Narrative of Current Practice relating to Job Applicants

NameNarrative of Current Practice relating to Job Applicants
ProjectStudy 1: Improving the provision of feedback to applicants
AuthorAlan Paull
Creation date19 February 2007
Last update date29 March 2007
Version1.0



Introduction

Improving Applicant Feedback
"Try to give positive feedback to unsuccessful candidates on any aspects they could reasonably improve for future success. It is sensible to maintain a favourable view of the organisation among the applicants - there may be future job vacancies for which they would be suitable and for which you would wish them to apply. Failure to get one job does not necessarily mean unsuitability for other jobs with the organisation. You may want to keep CVs or applications on file for future matching. Also bear in mind that applicants and their families may be your customers as well as potential employees, so it makes business sense to treat them fairly and courteously."
From ACAS website, http://www.acas.co.uk/index.aspx?articleid=751; © Crown copyright (2001 - 2007)

1. This document describes a narrative for a job applicant, who seeks and obtains feedback about his or her application. It is based on replies to the study's questionnaire to employers, information which was collected between December 2006 and January 2007.

2. The narrative sets out how an employer receives requests for feedback from job applicants, retrieves relevant information about the particular instance of the job application, including any interview that took place, and provides feedback to the job applicant. The feedback may relate to the procedures relating to the job application or to the quality of any aspect of the job application. The focus of this narrative is on the processes involved, rather than the content of the feedback. The study is particularly interested in any electronic tools that might be used, so the narrative and associated scenarios attempts to cover these in some detail.

3. The sample of employers included in our research covered a range of employers, some large, some small, some commercial, some charities, some governmental and some educational. While the details of feedback processes varied between employers, the model suggested in this narrative was a common one amongst all types. The main variation in practice was the extent of quality assurance or support to managers. The larger organisations with a differentiated Human Resources function tended to have more developed QA and support to line managers.


Overall narrative: Online application, email feedback

4. Harry has applied to a large national organisation for a job in a marketing department. The organisation is an active and well known recruiter with robust HR procedures. Harry has applied online and was able to extract information with a bit of cut-and-pasting from his ePortfolio, though some information had to be re-keyed into a different format. He had a face-to-face interview, which he thought went very well. Unfortunately he was not offered the job and received only a bland rejection letter from the organisation. Harry wanted to find out the reasons for his rejection, so he telephoned the HR department. They gave him the contact details of the recruiting manager, Sally Jones, and Harry emailed her for feedback. Sally referred to the notes made at Harry's interview and his electronic application form. She emailed back to Harry stressing the high number of applications for the post and giving reasons for his rejection. She made a note of the feedback and filed Harry's application.

5. Environment: The individuals involved have access to good quality electronic resources, e.g. email, and sufficient knowledge to make effective use of them. Harry has much of his personal information captured electronically on a range of social networking software. He has also maintained his university ePortfolio, though he has recently left university. The recruiting organisation has an extensive electronic infrastructure, but not all its systems are integrated. For example there are paper files of notes on assessment of job applicants. The organisation has an HR Department that carries out a range of centralised HR functions, but line managers within each department assess and select job applicants, acting as recruiting managers and are only supported by the HR Department if required.

6. Constraints: The HR Department imposes professional constraints upon the process by encouraging, supporting and enforcing the organisation's recruitment policies. These include avoiding unfair discrimination, ensuring that an equal opportunities policy is adhered to, maintaining confidentiality, and using a rigorous and structured approach to selection. Scenario 3 covers this area in relation to feedback. Information, such as interview and other selection notes are retained for 12 months, after which they are destroyed.

7. Processes not covered: application for the job, assessment, decision processing and notification.

8. Good practice: The organisation states the entry criteria for its job opportunities clearly on its website and also explains the process (good practice statements 1 and 3). It also asks those requiring feedback, e.g. unsuccessful applicants, to make contact with the HR Department in writing (good practice statement 5).

UML overview
     Use Case diagram: Overview of relevant use cases     Class diagram: Stakeholder view     Class diagram: Process content view     Activity diagram: Process behaviour view

Scenario 1: Requests feedback

Scenario description

9. Harry telephones the organisation's HR Department to ask for feedback about his interview.

10. The department has a policy through which enquirers are encouraged to refer to guidance on their web site; formal responses are made only to written or emailed enquiries. Ann Smith, a member of staff in the HR Department, refers Harry to the web site and asks him to email or write to them, if he has a further enquiry, giving him an email address. Harry emails his request.

11. The organisation's email system automatically acknowledges receipt of the email and routes it to Ann Smith.

12. Good practice: This scenario meets the good practice guide statements 2, 4 and 5. Time limits are not specified (good practice statement 4). How the response is made is not explicit, but it is implied that it will be by email (good practice statement 6). The organisation's website contains an equal opportunities and anti-discrimination statement, which, if breached, would be grounds for appeal against decisions; the processes for this are not stated, but contact details are given for this route (good practice statements 9, 10, 11 and 12).

UML model references
     Use Case Diagram     Use Case Description

Scenario 2: Organisation gives feedback

Scenario description

13. The HR Department checks Harry's identity in their database, so that they know which manager was in charge of the recruitment process. They pass on the email request to Sally Jones, the relevant line manager in the Marketing Department.

14. Sally receives the email, checks Harry's details in the applicant database and uses this information to dig out the interview records from her paper filing cabinet.

15. Sally reviews the comments from the interview panel, including scoring sheets and notes. From this information she notes that there was a very strong field of applicants, Harry did meet the minimum requirements for the job, but his interview performance was only average and there were several outstanding applicants. While Sally can call up a standard email template, she does not have one specifically for feedback to job applicants, so she cuts and pastes some fairly standard text from one of her emails to a previous applicant and personalises it for Harry. She notes that the field of applicants was very strong and indicates that Harry's responses to questions about marketing practice had only been satisfactory, whereas other applicants had been much stronger in this area.

16. Sally sends the email to Harry.

17. Sally prints out her email reply for storage with Harry's application and interview notes and re-files them.

18. Harry receives Sally's email. He stores the information in his ePortfolio.

19. Good practice: The organisation has information about the decision-making process and has recorded reasons for rejection (good practice statements 1 and 2). The audit trail is not fully electronic. The organisation very rarely engages in further correspondence with applicants who have received feedback, so this is not covered in their procedures (good practice statement 7), neither does it give information or advice about alternative employment, career or study opportunities (good practice statement 8).

UML model references
     Use Case Diagram: Give feedback to job applicants
Pass request to recruiting manager
     Use Case Description
Identify applicant
     Use Case Description
Retrieve manual records
     Use Case Description
Write feedback
     Use Case Description
Update records
     Use Case Description
Send feedback
     Use Case Description

Scenario 3: Quality assurance

Scenario description

20. The HR Department carries out a regular survey of a sample of applicants and line managers to obtain a picture of the organisation's recruitment practice. This survey includes specific reference to applicant feedback. Responses indicative of poor quality can lead to extra training for managers.

21. Sally Jones completes a copy of the intranet survey, which are then reviewed by the HR Department.

22. Her responses indicate a satisfactory understanding and implementation of company policy. The Department feeds back the results to Sally.

23. Harry is selected as part of the sample of applicants for the survey. He completes the online web-based questionnaire, which covered all aspects of the company's recruitment practice. The HR Department sends a standard email 'thank you' to Harry for participating in the survey.

24. Harry's responses show that, although he was unhappy about not getting a job with the company, there was no indication that the company's feedback policy had failed.

25. Good practice: The organisation has a regular training programme for staff and monitors its practice (good practice statements 13 and 15).

UML model references
     Use Case Diagram: Quality Assurance

Assessment versus statement of good practice
Good practice statementComment
1. Entry criteria and process information to be readily available via print or electronic means.Fully covered via website.2. Policy and procedures on feedback to be explicit and available.Fully covered via website.3. Audit trail on decision-making and reasons for rejection to be recorded, preferably electronically.Information recorded, but audit trail requires staff intervention to link manual and electronic records.4. Information about the circumstances under which feedback will be provided to be made clear.Website states that feedback will be provided on written request.5. How requests for feedback should be made to be stated clearly.Fully covered via website.6. Institutions should give information on how the response to the applicant will be made.Implied but not stated explicitly.7. Handling of correspondence following the provision of feedback to be considered.Not covered.8. HEIs to consider the extent of any other information or advice to unsuccessful applicants about alternatives.Not considered appropriate.9. Policies and procedures for complaints to be in place.Covered in respect of breach of organisation's policies with respect to equal opportunities and discrimination.10. Procedures to be specified for review of applications if additional information is forthcoming.Not covered.11. HEIs should define and explain to applicants the difference between feedback, complaints and appeals, and how they are dealt with.Covered in respect of breach of organisation's policies with respect to equal opportunities and discrimination.12. No applicant should be discriminated against.Fully covered via website.13. Appropriate training for staff to be considered.Fully covered by staff training programme.14. Documentation should state the production date.Implied but not stated explicitly.15. The process should be quality assured.Fully covered by scenario 3.