By Ben Dattner
MANY companies conduct exit interviews with departing employees. A less common practice is to gather feedback from job candidates who receive offers but don’t accept. These “declined offer” interviews can yield valuable information about your company, your industry and your competitors.
However, the feedback most likely to be useful may also be the most sensitive. It might be hard for a candidate to say, for example, that interviewers seemed to convey different ideas about the company’s strategy.
Therefore, it’s helpful to collect feedback via a third party, such as an external search firm. Here are some questions that you can ask the candidates who got away:
What did you see as the positive aspects of the role and/or working at our organization? What were your concerns?
- What were the most important factors in the decision you made?
- What suggestions do you have about your interviews, interviewers, the interview process itself, or how we could have improved your overall experience as a candidate?
- Can you provide any observations about the hiring manager or the organization?
- How we might make a more compelling presentation to candidates like you in the future?
Ben Dattner is the founder of New York City-based Dattner Consulting Llc.