Walk your own recruitment journey
Most hiring managers have never been through their own recruitment process.
They design it.
They approve it.
They defend it.
But they do not experience it.
That gap matters more than many organisations realise. It creates blind spots that quietly cost good people.
What does your recruitment process feel like as a candidate?
Imagine applying for a role at your own organisation today.
No insider knowledge.
No shortcuts.
No context about how things really work (or how you believe they should)
Just the same experience every candidate gets.
Very few organisations ever do this. Most rely on internal reviews, process maps and performance metrics. All useful, but none of them tell you what it actually feels like to be on the receiving end.
And that experience is where many problems live.
The first click is often the last
This is where candidates begin to drop away.
Broken application links.
Expired adverts still live.
Careers pages that look like they haven’t been updated in years.
Candidates rarely complain direct about this. They just leave and move on to an organisation that feels easier to engage with, but will often vent their frustrations to friends or on social media.
Job adverts that put people off
Many job adverts read like a shopping list of demands.
Endless must haves.
Vague role purpose.
No sense of impact.
No clear reason to choose this job over any other similar one.
If you were reading this as an external candidate, would you apply? Or would you decide this does not feel like a place that really wants people to succeed?
The application obstacle course
Upload your CV.
Now type all the same information into the system again.
Then repeat it.
Then complete mandatory fields that do not feel relevant.
Then hope the system does not time out and wipe your progress.
The message this sends, even if unintended, is that the candidate’s time is not particularly valued.
Automation without care
Automation is not the problem. Careless automation is.
Messages that say Dear [insert candidate first name].
Emails with the wrong name.
Generic wording that could have been sent to anyone.
Rejection email at 8pm on a Sunday.
Efficiency without a human touch does not feel efficient to the person receiving it. It feels indifferent.
Endless stages, little clarity
Over time, recruitment processes tend to grow.
A screening call becomes standard.
Then a first interview.
Then a second.
Then a panel.
Then an assessment.
Then a presentation.
Each stage is usually added for a sensible reason, but overlaps become friction points, different people asking the same questions, requesting the exact same information. The cumulative effect is that good candidates drop out. Not because they lack interest, but because the process feels heavy, slow or unclear.
The silence between steps
What candidates experience most is not rejection. It’s silence.
Long gaps.
No updates.
Unanswered emails
Calls not returned
No sense of who owns the next step.
No idea what happens now.
Candidates do not wait indefinitely. They move forward with organisations that communicate clearly and promptly.
The rejection people remember
There is often debate about whether organisations should provide personalised feedback at application stage. In an ideal world, yes. In reality, though, for high volume roles or popular vacancies, this is rarely practical or sustainable.
The issue is not the lack of personalised feedback.
The issue is how rejection is communicated.
Many rejection emails are technically correct but emotionally empty.
“Unfortunately your application is not being progressed any further on this occasion”
It does the job, but only just.
There is no context.
No acknowledgement of the time and effort the person invested.
No sense that a human being ever saw their application.
Candidates understand that they will not be right for every role. What they react to is being made to feel invisible in the process.
A generic rejection does not have to feel cold.
A few small changes can make a big difference to how it lands.
Acknowledging the effort it takes to apply
Applying for roles takes time and emotional energy. Recognising this does not require individual, personalised feedback, just a few words that shows awareness of the effort involved.
Being clear without being curt
You can be honest that the role has attracted a high volume of strong applicants and that the decision was competitive. This provides context without opening the door to lengthy individual feedback requests.
Sounding like a person, not a system
Avoid language that feels like it was written by a database. Plain, human language goes a long way in showing respect, even when the message itself is a no.
Leaving the door open without overpromising
If appropriate, a light touch line about future roles can soften the impact. This should be genuine and not a blanket statement that everyone receives regardless of fit.
People remember how rejection made them feel long after they have forgotten the job title. They talk about it to friends, to colleagues and, sometimes, online. That experience becomes part of your employer brand, whether you intend it to or not.
You do not need to provide personalised feedback at application stage to create a decent experience. You just need to treat rejection as a human moment, not an administrative task.
Where bias lurks
Bias is not always loud or deliberate. Often it lives in the process itself.
Overly complex applications that favour those with more time.
Vague criteria that invite subjective judgement.
Too many stages that filter out people with caring responsibilities.
Decisions based on gut feel rather than evidence.
When no one walks the candidate journey, these issues are easy to miss.
Why internal reviews rarely surface this
Most recruitment reviews are done internally.
The same people.
The same assumptions.
The same shared understanding of how things are meant to work.
It is very difficult to objectively assess an experience you never personally have.
A question worth asking
When did you last apply for a role at your own organisation?
Not as yourself.
Not with insider knowledge.
But as a complete outsider.
If the answer is never; that is where the opportunity sits.
What I do differently when working with companies to improve processes
I apply for roles as a candidate.
End to end.
Independently.
Without insider access.
I experience the process exactly as an external applicant would and document every friction point, every confusing moment, the frustrations and every small barrier.
Recruitment failures are usually quiet. They do not show up in dashboards. They show up in who never applied, who dropped out and who decided not to bother again. They present themselves as unfilled roles and vacancies that take an age to fill.
A final thought
Great recruitment is rarely about adding more process or creating complexity.
It is about creating a better experience.
Walk the journey.
See what candidates see.
Fix what is invisible from the inside.
Tom helps organisations improve their recruitment processes by experiencing them exactly as candidates do. He identifies friction points, hidden barriers, and moments that quietly cost great people. By documenting these challenges and working with teams to address them, Tom helps create a recruitment experience that is clear, fair, and engaging — improving both candidate experience and hiring outcomes.
