I just don’t leave them at the front desk anymore. Especially, if you are like us, with a Generalist who is the end-all, be-all to more than 100 employees. I only have so much time and I refuse to commit myself to any sort of application or resume tracking system, in essence a “going back in time” system that I can’t maintain over the long run. What I find is that people 1) appreciate that I communicate with them at all 2) appreciate that I let them know when they are no longer under consideration 3) am pretty straightforward 4) say it’s okay to call in the posting and do answer my phone 5) write back to them right away. So, I feel like I’m doing a good job by the respondents, and protecting my company. People should also realize that I get very irritated when job seekers suddenly fall off the map– communication is a two way street. I think they forget a conscious person who can remember details is actually looking. I do remember the strangest things, and you might have sent a resume two years ago, but I will remember, or at the least, am organized enough to be able to find your previous emails. What I love are the people who respond to a posting, get all in my face, disappear without a word, then have the nerve to just send another resume a year later to a similar posting without acknowledgment of their having responded before and then falling off the earth, as if I won’t even notice…Manners are manners, though. The other thing I love is when I post a blind ad and I get flamed from one address but they are such an egomaniac, they send the official cover and resume from their other address but I can tell it’s them, they are too egomaniacal to be really disguise themselves. That, or tone and writing style is what it is, and it is hard to disguise that. Thankfully, the flamers tend to not be qualified so I don’t have to pretend to not know it’s them flaming me about blind ads. Or the person who says, there’s so much more in my resume than I’ve written here… Dude! Follow the program, have some respect for your competitors who are putting together covers and focused resumes…you know, people who want to cut in line and have you take their word for something. I always remember them, b/c I’ll write back to say we are focused on people who properly responded, here’s the posting, with instructions, again if you wish to be considered, and I never hear from them again– it’s blessed silence until a year later when I post the job again and they respond with the same resume as the previous year and the same lame line about how there’s so much more than is written in the resume….I think some job seekers could do a better job being job seekers, frankly! Especially b/c I often get the same deadbeats responding within ten minutes of any new posting! Hello? The universe is telling you something by you still not having a job and obviously just sitting, riding Craig’s List a year later. And finally, when you get me on the phone, have a piece of paper and pen ready, and don’t even try to put me on hold to take the 5th call that day from your significant other– I am now alert to the impending nightmare, thank you. People can blow it on the smallest things, and it’s just the way it is. I think job seekers would be well served reading these articles at Career Builder- they are very good, and pretty accurate to real life. It’s too bad the ones who really need the illumination don’t bother and won’t ever see my point of view in writing. Just some fun, off the cuffs remarks from an HR Generalist (not a recruiter, not a staffing specialist, but the person who enrolls you to your health insurance– very different skills sets!)
Honestly, a few things very important to be considered by the job seekers are:
1. Is the HR department properly staffed to assign to a particular employee the task of replying to all applicants? A: NO, most HR Departments are small in nature becuase of the due diligence in the amount of confidential matters they handle.
2. Did I apply for a job that I absolutely meet the qualifications for? A: Absolutley about 85% of the resumes we receive for one job alone aren’t qualified; applying for a job you qualify will increase your chances in 1. being invited to further discuss your qualifications 2. getting the reply you want and deserve. We absolutley reply to everyone who we invite to interview and we also reply even to those who do not meet the requirements.
Finally the sad thing is that job seekers often times lack the ability to auto-analize themselves and determine whether they meet the criteria for the job or not. When you, job seekers beging doing this and send resumes or apply for jobs for which you absolutely qualify you will notice how you will begin hearing back from employers.
While most HR Departments are small in nature I will clarify that they also have wonderful people who can handle mutliple tasks at the same time and after all, replying to multiple candidates at the same time while sending all the same “thank you but you have not been selected to proceed in the recruitment process” is nothng but a few clicks away in this new technological era. Best of luck to all job seekers and to employers who don’t reply you might want to consider revising your recruitment process, technology is a wonderful thing.
Thanks,
Maria
I think it’s hilarious that so many HR people want to blame job applicants for not replying, as if that was an excuse. The President sends a follow-up to every person who writes him a letter or sends an email, and he gets a hell of a lot of more mail than recruiters do job applications (the White House also files the addresses of everyone who sent snail mail during the year and sends them a Holiday card). They are always form responses, but employers can do that too.
It’s really easy to set up templates in Outlook or Word that’s a form rejection letter, and it takes less time to use one as a reply for an email than it does to actually review the application. If you’ve got time to read applications, you’ve got time to send form replies, and if you don’t have time to read applications you shouldn’t be advertising jobs (unless maybe it’s for an HR assistant to read applications).
I suspect the embarrassing truth HR departments don’t want people to know is that they really are clueless when it comes to efficient use of technology (and from conversations I’ve heard in cafes, and on public transportation, it sounds like a lot of them are clueless about recruiting, too).
We have an automated electronic mail notification that alerts the applicant that we have received their application.
I only make follow up calls to those I have interviewed via the telephone or face to face.
Applicants need to be realistic enough to realize that their may be hundreds of applicants applying for the same position and not everyone is going to get a call back. Ex. For a recent new store; we had 130 jobs and over 6000 applicants. There is physically no way to correspond with each and everyone of them due to time and financial constratints. Rule of Thumb…if you haven’t heard from the employer in 2 weeks; move on.
Re: Evan’s remarks
I’m pretty sure that most HR professionals I know can figure out how to not only create a form letter, but they can also send them out. I know I do as soon as I can and sometimes it is delayed because managers take so long to get back to me. I think an automated email response letting candidates know that IF they are qualified they WILL be called back. The problem is too many candidates and people in general think they can do everything just because they are WILLING TO DO IT. That is not how the world works, unfortunately.
I have noticed that my problem with applicants is that they’re not calling ME back. I am completely baffled as to the cause of this. I have noticed lower quality candidates. I have noticed more candidates applying to positions they are clearly not qualified for. Candidates are lying when they say they have a certain skill and it is not anywhere on their resume. It doesn’t make sense to me. I have had more trouble finding quality candidates than I did before the recession.
It does make the company look totally pathetic and sad that they couldn’t get back to me with the status of the job I interviewed for. I left several messages. There was only 3 of us!! not 500 in the final interview. I will warn any of my past co workers that are also out of work to stay away from this company, they are very unprofessional.
I agree with George to a certain extent that applicants should be realistic. However, recruiters should be accountable in a sense that applicants used their time to apply/interview for a position and the proper thing to do is to notify that person.
What I found insulting is I applied for a housekeeping job. With my experience and education, I still received an email from that company telling me that I was not qualified…I thought to myself…how much qualification is needed to mop/sweep a floor? (no pun intended to housekeepers) Then, it came to me that maybe they meant over-qualified. Now, had I made a similar error on an application, they would have thrown it in the trash.
Bravo for writing this article. If companies realized the harm they do applicants when they don’t bother (for whatever reason) to follow-up following one or more interviews, they would discontinue the practice. I have very strong feelings about several businesses that have interviewed me and never been back in touch (after saying they would) that I take every opportunity to make their lack of consideration known whenever their business comes up in conversation.
One of my most unpleasant experiences was with Belcan, which is an employment agency, per se. The recruiter convinced me to purchase an airline ticket for an interview and left me with a $277 ticket when he found another qualified candidate. Never heard another word. Lesson learned – there is no concern or loyalty whatsoever to the candidates and use care when determining who to trust.
Well from my experience I’m over qualified for every job i’m fill out an applaction for all the way down to fast food now is that possible I want to know.
[...] That – or at least some variation of it – was one of the most common responses to my previous posts about why recruiters and hiring managers don’t call job seekers back. [...]