by Tammy Binford
The tough job market of recent years has brought employers a flood of resumes and applications. The volume can be overwhelming in the HR office, but behind all those appeals for employment are real people—usually anxious and sometimes desperate people—who crave information about where they stand in the process and when a decision will be made. Despite that yearning for communication, though, a recent survey shows job seekers often never hear a word. 
A nationwide survey from CareerBuilder polled more than 3,900 U.S. workers in November 2012. The numbers show that 75 percent of workers who applied to jobs using various resources in the last year said they never heard back from the employer.
Many of those disappointed job seekers take the lack of communication personally. The survey shows that candidates who have had a bad experience seeking employment with a company are less likely to apply to that employer again and are more likely to discourage friends and family from applying for work or purchasing products from that company.
No response sours applicants on organizations
“From the second job seekers are viewing your job ad and applying to your company, they are forming an opinion of who you are as an employer and as a business,” said Sanja Licina, senior director of talent intelligence at CareerBuilder. “One bad applicant experience can have a ripple effect with candidates not only vocalizing their dissatisfaction with how they were treated, but encouraging others not to apply or even buy products from that company. It’s so critical that your employment brand effectively carries through at every touch point with candidates.”
Lack of follow through, inconsistencies from the employer, and poor representation of the company’s brand were cited as major reasons for an applicant’s perceived bad experience.
In the survey, 60 percent of respondents reporting a bad experience said the employer never bothered letting him or her know the decision after an interview. Forty-three percent said they found out during the interview that the job didn’t match the job ad. Thirty-four percent said the company representative didn’t present a positive work experience. Thirty percent said the company representative didn’t seem to be knowledgeable, and 29 percent said the employer never acknowledged receiving the application.
What HR should do
One reason employers get swamped with applications is that they’re hearing from too many unqualified candidates, and they wonder just what is owed to people who shouldn’t have even applied. Recently, a group of attorneys was asked how employers should respond when they get applications from unqualified people.
James F. Kilcur, a partner in the law firm Saul Ewing LLP in Philadelphia, says although it may be hard to communicate with each applicant, when possible “good manners are good business, and communicating with all applicants to let them know whether they will be interviewed will improve your brand as an employer so you can attract qualified individuals.”
Mark Adams, a partner with the Jones Walker law firm in New Orleans, says employers who attract unqualified applicants need to ask themselves a couple of questions: “What can we do to reduce the number of applications from unqualified persons, and how can we best protect our company from potential discrimination claims when we reject unqualified applicants?” He says the answer to both questions is to include the minimum job requirements in the job posting and a statement that applications from unqualified applicants won’t be accepted.
Jason R. Mau with Greener Burke Shoemaker Oberrecht, P.A. in Boise, Idaho, says employers may want to send a standard “thank you for applying letter” without further explanation, but amending a job posting to provide more detail about the kind of applicants that will be considered might cut the number of unwanted responses.
“If you wish to address the qualification issue with each applicant, you could respond by thanking the applicant for his inquiry and then informing him that you’re considering only applicants with certain qualifications (e.g., a college degree or five years of relevant experience).” He suggests wording such as:
Dear Mr. Doe,
Thank you for your interest in our recent job posting for an articles editor. We have received many responses to our advertisement from qualified candidates. Because of the volume of responses, we are currently limiting our consideration to applicants with two to five years of editorial experience. We wish you the best in your current search for employment and thank you for your interest in our organization.
Good practices
Besides the recent survey on applicant experiences, CareerBuilder conducted a separate 10-month study during 2012 that tracked the opinions of more than 1 million job candidates who applied for positions in more than 1,000 companies. The purpose of the study was to identify best practices in engaging and interacting with job candidates. Here’s a look at the companies identified as having the most effective practices:
- Shell Oil Company was singled out for providing clearly written job postings; an easy-to-find, user-friendly career website; an efficient application process; engaging interactions with all key Shell personnel during interviews; timely job offers; and a fun, informative onboarding process.
- MB Financial Bank in the Chicago area made the list for using its applicant tracking system to keep candidates up to date on timelines and changes to the process. The employer also personally follows up with candidates no longer in the running and invites them to sign up to learn about future opportunities.
- Recruiter Pinstripe was recognized for striving to keep job seekers informed about where they are in the decision process through various forms of communication including social media.
- Health care system Baptist Memorial Care works to make a great first impression, starting with the candidate experience on the company’s website and with its applicant tracking system. The company also designs its communications to help candidates decide for themselves
It is difficult sometimes to respond to every applicant when you receive hundreds of resumes, and then half of those applicants also call you. Therefore, when I apply for a job, I assume the company isn’t interested if I do not hear back. On the other hand, I recently interviewed for a position and, when I didn’t hear anything a week later, I sent an e-mail to the HR person, which was not returned. When you interview someone, you MUST follow up and let them know where they stand whether the company is hiring someone else or continuing to search for other candidates.
Reduce the number of unqualified applicants by having the first page of the online application only be specific yes/no questions, to the extent possible, about each of the position’s minimum qualifications. At the first ‘no’ answer, the applicant is exited from the application process and taken to a screen that says “Sorry, we don’t hire losers like you” (or perhaps something more appropriate).
I suggest “Sorry, but we still haven’t figured out that spending more time and energy in hiring the right people is ultimately cheaper and makes us more efficient in the long run because you see on paper, it always looks good to the higher-ups when we cut spending on HR activities because, after all, how important are humans to a company/organization?’)