Post Interview Survey - A Not So Subtle Way Organizations are Rejecting You
In the current state of hiring. Organizations are inundated with either hiring or dealing with employees leaving. When it comes to interviewing, a new form of rejection has appeared.
It's a tale as old as time. Candidate A applies to work for Company B. Company B internally accepts or rejects within their internal systems. They determine whether a phone screen or interview should occur next or decline the candidate and move on. Some companies have a policy or automated message for that rejection.
What happens when you get to that phone screen or that interview? That's a whole new story that has been growing as a topic of discussion lately. The subject, of course, is ghosting: no feedback, no rejection, zero communication. Candidates are supposed to take the no news as bad news. Employers are supposed to take the no news as bad news on the other end.
As a candidate, it's not something we can easily change. So, what can we change? We certainly can provide processes are put in place at organizational levels to ensure candidates are provided a rejection at the bare minimum. Potential candidates' efforts and actions to know where they stand will show dividends as candidates shuffle around different organizations. Gone are the days candidates will stay quiet. Send a rejection, excellent. Provide feedback, and candidates will tell their network about it. Ghost a candidate, and you'll be on the business end of a negative interview experience post. Sites like Glassdoor show interview reviews for potential employers. Perform a quick search for "ghosted," and you may find some alarming numbers of candidates ghosted after a screen or interview.
Some candidates might not even know they're ghosted now until this next topic at hand. They are brought to us by the proponents of the net promoter score. Post-interview surveys on how well a candidate would recommend this company to other candidates, the interview process itself, and any suggestions for change.
Net promoter scores or NPS is the latest tech for tracking how well the organization is doing in just about every avenue of their business. NPS is now embedded into the hiring process as organizations struggle to find talent. There are advantages for organizations utilizing NPS for hiring. For instance, the candidate now has a voice in an organization's hiring process. Candidates can use this survey to give feedback on the process and tell an organization whether they recommend interviewing. The unfortunate aspect now is that candidates receive this survey despite an actual rejection. Once a decision occurs, employers will navigate their hiring system and move the candidate through the workflow. The workflow typically integrates with their messaging system to send out the survey once that decision occurs. Thus leaving candidates feeling like, once again, they're another cog in the system.