Feedback-driven, recruiting best practice concepts are relatively new, yet the potential for meaningful change is huge. Born out of the push for a smoother candidate experience, early tactics focused on point-in-time surveys. These aimed to understand candidate satisfaction and help deliver better experiences.
Learn from Customer Service
Companies that looked at recruiting through the eyes of candidates found a gold mine of insights. Some feedback was positive, but much of it showed gaps. This gave rise to the feedback-driven recruiting trend. Customer service teams followed a similar path. They began with basic surveys to measure satisfaction. Over time, they realized that simple feedback wasn’t enough to drive loyalty or results. They changed their strategies to improve both satisfaction and company performance.
Retain, Don’t Just Acquire
In customer service, it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to find a new one. The same is true for candidates. In best practice recruiting, it’s more effective to engage your existing talent pool than always look for new applicants. Loyalty matters. Talent teams must ask what drives people to apply again, refer others, or respond to new job openings. Recruitment outsourcing teams can’t ignore this. Feedback tools help you track candidate sentiment and grow that loyalty.
Link Candidate Feedback to Business Outcomes
Customer service leaders learned that loyalty must tie back to business goals. It’s not just about making people happy. It’s about repeat buyers, referrals, and brand growth. Recruiting can take the same lesson. What happens when candidates feel respected and heard? Do they refer others? Do they return for future roles? Do they accept offers faster? Effective recruitment strategies need to test these ideas through feedback.
Build a Clear Metric
Customer service has Net Promoter Score (NPS) to track loyalty. Recruiting can use a similar model. Talent feedback should help you build a key indicator that tracks candidate satisfaction and loyalty over time. Use this to see if your hiring strategies work or need changes. This becomes your dashboard. It lets leaders know where things stand and where to focus. Good data helps you hire top talent more efficiently.
Learn What Drives Loyalty
In customer service, loyalty can come from rewards programs, fair prices, or great service. In recruiting, it might be a simple application process, clear communication, or feeling respected during interviews. Use your candidate experience survey to find these key drivers. Then build your process around them. Automate your hiring process where it helps, but keep it human where it matters most.
Use Feedback, Don’t Just Collect It
At one point, customer service teams spent nearly $1 billion on satisfaction programs. Yet loyalty stayed flat. That’s because feedback alone does nothing. Action is what counts. Recruiting best practice teams need to use the feedback they gather. Find problems. Fix them. Show candidates you listen. Let the results show in your metrics. Don’t let scores sit in a spreadsheet.
Collect Feedback Often
Customer service teams gather feedback at each step in the customer lifecycle. Recruiting should do the same. Get candidate input after each key step in the process. Ask how recruiters did. Ask how the hiring manager treated them. Ask what confused or helped them. This builds accountability across recruiters, hiring managers, and HR leaders. It also helps you react fast when something breaks.
Final Thought
The lessons from customer service aren’t new. But they’re often ignored in recruiting. Feedback is the missing piece. Done well, it helps hiring teams move faster, cut waste, and hire better. A strong Talent Intelligence Platform should let you gather feedback, tie it to outcomes, and take action. That’s what moves recruiting forward.
For more on how leading companies use feedback in hiring, see the case studies from Workiva, Dent Wizard, and CDW. Or explore how other companies are changing the way they hire through smarter data, including insights on onboarding experience and quality of hire metrics.
FAQs
What is the best practice for recruitment?
Best practice means listening to candidates, acting on feedback, and using data to improve each step.
What are the 4 pillars of recruiting?
Attract, engage, assess, and hire. Each step should focus on clear and respectful communication.
What are the 3 P’s of recruitment?
People, process, and performance. All three matter for strong hiring results.
What are the three C’s of recruitment?
Clarity, communication, and consistency. These make the process smooth for candidates and teams alike.
