For me the most difficult part of working in recruitment has been giving feedback to a hopeful candidate who has not been successful in securing a role. Sometimes the candidate may have been out of work and is desperate to find a new job. Alternatively they may be unhappy in their current role and want to refresh or invigorate their career. Whatever the reason they may have invested a lot of hope in the interview.
The feedback you have from the client may be sketchy or contain information that you are reluctant to share with the hopeful interviewee and on thankfully rare occasions may actually be abusive. What is the easiest way for the recruitment consultant to let the candidate down (allow me to be short-sighted for a moment) without wasting a lot of time.
Sometimes people are not contacted at all (unforgiveable) or the pill may be sweetened by saying “You came a close second” with commiserations and best wishes for the next time. Again often used but not acceptable. I have come across a situation where 3 people who went for the same job were given the same feedback.
Mum’s the word.
Often I have heard recruitment consultants and recruiting companies criticised for this and rightly so. But are they only doing what most of us are guilty of in our everyday lives? Exhaustive and robust research finds that we are all more hesitant to share bad news rather than good. How many members of your family, friends or colleagues do you have where you have been reluctant to share bad news with or give feedback to, that may be seen as negative or critical?
The problem is so common that it has been given its own title “The Mum Effect” and it can be destructive within organisations. Who among us likes to give the boss bad news? But from a candidate’s point of view it is important, when you can, to get honest feedback which can help you for further interviews. So often we can have mannerisms, or ways of talking, not listening or a multitude of other sins that let us down at interview and nobody as ever had the courage to tell us about it because of “The Mum Effect”.
