Creating a Rejection Process

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure custom rejection and withdrawal reasons to improve hiring insights.

Rejection and Withdrawal Reasons

Configuring rejection and withdrawal reasons correctly helps you understand why candidates leave the hiring process, improve your recruiting approach, and keep accurate records. In SmartRecruiters, managing these reasons well ensures reliable data and provides valuable insight into how your hiring process is performing.

When a hiring team marks a candidate’s application as rejected or withdrawn, they can select a reason. These reasons help teams understand where candidates are being lost in the hiring process and why decisions are made.

There is an important difference between the two types of reasons:

  • Rejection reason: Explains why the hiring team chose not to move forward with a candidate’s application.
  • Withdrawal reason: Explains why the candidate chose to withdraw after applying for the role.

When managing rejection and withdrawal reasons, the following settings are available:

  • Display SmartRecruiters’ default rejection reasons
  • Require a reason when rejecting an application
Rejection & withdrawal reasons settings screen; defaults and require reason toggles on; input for custom reason; default item displayed.

Default Rejection Reasons

SmartRecruiters provides a default list of rejection and withdrawal reasons. The following rejection reasons are available by default and can be turned on or off:

  • Did not fit company culture
  • Did not meet desired qualifications
  • Did not meet minimum qualifications
  • Did not meet screening requirements
  • Incomplete application
  • Ineligible to work in location
  • Misrepresented qualifications
  • More qualified candidate selected
  • No show for interview
  • Other
  • Unresponsive

Default Withdrawal Reasons

The following withdrawal reasons are available by default and can be turned on or off:

  • Took another job
  • Compensation
  • Personal reasons
  • Not willing to relocate
  • Commute
  • Cultural fit
  • Lack of recruiter follow-up
  • Confusing job description
  • Will stay in current company
  • Not interested in the first place

Custom Rejection Reasons

If needed, you can customize the list of rejection reasons to better reflect the specific circumstances of your hiring process. You can add, remove, and update reasons as needed. Furthermore, you can require users to select a reason when rejecting or withdrawing a candidate, ensuring consistent data collection.

Add a Custom Rejection Reason

Steps

  1. Navigate to Settings.

  2. In the Configuration section, select Rejection & withdrawal reasons.

  3. Select the tab Rejection reasons to create a new rejection reason.

  4. In the Custom rejection reason field, enter the name of your custom reason.

  5. Select Add rejection reason.

    The rejection reasons settings page displaying enabled toggles, custom reason input highlighted.

  6. Repeat the same process to create custom withdrawal reasons, but this time from within the Withdrawal reasons tab.

Use Case Example: Improving Company B's Candidate Experience Through Custom Rejection Reasons

Company B has been using SmartRecruiters for 6 months and has noticed a pattern in their quarterly recruitment reports: a high number of candidates are being rejected with the generic reason Other, making it difficult to identify specific bottlenecks in their hiring process.

The Challenge:

The Talent Acquisition (TA) Director reviews the data and realizes they can't answer key questions:

  • Are candidates being rejected due to scheduling conflicts?
  • Is compensation misalignment a recurring issue?
  • Are certain positions attracting unqualified applicants due to unclear job descriptions?

Without specific rejection data, Company B can't pinpoint where to improve its recruitment process or candidate experience.

The Solution:

The Admin team analyzes feedback from recruiters and hiring managers and decides to create custom rejection and withdrawal reasons that reflect Company B's specific challenges.

Custom Rejection Reasons Added:

  • Scheduling conflicts - unable to accommodate interview times.
  • Overqualified for position.
  • Lack of retail experience.
  • Failed background check.

Custom Withdrawal Reasons Added:

  • Accepted position with competitor.
  • Interview process too lengthy.
  • Relocation assistance not offered.

Additionally, they enabled the Require a reason when rejecting an application setting, ensuring consistent data collection across all hiring teams.

The Result:

Three months later, Company B's analytics reveal that 40% of withdrawals cite Interview process too lengthy. Armed with this insight, they streamlined their hiring process from 4 weeks to 2 weeks, significantly improving their offer acceptance rate and candidate experience.

Watch the video below for more details about working with rejection and withdrawal reasons.

This video is for demonstration purposes. Any references made in this video to previous or later videos in this course (including titles, numbers, links, or sequence) may differ from the current course structure. Additionally, some functionalities shown may have evolved over time due to ongoing enhancements or business decisions.

Summary

  • Configuring withdrawal reasons is crucial for understanding why candidates drop out of the hiring process and improving your recruitment strategy.
  • Rejection reasons explain why the hiring team decided not to proceed with a candidate, while withdrawal reasons describe why the candidate withdrew.
  • SmartRecruiters provides a default list of rejection and withdrawal reasons that can be turned on or off.
  • You can customize the list of rejection reasons to better reflect the specific circumstances of your hiring process.
  • You can require users to select a reason when rejecting or withdrawing a candidate, ensuring consistent data collection.

Learning

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