How Feedback Supports Mental Health for Job Seekers (+ Benefits Employers, Too)

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As today’s newsletter aligns with World Mental Health Day, which is observed on October 10 each year, I would like to draw attention to one potential mental health impact of the recruitment process that is often neglected.

Today, we will be thinking about candidate feedback and its effect on mental health.

In part, this matters because of the sheer number of rejections in a typical job search. On average , it takes somewhere between 21 and 80 applications (and at least three interviews) to land a job. Thus, the average job seeker will face dozens of rejections before finding employment, and those experiences are going to have a cumulative effect on mental health.

Differing Attitudes to Candidate Feedback

As both a corporate trainer and career coach, I have seen this equation from both the employer and applicant sides, and I can tell you that job seekers are always eager to receive meaningful feedback from prospective employers.

The sad truth, however, is that this does not happen often enough.

There are a number of reasons why organizations steer clear of routinely giving feedback. Every company has limited resources, and candidate feedback is not a legal requirement, so it often falls by the wayside. There can also be concerns over potential legal action if written feedback contains anything that the candidate perceives as discrimination.

Those reservations are understandable, but as we will soon see, they can negatively impact both employers and candidates alike. Given the focus of today’s newsletter, I will first consider how this issue relates to the mental health of candidates who are not selected, particularly from a DEI standpoint.

The Importance of Feedback in Diversity Recruitment

To put it simply, I have seen firsthand the devastation that comes from rejection. It has a big impact on job seekers, and if people don’t have feedback to know why they were rejected, they tend to “fill in the gap” based on their own perceptions. Many times, this leads to demoralizing thoughts and attitudes that can even lead them to give up on their job search altogether.

This applies all the more to underrepresented groups such as women, people of color, differently abled individuals, people who identify as LGBTQ+, and veterans, who all have to face additional barriers and hurdles throughout the process of seeking employment. A lack of feedback can be doubly discouraging for these people.

The flip side of all this is just how powerful the effect of encouraging and constructive feedback can be.

For unsuccessful candidates, that feedback might be exactly what they need to help them course-correct and land the next role. On top of that, it can inspire and empower people from underrepresented groups, helping them gain access to opportunities where they may never have had the privilege of access in the past.

Especially as diversity recruiters, I therefore think we should prioritize giving candidate feedback because of the ways it can benefit employers as well as job seekers.

How Feedback Adds Value to Your Employer Brand

In particular, feedback adds to candidate experience, which is an important part of your organization’s employer brand and can be a key differentiator in securing top talent. Your reputation as an employer can be critical in determining whether successful candidates will accept or reject your job offer.

For example, one study found that positive or negative interview experiences can influence candidates’ perceptions of the potential employer in the vast majority of cases. In other words, those experiences can either win them over, or turn them against you.

Either way, it would be a mistake to assume that the candidate experience ends there. We have already seen how big an impact giving feedback (or not) can make, and as the last stage of the recruitment process for the majority of candidates, it is inevitably going to leave a lasting impression. That should matter to all employers, because it ultimately affects what others will think about the organization.

Many candidates will post about their experiences on social media, or talk about their candidate experience with your organization if they go on to work for a competitor. These factors can influence your applicant pool in unseen ways. Along similar lines, and returning to our main theme for today, a candidate experience that encourages rather than discourages prospective employees could be a boost for your hiring efforts.

Research by UK-based recruitment consultancy Robert Walters found that when searching for a job, 88% of professionals consider the mental health and well-being strategies of prospective employers to be important. In contrast, only 42% of hiring managers believed this would be important to candidates. Worse still, only 12% of employers included details of their mental well-being policy on their website.

Has your organization considered this as a critical recruitment issue? And if so, have you recognized what a powerful message it will send to prospective applicants if your workplace mental health strategy encompasses your recruitment efforts as well?

I would say, think of this as part of making your hiring practices inclusive. If job seekers know your policy is to give feedback to unsuccessful candidates, it could increase the chances of them applying. It may especially encourage applications from underrepresented groups, given the additional obstacles that hiring processes so often put in their way.

If they know the outcome is going to be either an employment offer or constructive feedback, this will likely be a win–win for them, since job seekers from underrepresented groups are often struggling through multiple rejections with little to guide them in the right direction.

Include Feedback When Advocating for Mental Health

While giving candidate feedback can be time-consuming for employers, I would encourage you to think in terms of the positive impact on your employer brand as well as the mental health benefits for candidates. If you have an equitable hiring process and an objective way of selecting candidates, as we are all working toward, then you have no reason to be concerned about whether feedback can be used against you.

If done well, constructive candidate feedback can benefit your organization just as much as it helps the candidates themselves. And if you are ramping up your efforts for mental health in the workplace (as many employers rightly are), use the opportunity to show job seekers you are serious about this by recognizing the positive impact of giving feedback as an essential part of the hiring process.

JOIN US IN THE COMMENTS: Has candidate feedback been part of conversations surrounding mental health or inclusion in your organization? Have you seen feedback (or the lack of it) influence your employer brand? As always, we are intrigued to learn how recruiters have engaged with these issues, so please share your thoughts below.