Not Getting Feedback from Interviews? Here’s a Trick.

Sh?n Ellerton, January 12, 2020

Often, getting feedback from recruiters is like getting blood out of a stone. Make it easier by making your own feedback forms for them to complete.

Have you experienced going to a job interview only to then find, after several days, that you’ve heard nothing more about it? You then call the recruiter or agent to enquire what happened at the interview and then you’re told that you’re not the right fit? Or perhaps, the job’s been pulled off the market and they’re no longer recruiting. Or maybe you didn’t showcase your skills enough doing the interview process. Worst of all, you don’t get any feedback.

It’s very frustrating and, not at all, polite. For many that attend interviews, it can take a lot of time out of the day, and for those already employed, it means taking time out of work to do so. Some interviews require a good deal of homework beforehand, particularly those that require a specific set of technical skills.

I appreciate those recruiters who take the time to contact you and provide you with their feedback as to what went wrong with the interview. Likewise, it is good manners for you to send thank you emails to the interviewers for them taking the time to interview you, and this should be done as soon as possible after it has taken place.

It is not all entirely to blame on recruiters on not providing feedback of your interview. Some positions may be of a highly competitive nature with dozens of candidates going through the interview process. It may not be realistic for the recruiter to provide you with much in the way of feedback; however, they should certainly let you know as soon as possible if you succeeded or failed.

Some recruiters, although rare, do provide very detailed feedback of your interview. Truth be told, there may be other reasons for you not being successful. Such reasons could include a change in the role, an internal posting, or, perhaps, they didn’t like the way you speak. However, the feedback given should be reasonably accurate and could be very useful before the next interview.

To make things a little easier for the recruiter, why not provide them with your own feedback form? It needs to include the questions that will find it useful for you so you can prepare for the next interview. It needs to be as short as possible and have, if possible, as many multiple-choice answers rather than text comments. Writing text comments requires additional thinking, energy and time; resources which are scarce.

What you put on the feedback is important and it most be as concise as possible. You may think about some generic questions. For example, how was the way I presented myself? Did I speak clearly enough? Was I dressed smartly? All that sort of stuff. Most importantly, you will need to prepare questions which are aligned to the role description which was given to you before the interview. For example, if the role description requires that you need a deep understanding of process management, this should be a question which you include in your feedback form based on how you might relate to handling process management skills. Make the feedback form specific to the role which you are applying for and ask the relevant questions which you will find beneficial should you not succeed in securing the role.

How do you let your interviewers know that you would really appreciate it if they could complete the feedback form and send it you?

Print out a few copies of the feedback form and keep it on your person during the interview. At the end of the interview, just after the moment where your interviewers thank you for taking time to see them, this is the time to ask. You say welcome and thank you very much and then ask them kindly if it wouldn’t be too much bother to complete a quick feedback form and then send it back at their leisure. Provide them with the paper copy but also ask if they would like an electronic copy sent to them so they don’t have the hassle of scanning them beforehand. Most anybody would say yes as a reply and be more than happy to do so. If, for some bizarre occurrence, that the interviewer takes offence to it or declines, it may be a sure sign that working for that person may not be the right thing to do. If you really believed you stuffed up the interview or that you just don’t think you’d like working there, you have the option of not giving them a feedback form. It’s up to you.

Before you attend the interview, make sure that you have already created your electronic file whether it is a Word, PDF or other document and, if you want to be really efficient, have it available to send from your smartphone immediately after the interview. Don’t forget to take email addresses from your interviewers if they accept providing you feedback by email. If you want to make it even easier, rather than attaching the feedback form in the email, just type in the contents directly as text in the email. If the interviewer is reading through your feedback email on a smartphone, you want the questions to be very simple to answer. If you can get away with yes and no answers, go for it. Don’t forget to include your details at the bottom of the form and most importantly, say thanks again for taking the time to reply.

Feedback is very important, and it is sometimes necessary to explicitly ask for it. Kindly, of course!