What should a manager do with rejected candidates?

Q: You're a manager and you just interviewed five job candidates. Two are good enough to consider for the position, and you're going to bring them back for more discussions. What should you do with the other candidates?

Nick's reply: More than anything, what affects a company's success at recruiting is the level of respect it shows to job candidates. Not everyone buys that, but I believe it's true. A company spends considerable dollars to make sure customers are happy, and it spends even more to promote its brand and image. But does it ensure that it leaves a good impression on people it interviews for jobs? If a company treats job candidates impersonally and can't make hiring decisions in a timely fashion, it will not take long before word gets out in the professional community.

A good company treats candidates with the utmost respect and enjoys a great reputation as a result of word-of-mouth promotion. This is key to its success at recruiting and retaining great workers.

So, what to do with candidates who don't make the cut? A company preserves its options if it keeps all candidates waiting until it makes a final hiring decision. (After all, its top choice might reject an offer, leaving the company to turn to its second choice.) But consider how you feel when you're left hanging after a job interview. What impression does it leave on you? If you're a manager, you must consider the impacts of your actions and inaction during the hiring process. The more responsible you are to job hunters, the more effective a recruiter you will be when you need to fill positions.

Your rule of thumb should be to treat candidates the way you want them to treat you: with respect. A good manager calls all candidates back personally to explain whether they will continue to the next round of interviews or not. If they were not selected, they deserve to know why, and they deserve to hear from the manager directly. (Many managers don't want to explain why because they don't know why. This is not acceptable. Managers who responded to this challenge that they'd call the candidate themselves score the big points.) When a rejected candidate is treated with respect and candor, that helps a manager maintain a relationship. That relationship can pay off in big ways.

Imagine this conversation. After interviewing a candidate, you -- the manager -- call the candidate: "I want to thank you for spending some of your valuable time with me to talk about working together. The two main reasons I think this job isn't a match for you are X and Y. But I'd like to ask your permission to recommend you to some other teams here. And while I've got you, I'd like to ask your opinion of our hiring process. This is a little awkward since you're no longer a candidate for this particular job, but I believe that the best information about this process will come from our professional community -- people like you."

This personalizes the experience and gains you valuable information about your hiring process. Not a word in the above conversation is intended to be gratuitous -- you must keep it honest. Don't forget that feedback about your hiring process is as important as feedback from your customers -- you might not always like it, but you need to hear it.

Once your discussion is done, close by saying to the candidate, "I'd consider it a great professional courtesy if you could recommend any other talented people you know to us -- for this job or for related jobs. In exchange, I will commit to talking to other managers here about you for openings they may have in the coming months."

That's how a manager's relationship with any candidate really pays off. It helps keep a good (if not immediately hireable) candidate close to your company, and it potentially yields additional good candidates.

A manager should always close with these important words: "Please stay in touch. If anything comes up that you'd like to discuss with me, feel free to call. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me."

Have you ever seen a manager go to this trouble to establish recruiting relationships that will pay off later? I have. Those are the managers who are stealing your best candidates. Join them, or get left behind.

Copyright 2008. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Nick Corcodilos is author of "Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job" and the host of www.asktheheadhunter.com. He can be reached by e-mail at seattle@asktheheadhunter.com or at North Bridge Group, P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833. Sorry, no personal replies.