How To Disqualify Candidates Without Creating A Bad Candidate Experience?
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One of the most important ways to attract the best candidates to your company is candidate experience. But what about providing the best candidate experience when it comes to rejecting candidates?
The number one cause of frustration among candidates is a lack of response from employers. Candidates put a lot of time and effort into their job applications and keeping them in the dark for a long period of time (or indefinitely) doesn’t reflect well on their overall opinion about you and your company.
Let’s say your candidates spend hours of their time researching your company, taking notes, and preparing for a meeting only for you not ever getting back to them. Can you blame them for feeling frustrated?
Think about it this way: out of all the candidates who apply for your open job position, only one of them gets the job. In other words, you’re rejecting a vast majority of the applied candidates. All those rejected candidates fall into one of two categories:
- either they’re going to share their positive candidate experience, or
- they’re going to tell everyone they had a negative experience with your company and your recruitment process
The candidate experience you provide plays a major role in the success of attracting the best candidates for your company. We all know words travel fast. People nowadays tend to share pretty much everything online and sharing their experiences with employers is no exception. Public reviews of bad candidate experiences could damage your reputation and ruin your efforts of employer branding. People who read those online reviews won’t consider working for your company and in many cases won’t consider buying or using your product. Never underestimate the power of bad online reviews. Not only will a bad candidate experience cost you your reputation, it can also cost you big bucks. Keep in mind that your rejected candidates are also your potential customers.
Does painless candidate disqualification even exist?
Even though positive candidate experience became a key recruitment factor used by companies, there’s still plenty of room for improvement in terms of figuring out how to achieve it.
Candidate rejection is an unavoidable part of every hiring process but being the bearer of bad news is never an easy task. It goes without saying that you can't hire every candidate who applies to your job opening but what you can do is show them you respect their invested time and effort.
First and foremost, don’t keep the candidates waiting for your response. Just imagine investing your time in preparation for a job application, only to never hear back from a company. It’s frustrating and it comes as no surprise that so many job seekers are feeling distressed and demotivated.
Second, acknowledge your candidates by explaining to them the reasons why they weren’t a good fit for a certain job position. Keep in mind that most of the rejected candidates will be grateful that you showed them respect and explained to them why they didn’t get the job.
Ways of disqualifying your candidates through different hiring stages
There are different ways of communicating with your candidates based on where they are in the candidate journey.
Before we dig deeper into different ways of disqualifying your candidates, keep in mind that every candidate should get a confirmation email of their application. You can easily automate this email and it doesn’t take a lot of your time but shows the candidates that you are thankful they took the time to apply for your job opening.
Rejecting candidates at various stages requires different approaches. Here is how you can painlessly reject candidates in any stage of the hiring process:
- Application
- Phone screen
- Interview
Application
The reason for rejecting candidates immediately after their application is a lack of must-have requirements or skills. Some examples of missing those requirements are:
- Not being eligible to work in the state or country
- Not being fluent in the required language
- Obvious lack of necessary skills required for that particular role
The most common reason for automatically disqualifying candidates is candidates not being eligible to work in the state or country. An astounding 86% of employers won’t even consider candidates who don’t have a visa or are not authorized to work in the country.
If a candidate is missing any of the must-have requirements listed in your job ad, you can only thank them for their time and send them an automatic disqualification email.
When sending out those emails, try not to send them that same day as many of the candidates expressed their concerns of not being sure whether an actual human being reviewed their applications.
On the other hand, if you want to avoid receiving countless unqualified applications, you can always mention an easy but precise explanation in your job ad that only qualified candidates will be contacted.
Phone screen
When disqualifying candidates at this stage, you can do so by email or phone. Consider first sending them a rejection email in which you can say you are available to speak with them over the phone if they have any questions. If they say they would prefer to speak with you over the phone, make sure to be prepared to answer any of the questions they might have. When you’re rejecting candidates at this stage, be sure to provide them with your feedback. Disqualifying candidates from the selection process with the appropriate disqualification reason makes for a little less painful rejection experience.
Interview
When disqualifying candidates after an interview, you need to take extra care. Your candidates already spent a significant amount of time preparing for every step of your hiring process and it would be extremely disrespectful not to give them the attention they deserve.
Send them a post-interview candidate rejection email containing a sincere thank you note and an explanation of why they didn’t meet the criteria.
Also, keep in mind that these currently rejected candidates might be a good fit for some other current or future job opening so nurture them accordingly.
If you were interviewing internal candidates and it turns out they didn’t possess the required set of skills for some reason, they should always be informed in person.
Personalize those rejection emails
Research shows that a staggering 90% of recruiting emails are not personalized at all! Given that today's technology significantly reduces the time and cost of repetitive tasks in the hiring process, there's really no excuse for leaving your candidates hanging or, even worse, completely in the dark.
If you have the opportunity to create automated and standardized rejection emails without losing the personal touch, why not use it? You can use some of the existing templates to save time, or you can create your own email templates for any occasion.
By using email templates for each step in the hiring process, you don't have to write every email from scratch. You can also send bulk emails and save a lot of time. At the same time, you can tailor these emails to different applicants. If you e.g. For example, if you want to stay in touch with a specific candidate who you think might be a better fit for a future job, you can create a separate email template letting them know that you would like to contact them if: that a particular position becomes available, you would like to keep it in your database.
All of these actions don't have to be overly time-consuming if you use appropriate recruiting software to automate your hiring process and reduce the number of repetitive tasks.
Communication is the key to success
According to a report from Talentengy, 63% of candidates say most employers don't communicate well. Not to mention a CareerBuilder survey that found that 75% of workers who applied for a job did not receive a response from their employer. Poor communication, or in some cases no communication at all, leaves candidates upset. Angry and frustrated candidates will most likely abandon their brand loyalty. Put yourself in their shoes: Would you buy products or services from a company that doesn't make the slightest effort to let you know that you didn't make the shortlist?
Avoid ghosting your applicants. Let applicants know where they stand, even if it's a prompt email rejection. If you show your candidates that they can rely on your feedback and that your process is timely, fair and respectful, those candidates will likely want to stay in your database in the future and they will likely recommend others to work for you.
Improve your candidate experience by providing your candidates with consistent communication and constructive feedback.
Is it possible to establish a positive rejection process?
Numerous research and surveys over the years have shown that most applicants are used to not receiving a response from companies, which leads to general dissatisfaction among job seekers. It's an alarming fact that candidates don't expect to receive the actionable feedback they want and deserve.
Candidates clearly crave consistent and transparent communication, and why not position yourself as the employer who makes this possible? Even if you have to deliver bad news, you should do so in a timely and professional manner.
The most important thing is that you remain consistent throughout the hiring process and keep in touch with your candidates out of respect and courtesy.
You need to provide your applicants with an exceptional experience if you want to build and maintain the image of a desirable employer. Explore IceHrm for streamlined HR solutions.
