Should You Respond to Every Job Applicant?

Those of us with family and friends that have recently graduated from university are likely to be aware of the bleak state of the job market right now.  Even for those that don’t, it only takes a cursory scroll through LinkedIn to find a litany of posts decrying a common issue—companies not responding to job applications. 

It’s not hard to imagine the reasons for this—in the current economic environment, this is certainly a buyer’s market for employers, receiving more applications for a job than they can handle.  One viral post in July demonstrated the severity of the issue, with a Wimbledon pub receiving 484 applicants for a ￡9/hr position.  It is probably reasonable to suggest that they did not respond to each applicant in a meaningful way. 

The value of feedback

Recently, it has become fashionable to talk about the ways in which failure is actually a necessary part of success.  Most are familiar with some version of the quote:

“I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games.  Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed.”

Michael Jordan

And yet, this failure is only useful because of the information gathered whilst failing.  When Michael Jordan (or Steph Curry, if you prefer a more contemporary example) misses a shot to the right of the basket, it is somewhat obvious what he should have done instead, which allows him to recalibrate the next time he gets that opportunity.  For applicants who receive not just a rejection, but radio silence, it is virtually impossible to know what they could have done differently for their application to have been successful.  And when that happens not once, but fifty times, failure will not feel productive, but deeply frustrating.  

Just one sentence of feedback can act as a North Star for candidates. The job went internally. You didn’t have enough experience in X. You made a grammatical error on your CV. Any of these sentences could be genuinely useful to applicants, as either they can learn from the mistakes they did make, or have peace of mind that there was nothing more they could have done, rather than endlessly catastrophising about what the problem could have been.

Treat applicants as you would treat employees

What we have is an asymmetry between employers and potential employees; a small amount of work on the part of the employer could potentially make quite a big difference to an individual.  Despite this, many employers demonstrate that responding isn’t a priority, which is perhaps understandable considering the volume of applications received.  Taking a view that it’s not time-effective to respond to applicants in a meaningful way therefore wouldn’t be a difficult conclusion to reach, especially given there is no obligation to do so. 

Even if you are going to take this somewhat dispassionate and cost-aware approach, there is still a business-driven argument to be made for responding to applicants and for providing feedback.  Again, looking at LinkedIn, there appears to be an emerging pattern in popular posts: “I’ve been looking for jobs for 3 months, I hadn’t heard anything from anyone, and then X company rang me up, talked me through why my application was unsuccessful, and gave me a few suggestions on what I could do.” 

There is currently a huge opportunity for companies that strive for a great reputation amongst graduates to leave a lasting impression.  Going forward, this will be important; although we are currently in a place where high quality candidates outnumber vacant positions, when business cycles change, the situation will reverse, and some companies may be stuck with reputations that they forged in times like these.  What’s more, those who have been ignored by companies are also less likely to be customers— a 2015 survey highlighted that 58% of job-seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company they didn’t hear back from after submitting an application.  

So what could we do differently?

Admittedly, calling every candidate for a lengthy chat is on the far end of the spectrum of responses and is simply unrealistic in most circumstances.  However, organisations ought to consider how their engagement with candidates could shape their relationship with future employees and customers for many years to come.  Put simply, a relatively small amount of additional upfront effort could not only be very helpful to individuals grappling with the challenges of finding employment, but could also create valuable goodwill and loyalty that would otherwise be costly to generate.