Why getting feedback is just the job

Right up there with going to the dentist and sitting an exam has to be the great tradition of going for a job interview.

You sit there, being asked probing questions by someone you’ve never met, trying hard to impress them and make them think you’re the perfect person for the job, while hoping they haven’t noticed how sweaty your armpits are.

Considering how much we psyche ourselves up for an interview, it would be great to be told if we didn’t get the job, which many employers fail to do, and get some feedback. After all, it would help us give a better interview next time.

But it seems feedback from a company after they’ve interviewed a candidate isn’t a given. Indeed, a study by Virgin Media showed unhappy, rejected candidates would actually go as far as to cancel their service with the company. They found 18% of their rejected candidates were Virgin Media customers.

Not only would they cancel their own service, they would go on to communicate their bad experience to others. The result was a potential loss of millions of pounds of revenue.

Video interview company Shortlister conducted a survey of 2,600 job applicants to discover what experiences job seekers have had following an unsuccessful interview.

Firstly, it found Scottish companies take the longest to give feedback to unsuccessful candidates – there, it takes on average 36 days to hear anything back. However, employers in the south east of England are the speediest; they take only 17 days to get back to applicants (compared to a national average of 24 days).

The job seekers were also surveyed by industry. The worst performing was the retail industry, where more than half of candidates reported not getting any feedback after an unsuccessful application. The most considerate industry is the legal sector, where only 10% of applicants received no feedback.

But it seems a delay in getting in touch can adversely affect even successful candidates. Shortlister also found almost a third (30%) of Brits accepted a job that was only their second choice because their first choice took so long to get back to them! That means a lot of employers are missing out on their perfect candidate.

As a heads-up to potential employers, 71.6% of candidates feel a seven-day timeframe is a reasonable one to wait to hear back from them. Any longer than that is just rude, presumably!

Then, once the candidate is offered a new job, 60.3% of Brits say they will have made their decision on whether to accept it within just seven days, too.

Ever wondered just what you could be doing wrong? Shortlister’s survey also uncovered the worst questions for candidates to ask in an interview. They found more than a quarter (28%) of employers said they would be put off a candidate during an interview if they asked an inappropriate question. The worst question you could ask, thought 64.7% of prospective employers, is: “How many sick days do you get?” which smacks of wanting to skive off.

“Will I have to work overtime?’ (7.3%) may come across like an unwillingness to have to do so.

Unfortunately, 39.7% of applicants have just been ignored when they’ve asked for feedback from an interview.

“Post-interview feedback is so important,” says David Dewey from Shortlister. “It can be the difference between a candidate getting the next job, or not. It is also beneficial for the employer – leaving the candidate with a positive attitude towards the company.”