I Interviewed and the Recruiter Won’t Get Back to Me

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: May 14th, 2010
Posted in: HR Best Practices | 4 Comments »

I recently read a great blog post by Suzanne Lucas at the URL I Interviewed and the Recruiter Won’t Get Back to Me

What Suzanne talks about is the suspense a candidate faces post an interview. In todays job market where jobs are scarce, each person wants to hear the results and then make choices or move forward. Not hearing anything adds to the negativity already present. In Suzanne’s words, there is nothing worse than a silent rejection and it can lead to a bad reputation for the recruiter and your company. Who knows, you may need to talk to the candidate again in the near future!

We have worked with a number of mid-sized to large corporations in helping them analyze and optimize their recruitment function since we specialize in automating the same. Here are some findings on the work being done by your recruiters:

- No of open positions being handled by a recruiter/week: 6 to 15
- Average number of resumes received per position: 150+
- No of shortlistings (calls for interviews) per position: 10 – 15
- Average no of interviews + tests for shortlisted candidates: 2+

Typically recruiters handle about 250+ phone calls a week, write as many emails, have to provide status reports to hiring managers and their HR heads, coordinate with candidates, get offer letters approved, follow-up and negotiate with selected candidates and then even help on-board the selected candidates.

Surely a lot of work and limited appreciation.

To help them do all this more effectively, I strongly suggest the use of web-based Applicant Tracking and On-boarding software.

We have seen that such tools can significantly increase the productivity of the recruiters as also help them meet the needs of internal and external customers (namely hiring managers and candidates). Not only can they help in managing the workflow but also help in sending emails to candidates, reminding them about interviews, reminding hiring managers on interviews, automating the salary finalization process, moving the candidate data to the HRIS (when the employee joins) and also help in benefit enrollment.

These tools can also prevent potentially embarrassing situations where recruiters address the wrong person in a rejection or offer letter. Surprising as it may sound, this happens more often than you would believe!

p/s There are some great HR posts on the Carnival of HR. Do visit the same if you get a chance.