Job hunting is rarely an enjoyable activity and it can be made all the more stressful when the application you spent hours working on remains unacknowledged and seemingly ignored. When this happens many times over even your most enthusiastic job hunter can feel disheartened and even bitter.
This is the issue facing may HR departments particularly during periods of high applications. It is vital to remember that more than merely not offering a job to an unsatisfactory candidate but also communicating with a stakeholder; a potential customer or perhaps even a future employee. The communication that they receive will shape their opinions of the organisation.
It is by no means a simple task as I well know from my experience working with the HR department of a small growing organisation. In fact it is actually far more complicated that many people could imagine. We were lucky enough to be in the position of being able to recruit during the recession and this led to huge numbers of applications for each job advertised.
There are two types of rejection I will look at, rejecting post-interview and rejecting without interview.
It is bad practise to interview a candidate and not inform them of the outcome. I once experienced this after interviewing at a local cafe, they promised me a call within the week which never materialised and as a result of this I boycotted the cafe. I am not alone in this practise, and while I cannot find the article now, I did read that companies are at risk of losing customers through not telling unsuccessful candidates that they have been rejected.
At the organisation I worked at we would send all unsuccessful candidates a rejection letter as soon as a recruitment decision was made. If feedback was requested we also sought to provide it as soon as possible. They may have not been suitable at the time but they still form an opinion of your company which is important to manage, and also in a couple of years they may apply for another job at the organisation for which they are ideal.
Ideally an organisation would be able to provide feedback for every application they receive but in reality this is not possible. During a recruitment drive we could fill two arch lever files with just unsuccessful candidates, that is in excess of 100 candidates for just a handful of jobs. As an organisation we did seek to inform candidates that we would not be taking their application to interview however practically with 100s of applications this is very difficult and potentially very costly.
The head of HR at the organisation was very keen to maintain good communication with all candidates and while I worked there I designed systems to ensure we could maximise our communication abilities. Were we always successful? I dare say we were not!
Soon, if not already, school, college and university leavers will be applying for jobs to try and begin their career. No doubt many will come across this situation, and please do not let it dishearten you, think positive and good luck!
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Good post Rachel!
I’ve experienced similar bad practise applying for unpaid summer internships, about 30 pr/marketing firms in newcastle.
Yes, I understand that professionals are very busy – but I’m offering to work for free in a recession and approaching peak season!
A quick email should be standard. After all as you point out these people will be our future competitors and colleagues and souring a relationship this early on is very unprofessional.
It is definitely very frustrating to be on the other side and HR departments really need to be aware of how the lack of communication actually sends out a bad message. At our company the head of HR trained in Marketing so she actually very aware of looking after its reputation.
How is your internship search going? Have you secured any yet?
Exactly – you’ve highlighted the flipside of the process that many organisations neglect to consider.
No luck! I got offered an extension at Rising Digital but I can’t afford it / have nowhere to live! Looks like the universe wants me to enjoy my summer!
As a first year, looking for unpaid work experience, it is extremely disheartening applying to many PR agencies, tailoring each application for each company, and getting nothing in return.
Finding a placement has been one of the hardest things about my course so far, and as a result, one of the most disliked!
The same went for jobs as I moved to Leeds. I was desperate to get a better job in somewhere I might enjoy a little more than my current job (McDonalds) but found it a lot easier to get a transfer, as no-one else even replied, and even that came with complications!
Great post, I’ve followed your blog
Unfortunately a common experience! Have you managed to secure a placement yet? I have a post scheduled for tomorrow morning about compulsory placements, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
Brilliant blog post Rachel. Through applying for internships and graduate jobs I have had a range of experiences. My own little pet grudge is that phone call explaining “You didn’t get the job this time, let me tell you where you went wrong”. Feedback is good but receiving five of these calls begins to affect enthusiasm.
Organisations should make clear decisions and inform quickly. Unfortunately this is an ideal. Especially as larger organisations seem to use interns to manage the hiring of new interns. It is a vicious circle.
Thanks for the comment. I suppose a rejection is never really a welcome outcome! I definitely appreciate your point though.
I’ve also come across interns hiring interns, which seems really quite bizarre. Interns are justified to have some input, but I’ve seen them perhaps have more influence than they’ve really earned. What has been your experience of this?