How to reject candidates without turning them off your brand

All too often, when candidates apply for roles, they are never contacted if they are unsuccessful.  Even attending an interview does not guarantee you any constructive feedback.

When employers do send out rejections, they tend to be impersonal and non-specific, either through a lack of time or from fear of causing offence.  Failing to give feedback is one of the most common mistakes employers make.

Why bother?

This is especially important for not for profit organisations, as their employees usually overlap to a great extent with their supporters and donors.  You want candidates to feel good about your organisation, even if they are unsuccessful, so they don’t spread negative comments about you among their friends and relations.

Candidates also might not be right for one role, but could be a good match for a future vacancy, or could be a potential employee after they have gained skills and experience elsewhere.  Turning them off your employer brand means you’ll lose them as a potential candidate (and possible donor or advocate) forever.

Finally, if a candidate has taken the time to fill in an application form, or to attend an interview, it’s only polite to let them know the outcome.  It may even save you time in the long run, as you won’t have to field calls or emails from candidates following-up.

When should you do it?

Best practice is to give a candidate feedback as soon as you are absolutely sure they are not right for the role, and to let them move on as soon as possible.  You don’t need to wait until you have filled the post if you are sure the candidate isn’t right.

Many employers already know at the end of interview (either on the phone or in person) if a candidate is a definite rejection, and it can be a good idea to let them know right there and then.  Candidates usually have an idea if an interview has not gone well, and most appreciate candour and honest feedback.  By giving a candidate feedback at the end of an interview, you won’t have to spend time following up with them at a later date.

Very occasionally, the candidate will be able to counter your points, bringing them back into the recruitment process.  You don’t want to miss an ideal candidate just because they may be a nervous or inexperienced interviewee.

However, most employers still prefer to take some time after an interview to reflect on a candidate’s performance or compare notes, and contact them at a later date.

What should you say?

The rule of thumb is to make feedback as constructive and personalised as possible.  A standard email may be acceptable for candidates rejected prior to the interview process, but more detailed feedback is important for interviewees.

There is really no excuse for not sending at least an email to rejected applicants – most email software will allow you to set up a mail merge or autotext that enables you to do this in seconds.  At this stage, all you need to say is that there was a high level of response to the vacancy and that other candidates met the person specification more closely.

Sweeten the pill

When you’re giving constructive criticism to a candidate, whether on the phone or by mail, it’s always a good idea to start off with the positives and give them some compliments before you tackle the areas where they fell down.  Wherever possible, you should also end by repeating their strong points.  This softens the blow of any negatives and is more likely to leave them with a positive impression of your organisation to take away.

Be honest and specific

Unsuccessful candidates who have turned up for an interview expect and deserve a clear reason for their rejection, even if it is just “we have other candidates who better matched our requirements”.

Wherever possible, tell them exactly which areas of the interview they could have handled better - most will already have a good idea of where they struggled.  Make sure your reasons are concrete, not subjective like “I didn’t feel your personality would fit with the rest of the team”.  You also need to avoid any comments that could be misinterpreted, like “I didn’t feel you could handle the workload” that could leave you open to potential charges of discrimination.

Be candid but gentle in the language you use – being honest is not the same as being blunt and ultimately you want to leave the candidate feeling good about your organisation and about themselves if possible.

Don’t mention the person you decided to hire in any way, even as a comparison.  Feedback should focus exclusively on the person you are talking to.

Finishing up

To make the feedback process feel less one-sided and more of a conversation, why not ask the candidate to supply their own comments on the interview.  This can help head off problems with your recruitment process and gives you the chance to improve your interview technique.

If you are likely to consider the candidate for future opportunities, letting them know you’ll keep their details on file will help soften the blow of the rejection.

If the candidate has been interviewed, thank them for their time and wish them luck with their future job hunt.

Always sign-off from a person, not just “HR Manager” or similar, and give them a way to contact you for further details if they need to.

Of course, all this takes time

Using a recruitment consultancy like TPP will take most of the administration of recruitment out of your hands, freeing you to concentrate on your day job.

We do the initial sift through candidate responses to advertisements, only shortlisting the ones we are confident will be a good match.  We’ll also contact all unsuccessful candidates and pass on your feedback to them, ensuring they leave with a good impression of your organisation.

We’ll also pass on any comments they make on the interview process back to you, which can be extremely useful as candidates are also more likely to be candid with a third party.

For more information or to talk about a specific role, please contact the relevant TPP division.

Further resources

Some sample rejection letters:
Sample Letter 1
Sample Letter 2
Sample Letter 3

And some examples of how not to do it!
A job rejection letter to end all others
A famous rejection letter allegedly from the BBC
Rejection letter from a candidate

Using behavioural interviewing to look behind the mask

What is behavioural interviewing?

Behavioural interviewing is an increasingly popular type of job interview, where an interviewee is asked to provide examples from their past employment of specific situations and go through how they behaved in those circumstances.  The logic is that past performance is predictive of future performance, ie how you behaved in the past will forecast how you will behave in the future.

Why use behavioural interviewing?

Behavioural interviewing is said to be the most accurate predictor of a candidate’s future performance.  Rather than simply taking a candidate's word for it that they have the skills and capabilities required for the role, this method of interviewing allows them to prove their worth.

Traditional interviewing, using open questions like “tell me about your past work experience”, often doesn’t give you enough data to accurately evaluate a candidate.  As each candidate can choose to answer these questions in a completely different way, it also makes it hard to compare candidates in an objective way.  Ultimately, a traditional interview tends to mostly judge candidates on how well they interview, rather than how well they will do the job.

Situational interviews are better, as they ask the candidate to describe how they might handle a certain situation.  However, this does allow the interviewee to talk about what they might do, rather than stick to what they did do.

By focussing purely on actual examples, behavioural interviewing makes it easier for an interviewer to objectively judge how a candidate will perform in the role.  Each question can be followed up by further questions to get more detail and depth on specific behaviours, such as “what factors did you consider when you made that decision?” or “what were you thinking at that point?”.  This makes it very difficult for interviewees to exaggerate or ‘fudge’ their answers to give you the responses they think you want to hear.

Behavioural interviews are also a really good way to discover new talent and avoid age discrimination, as they do not require the candidate to have a great deal of direct work experience, but concentrate more on transferrable skills and competencies.  Answers do not necessarily need to come from the workplace but could use examples from volunteer experience, extra-curricular activities or even family life.

Preparing your questions

Before you start putting together your list of questions for the interview, you need to establish exactly what behaviours are necessary for the role.  Use your job description and person specification to put together a list of the key responsibilities for the role and then determine how an employee would be judged successful in those responsibilities.

You’ll then need to think about the characteristics and traits necessary in an employee to deliver those successful outcomes.  Look at current successful employees in similar roles, and the qualities and skills they possess, to form a picture of your ideal candidate.  You should also consider your organisation's culture and whether you want your new employee's personality to be similar or complementary. A typical profile would include competencies like interpersonal skills, decision-making skills, creativity, flexibility, enthusiasm, time management etc.  Stick to the most important skills or you could be interviewing all day!

Once you’ve got a list of your ideal behavioural traits, you can start to make up a list of questions to judge interviewees against.  Make sure you use the same questions, in the same order, for every interview so it’s easy to compare candidates.

Typical behavioural interview questions

Behavioural interview questions are generally more specific and more probing than traditional interview questions.  Each question should be designed to elicit an example of performance from past experience and should be followed up with further tailored questions to get to the key behaviour shown.

Typical questions include:

• Give an example of an occasion when you used logic to solve a problem.
• Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.
• Describe a decision you made that was unpopular and how you handled implementing it.
• Have you gone above and beyond the call of duty? If so, how?
• What do you do when your schedule is interrupted? Give an example of how you handle it.
• Have you had to convince a team to work on a project they weren't thrilled about?
  How did you do it?
• Have you handled a difficult situation with a co-worker? How?
• Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure.

You should be asking two-three behavioural questions for each competency to give you enough information to make an accurate assessment of the candidate’s ability.

STAR statements

When answering a behavioural interview question, candidates are expected to use the STAR method to shape their responses.  When all candidates answer the question in a similar way, it makes it much easier to compare them afterwards.

STAR is an acronym for the four parts of an answer to a typical behavioural question:

Situation – the background to the example.  The situation the candidate was in or the problem that faced them. 

Task – the ultimate goal or what the candidate needed to achieve.

Action – what the candidate did and the reasons why they made this decision.  If the action was a team initiative, it is important for the candidate to focus on their role only.

Result – what did the action achieve and was the goal accomplished?  It’s not necessary for all examples to have positive results, as long as a candidate can justify their actions and show that they learnt from the results.

Assessing interviewees

Once all the interviews have been completed, use your interview notes to rate each candidate on the answers they have given.  One of the benefits of using behavioural interviews is that it helps avoid bias in interviewing, so stick to a scoring system.

For each question, identify the key behaviours that would separate an excellent candidate from a poor one.  The interviewee can then be scored against each competency.

A typical rating scale would be 1-5 where 4 or 5 was an excellent demonstration of that competency, 2 or 3 was adequate and 1 was extremely poor.

Things to consider

• Make sure your list of desired behaviours is actually reflected in the job description and person specification that you use to advertise the role, or you will end up with unsuitable candidates for interview.

•  Make sure candidates know it will be a behavioural interview when they are invited, giving them a chance to prepare their answers.  Giving a candidate the chance to prepare will get you better interview answers and should help you judge their responses more easily.

• Taking very detailed notes is an essential part of the behavioural interview process, so that you can score a candidate’s performance accurately.
   
• If you are using a recruitment agency like TPP Not for Profit, they should be able to help you put your list of desirable competencies together and help you construct behavioural interview questions.

Useful Links

Lists of behavioural competencies:
http://questionsininterview.com/list-of-core-behavioral-competencies
www.nielsongroup.com/articles/list_of_competencies.pdf
www.hr-guide.com/data/A302.htm

Top Ten Behavioral Interview Questions

75 Behavioural Interview Questions To Select The Best Candidate

TPP’s guide for candidates to competency-based interviews

Top tips for managing employee departures

An employee leaving for pastures new can throw an organisation into turmoil, particularly if they are in a highly specialist role with a lot of technical or legacy knowledge. In this blog post, TPP Not for Profit offers some tips on how to ensure a smooth handover for everyone concerned.

Be prepared

Your team may seem settled, with a good level of morale and productivity, but don’t assume that means no-one will be leaving in the near future. Employees leave their jobs for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from being headhunted or taking early retirement to resigning because of family responsibilities or relocation.

It is vital to have a policy in place for unexpected departures, as notice periods can go extremely quickly and it’s easy to forget vital steps in the handover process. It’s also always a good idea to share vital knowledge across teams, so departures don’t result in the loss of key information.

In the notice period 

Once an employee has handed in their notice, it can be very difficult to keep them productive for the rest of their time. Work out which projects they can reasonably finish within their notice period and sit down with the employee to create a plan for their completion. Any tasks which will remain outstanding once the employee has left should be handed over to other staff as early as possible.

Use the notice period as time to sit down with the departing employee and create a thorough handover document detailing the jobs they are currently working on and including any key contacts. Don’t just rely on the original job description to define their role, as it may have changed considerably during their time with your organisation.

Make sure they leave on a high 

The departure of any valued employee can be a stressful time, but wherever possible you should ensure that they leave with a positive feeling about your organisation. Many employers choose to throw a party or buy gifts to say goodbye. Exit interviews are a great opportunity to clear the air if there have been tensions at work, as well as an extremely useful tool in preventing further departures.

Ex-employees can still act as fantastic advocates for your organisation in their community. Leaving them with a bad impression can potentially damage your employer brand and possibly even future donations. The not for profit sector is a small world, and it’s quite possible that the leaver may return to your organisation at some point in the future.

Decide if you need to recruit

In the short-term, preferably before the employee leaves, you’ll need to create a plan to share out their workload and responsibilities so nothing falls through.

At this point, you’ll need to decide whether to recruit a replacement or if you can restructure your team to absorb the leaver’s duties without recruiting. Natural wastage can be an effective way to reduce costs in times of economic hardship, and is generally preferable to making redundancies, but can result in resentment among the remaining workforce unless managed correctly.

If, as is most likely, you do decide that you need to recruit, it does not necessarily have to be a straightforward like-for-like replacement. This is an opportunity to improve efficiency and to add or move around responsibilities within your team. Look at flexible working options – could making the role part-time, a job share or home working widen your pool of candidates or improve productivity? Don’t forget to consider whether it could be a promotion opportunity for an existing member of staff.

Consider interim cover 

For some roles, especially particularly specialist or senior ones, you may need more time to find exactly the right candidate and the rest of your team will not be able to cover the role indefinitely. In these circumstances, it is a good idea to use temporary or contract cover.

As well as ensuring the leaver’s role is covered, using interim staff can give you an opportunity to ‘try before you buy’ or test out a possible permanent replacement before committing to a permanent contract. Alternatively, if your organisation is going through a period of change, you may wish to delay recruiting permanently until you have a more settled view of the future. Interim employees can be used to bring in new skills that are particularly helpful on a short term basis, such as change management experience.

Reassure remaining staff 

When employees leave an organisation, particularly at the more senior level, it can leave the remaining staff feeling unsettled and dissatisfied. It is important to meet with your team as soon possible to reassure them and to explain the leaver’s motivations. Ideally, this meeting should be in person, so that employees can ask questions.

Explain why the employee is leaving as honestly and specifically as possible. It’s important to stop the rumour mill and staff know that platitudes such as ‘leaving to spend more time with the family’ are not generally the real reason. Go through your steps to deal with the departure, including any temporary solutions, and wherever possible promote the situation as an opportunity to improve the team and for internal promotion.

Don’t forget practicalities

There are many small actions to take when an employee leaves, that are easy to overlook in the rush to replace them. Don’t forget to retrieve keys, passcards, mobile phones etc from the leaver. It may be necessary for them to sign a confidentiality agreement, if they have very sensitive information, and best practice is to change the passwords for all systems they had access to.

Communicate the departure internally, and externally if appropriate, and make any necessary amendments to organisation charts, websites, phone lists, brochures etc.  Encourage the leaver to update their social media profiles to reflect the change (eg update their current employer on LinkedIn) and purge any of their contacts if necessary as per your social media policy.

Need some help? 

If you’re having difficulty deciding on the best way to replace a departing employee, TPP Not for Profit can help. One of our specialist consultants can arrange a visit, talk through the old role and what your organisation needs from a new employee. We can then offer help on writing the job description and person specification and advice on salaries and availability of potential candidates. For more details on this no-obligation service, please contact Donna Newton, Client Relations Manager on 020 7198 6111 or donna.newton@tpp.co.uk.


Of course, the best solution to losing valuable employees is to stop them leaving in the first place. Our past blog post on how to stop best employees leaving may give you some tips to keep hold of your organisation’s valuable assets.

The right way to check references

Checking the references of prospective employees is often left until late in the recruitment process, if it’s done at all. Checking references is a great tool for deciding between equally qualified candidates, or for weeding out applicants who won’t be suited to your organisation’s culture. It can be very hard to tell what someone is like to work with on a day-to-day basis from a formal interview.

It’s also increasingly important to check reference as CVs can be incomplete or even contain misrepresentations. There are currently a lot of jobseekers on the market, and the extreme pressure of applying for a limited number of jobs can lead some candidates to knowingly exaggerate their credentials and experience in an effort to stand out above their competition.

In a recent survey by ELAS, one in three managers have admitted to lying or exaggerating about their qualifications in the past. With many charity fraud cases in the headlines recently (the NFA estimates that charities lose 1.7% of their annual income to fraud), it’s even more important for non-profit organisations to protect themselves and vet potential employees prior to offering them a job.

In the case of senior employees, if there is an inconsistency or misrepresentation on a CV and the truth comes out, it can be potentially extremely embarrassing for the organisation involved and potentially damage relations with their donors. Take the recent scandal that ensued when Yahoo’s then-Chief Executive Scott Thompson was found to have an "inadvertent error" on his CV.

When is the best time to conduct checks?

The best time to check references generally varies depending on the responsibility of the role in question and the amount of time spent recruiting.  You don’t want to get to the end of a lengthy recruitment process, only to find out your chosen candidate’s references don’t stack up. However, obtaining references can be a time-consuming process and too difficult to do for every candidate in the running.

Many employers leave reference checks until after the first-stage interviews, when they have narrowed down the pool of potential employees. A previous employer’s opinion can be extremely useful at this stage to decide between candidates with similar experience or qualifications. Another approach is to conduct a two-stage reference checking process, with written requests to verify basic details made early on, followed by detailed telephone conversations later with previous line managers of the favourite candidates.

You will probably have to wait until after a conditional offer is made to the candidate to contact their current employer.

What’s the best way to do it?

There are essentially two ways in which you can get references – in writing or over the telephone. While a written reference may be sufficient for a junior role, other roles are likely to require a phone conversation to get anything but the most basic information.

Some organisations have a policy of not giving references, and will only confirm basic employment details, while others try to shunt you off to the HR department. However, be persistent and try to speak to a line manager, as they will give you the most useful information. Contact the referees in advance (or ask the candidate to do so) and book in a specific time for your conversation.

Who should you talk to?

As mentioned above, a previous line manager of the candidate’s is best, even if they have since left the organisation, as they will have direct experience of managing the candidate on a day-to-day basis. If the candidate has lost contact with their previous line manager, suggest they use LinkedIn to track them down.

Don’t bother with personal references, as it’s highly unlikely you’ll get objective feedback from a candidate’s friends or family. If they’ve had no previous paid employment, talk to someone who has worked with them on a volunteer or extracurricular basis.

If you have any doubts as to whether a referee is genuine, always ring back the organisation’s main number to check their identity.

Please note, you should always have your candidate’s permission to contact referees. Many jobseekers will prefer you not to contact their referees until an offer is made and accepted, especially if they are a current employer. If you have a signed statement of permission from a candidate, it may be worth attaching this to any initial email making contact with a referee to reassure them.

What should you ask?

Essential questions for basic written references include:

• Dates of employment
• Job title and main responsibilities
• Attendance record and number of days sick leave taken
• If they were reliable, honest, hardworking etc
• Any disciplinary actions taken against them
• If there are any reasons why they should not be employed

 Questions for more detailed telephone interviews include:

• What were the main responsibilities of the candidate in their last role?
• What are the candidate’s greatest strengths?
• Do you think the candidate is qualified for this new role?
• What specific qualities does the candidate have that will help them fulfil these responsibilities?
• What kind of management style did the candidate respond best to?
• What sort of office environment did the candidate work best in?
• How well did the candidate handle a specific skill or situation?
• What was the candidate’s reason for leaving?
• Would you rehire this candidate?

Always make sure questions are as open-ended as possible, not ones that solicit simple yes or no answers, and let the referee do most of the talking. Don’t ask leading questions – let the referee supply the information instead, eg instead of “John Smith has told us that one of his key responsibilities was x – is that correct?” ask “What were some of John Smith’s key responsibilities?”.

Don’t ask questions that are designed to solicit negative comments, eg “What are this candidate’s weaknesses?”. Most referees will feel uncomfortable giving bad feedback on a previous employee, and are likely to clam up altogether. Instead, you need to coax information out of them and intuit negative feedback from what is NOT said.

Don’t ask questions which are too general or open to interpretation, eg “What is your impression of this candidate’s character?”. It’s best to stick to the skills involved in the candidate’s old and new positions. Make sure you probe sufficiently into their responsibilities – previous volunteers can be particularly prone to over-inflating their duties.

Don’t forget to check unpaid staff

Reference checks are also an excellent idea for potential volunteers or trustees, particularly if they will be coming into direct contact with your supporters. The Charity Commission estimates that only 23% of charities carry out checks on prospective trustees.

With these unpaid staff, it is even more important to make sure the candidate is comfortable with the nature and timing of reference requests before you contact referees.

Some things to remember…

Stay legal when requesting references. Thomas Mansfield have produced some legal guidelines to conducting reference and other background checks.

Be consistent when comparing candidates. It’s best to prepare your questions in advance and keep detailed notes of the answers so you don’t stray into unconscious bias.

While TPP only supply reference checks as standard for our temporary candidates, all our candidates are interviewed face-to-face before we send over their details, enabling us to pick up any inconsistencies or cultural mismatches prior to shortlisting and allowing us to supply a consistently high quality of employees.

Further resources

100 sample questions for job reference checks

Template for a letter granting permission for reference checks

Background checking services:

Experian

NorthgateArinso