According to LinkedIn’s Talent Trends report, 94% of candidates want to receive feedback after an interview. But, giving feedback isn’t easy. In fact, providing useful and honest feedback without offending someone is extremely difficult.

<aside> 📍 You MUST provide feedback to ALL the candidates you engage with. It’s respectful and honest. Even if you can’t share the actual feedback, you can just politely say they you’re not moving forward. Remember, ghosting is the biggest recruitment sin 👻👻

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Here are tips on giving feedback:

✅ Systematically Provide Feedback To All Candidates

After each selection stage, the recruiter should contact the applicant and provide specific information (positive or negative):

• positive, along with an invitation to participate in the next stage of recruitment or an offer of employment,
• negative, together with an explanation of the reasons for such a decision.

✅ Use The “No Updates Update” If Needed

It is also important to ensure that the previously promised deadlines are met. If you’ve said that you will return with information in 3 days, contact the candidate even if you do not have new information for him yet.

✅ Adapt The Feedback To The Interview Stages:

• if you reject the candidate right after reviewing the application, a short standard message will be enough (though always use a positive tone in your messages!)
• if you’ve had an interview(s) with this candidate, you can either get on a call or write more detailed feedback to them

<aside> 📍 Be concrete about the reasons for the rejection and explain this decision. Describe their strengths and what they still need to work on.

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✅ Focus On The Situation, Not The Person

Instead of telling a candidate, “you’re too unfocused and indecisive—your experience is all over the place” you can tell them that you’re “looking for someone who’s shown sustained excellence and that they’d be a stronger fit in a couple of years.”

✅ Rely On Facts, Avoid Opinions

So, before starting the recruitment process, you should establish precise, objective criteria for evaluating the competencies of all candidates. First, it eliminates bias in the candidate evaluation. Second, it’s also useful to form feedback for rejected candidates because you will be able to refer to specific facts.

✅ Use a “Compliment Sandwich” To Deliver Negative Feedback