No matter what industry you’re in, one thing is certain – you will at some point hire employees for
your business. It is (hopefully) an exciting time for a company as new personalities and talent comes
on board, as well as for the new employees who bring fresh passion for their role. However, what
about those candidates who didn’t get the job? They applied for a position hoping it was a new start
for them in an area they wanted to excel in but there was ‘no such luck’ this time.

Surveys show that the main thing people despise when going through the job process is not hearing
back from an interview. It’s not nice for someone to hear they didn’t get the job, and it isn’t ideal for
the recruiter to have to deliver the bad news, however if nothing else, it’s important from an
employer branding point of view to inform unsuccessful candidates as soon as possible after your
decision has been made. It is also important to ensure the letter isn’t cold and impersonal with little
feedback.

When is the right time?

It might seem a bit harsh, but giving a candidate feedback as soon as you know they aren’t right for
the job is the best thing. It lets the interviewee move on quickly or perhaps accept another role they
may have been offered.

Quite often, the interviewer knows before the end of the interview if the candidate is suitable for
the position or not and most people have an idea if it hasn’t gone well, so sometimes it’s better to
say there and then what your concerns are. Giving feedback at the end of the interview not only
saves time following up at a later date, it also gives the candidate a chance to counter your opinion.
They may be nervous or inexperienced but if they want the job, they will fight for their place.

If you don’t feel comfortable telling the candidate that you don’t think they are right for the role,
make sure to follow up with them at latest a few days after the interview. It’s not necessary to wait
until you’ve filled the role to inform someone that they haven’t got the job.

What should be included?

A rejection letter should include some kind of constructive and personalised feedback. How you
relay the information very much depends on the method your company takes throughout the entire
employment process – professional and to the point or friendlier and more approachable.

No matter which approach is taken, constructive criticism should also start with the positives,
including some compliments about the candidate before commenting on the areas they didn’t do so
well. At the end of the letter, focus again on any strong points to soften the blow and prevent any
negative impressions of the company.

Where possible, always include areas of the interview where they could have performed better.
These most likely won’t come as a surprise to the candidate, yet it is useful information for them to
take away and focus on for future interviews.

If the company might be interested in hiring the candidate for future opportunities, inform them
that you will keep their details on file and are interested in keeping in touch with them.

How do you humanize a rejection letter?

Simple changes to a rejection letter make all the difference to the unsuccessful candidate. I have
included a few small changes below which might just make the rejection that much easier:

Thank the Candidate Amicably

“Thank you for applying to POSITION with The HR Department” can be worded slightly differently.
Try “I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with us last week regarding the POSITION at The
HR Department”

Leave the Door Open

“We’ll keep your details on file for future available positions” could be worded as a question, such as
“I hope you don't mind if I keep your details on file and reach out to you in the future should more
positions arise?”

Provide an Explanation

“Your expertise is not a good fit at this time” may be straight to the point but it makes the candidate
feel undervalued. More detail makes it easier for the candidate to understand, for example, “We are
currently concentrating on hiring HR professionals who specialise in mediation.”

Finally, I want to go back to a point I touched on earlier and in a previous article – candidates are
also customers. A survey carried out by The Talent Board discovered that 8% of applicants had
negative feelings about their experience, and in turn it affected their relationship as a client of that
company. Take the following example:

If a company employs 500 people per year and receives 100 CVs per job posting, that amounts to
49,500 rejected applicants. The 8% left with a negative outlook on the company could mean the
business potentially loses nearly 5000 current or potential customers.
​
Don’t let that happen to your company – write the rejection letter.


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Organisational culture and cultural fit have become hot terms in the past year. What was once considered a ‘wishy-washy’ element of HR is now recognised as a crucial part of attracting and retaining a company’s very best employees.

Business owners are waking up to the fact that skills aren’t everything; that hiring someone who perhaps lacks the experience of other candidate, but fits very well with the company’s culture, is very often the smarter decision. Remember, skills can be thought and experience gained, but a person’s core values and beliefs are practically impossible to change.

So why should you bother hiring based on cultural fit? Research has shown that employees who fit well with their organisation and colleagues tend to demonstrate superior job performance, express greater job satisfaction and stay with their employer’s longer. That means less time spent recruiting and training staff and more time making money for your business.

What is Cultural Fit?

Before we continue any further I think it’s important that I clarify just what I mean by cultural fit. In recent months, I’ve encountered a number of HR managers and business owners worried about focusing on cultural fit in the hiring process for fear that it might inadvertently lead to discrimination against candidates, promote group think and hamper diversity.

Let’s be clear, hiring for cultural fit does not mean seeking out clones or people you could see yourself sharing a couple of pints with on a Friday after work. The best recruiters and employers recognise that even when a candidate’s personality and interests differ from their own, they can still be a strong fit for the business.
Cultural fit is the likelihood that a candidate will mirror and adapt to the core beliefs, attitudes and collective behaviours of an organisation.

For example, someone who places a lot of emphasis on team work and working through problems together, will thrive if your business places a lot of emphasis on collaboration. While someone who prefers to work by themselves will struggle to adjust to the way your company operates.

Here are some simple measures you can take to help identify if a candidate is a good cultural fit for their organisation:

#1. Identify Your Company’s Culture
If you haven’t already done so, the first step you need to take is to identify your organisation’s own culture. Every organisation, whether it has just one employee or 5,000 staff, has a culture. Your culture is the set of beliefs and values that drive you and your employees to do what you do.

What three or four words/ expressions sum up your beliefs and values? Perhaps you’re client centric and putting the customer first is the basis for everything you do. Or maybe innovation is your top priority and you place creativity and innovation above all else.

Your mission statement and company vision can help define what it is you stand for but it’s also worth asking staff and getting their input to ensure everyone is on the same page. Aligning your culture with your values deserves its own blog entirely.

#2. Use Personality Tests
Personality tests go beyond traditional IQ tests to give employers an insight into a candidate’s emotional qualities, and how they adapt to and behave in certain situation. There are many personality tests for companies to choose from, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Hogan Assessment, all of which use very different and in depth approaches to assess a candidate’s personality.

Personality tests typically measure five personality dimensions in an applicant: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. So if you’re looking for an outgoing leader, with an ability to make balanced decisions under pressure, then you might want to take a closer look at your candidates’ personality test results.

I previously wrote a blog on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Employee Personality Tests, which provides a lot more information on the topic.

#3. Mix Up Your Questioning
We all know interviewees prepare for interviews by rehearsing answers to the questions they know we’ll ask. Quite often these are geared to what they think the interviewer will want to hear, sapping all sense of authenticity and personality from the response.

Think outside the box when it comes to the questions you ask. Taking candidates off the expected script will help glean information about them that they otherwise might not have shared, allowing you to better understand their core values and beliefs and how they match up to your organisation’s.
Among my favourite culture focused questions to ask in an interview are:

• What was your first job and what did you learn from the experience? 
  

We don’t necessarily care what job they had. What we’re interested in is the values and ethic they took from it.

• If this were your company, give me three words to describe the kind of culture it would have?

What we’re looking for here is how similar the interviewee’s responses are to the company’s culture. It also provides an opportunity to dig deeper into the candidate’s core values.

• Tell me about the best manager/ supervisor you ever had. What did you like most about them? What did you dislike?

This question gives us an understanding of the kind of environment they like to work in and how they like to be managed. For example, if they describe someone who was very supportive and continually monitored their work, then a company where autonomy and initiative is prized is likely to be a bad fit.

#4. Involve Your Employees
Whether you’re the owner, CEO, HR manager or recruiter, it’s unlikely that your new employee is going to be working directly with you as much as they will with other members of your staff. For this reason, it’s especially important that the candidate gets along with their future colleagues.
 
A tour around the office will give the candidate a chance to see first-hand how your business works and the dynamic of the business. More importantly, it will allow you to see how they interact with your employees.

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