The value of feedback after your interview
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Whatever the outcome, feedback after you’ve been through the interview process is a gift which can help you become more confident and successful during future selection processes.
However, from an interviewer’s perspective, it’s tough to give feedback as you often feel like you’re being asked to justify the decision you’ve made – which can be especially hard when the candidate selected was only ahead by a small margin. What’s more, many recruiters and interviewers are all too aware that a wrong word can lead to a costly, and often embarrassing, employment tribunal. This usually forces the interviewer to play it safe with bland and generic feedback.
With that in mind, here are my favorite tips for getting the post-interview feedback you need .
It’s quite scary for an interviewer to give feedback as they don’t know if you’re going to raise a grievance or a tribunal claim. If they’re reluctant to give you feedback, bear in mind they’re not disinterested – it’s just an unfortunate sign of the world we now live in.
However, from an interviewer’s perspective, it’s tough to give feedback as you often feel like you’re being asked to justify the decision you’ve made – which can be especially hard when the candidate selected was only ahead by a small margin. What’s more, many recruiters and interviewers are all too aware that a wrong word can lead to a costly, and often embarrassing, employment tribunal. This usually forces the interviewer to play it safe with bland and generic feedback.
With that in mind, here are my favorite tips for getting the post-interview feedback you need .
- Before you ask for feedback, always lead into the request by letting the interviewer know that you enjoyed the process and found it interesting. By setting up a positive conversation you’re much more likely to put the interviewer at ease and get honest feedback.
- Explain to the interviewer you accept that you may not/didn’t get the role and you’re not looking to be defensive, just that you’re eager to learn everything you can from the experience. By reassuring the interviewer of your intentions and tackling the thorny issue of confrontation over their feedback, you’ll get a less sanitised response.
- When you get the feedback, be true to your promise and don’t get defensive. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to argue yourself into a job you didn’t get, but turning it into a confrontation will almost always make the interviewer clam up. On the other hand, if you receive feedback very well you’ll increase the chances of the interviewer thinking about you for other roles that may be coming up.
- Don’t seek out the negative feedback first – such as the reasons you didn’t get the job – but instead concentrate on the positives by asking what you did well. Giving the interviewer the time and space to give positive feedback will likely encourage them to progress onto more delicate feedback about where you could improve.
- Find out how you were perceived by the interviewer. Understanding the impression you created during the process is very useful, and once you know how you come across, you can consciously work to change and/or improve your interview performance.
- If you’re finding it hard to get honest developmental feedback from your interviewer, ask whether there are two or three things they think you could do differently and/or extra which would help you next time. By focusing constructive feedback on your next interview, you will alleviate a lot of the anxiety about giving specific feedback on your recent interview.
- Be sure to make a positive last impression. If you do get feedback, thank the interviewer for it and make a reference to the advice you’ve received. As you close the conversation, tell them they know you and have got your CV if any opportunities come up in the future. If you handle the end of your interview well you could find yourself the first to hear of other opportunities.
It’s quite scary for an interviewer to give feedback as they don’t know if you’re going to raise a grievance or a tribunal claim. If they’re reluctant to give you feedback, bear in mind they’re not disinterested – it’s just an unfortunate sign of the world we now live in.