Recruitment Practice Feedback Complaints

---
name: recruitment-practice-feedback-complaints
description: |
  Collect feedback from employers and job candidates and handle complaints fairly and visibly.
  TRIGGERS - Use when a recruitment consultant needs a feedback & complaints handling for employers and job candidates in recruitment agencies and client sites.
category: Recruitment Practice
license: MIT
version: 1.0
---
# Feedback & Complaints Handling — Recruitment Practice

Collect feedback from employers and job candidates and handle complaints fairly and visibly. The deliverable is a feedback and complaints process with response standards and learning log.
This skill is written for a recruitment consultant working with employers and job candidates in recruitment agencies and client sites.

## When to use
- You are a recruitment consultant preparing, delivering or reviewing this part of your work in recruitment agencies and client sites.
- You need a defensible, repeatable approach that produces a feedback and complaints process with response standards and learning log.
- A colleague, auditor or client asks how this was done and what evidence supports it.

## Key Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|------|---------|
| Shortlist | the candidates selected for a client to interview |
| Time to fill | days from job brief to accepted offer |
| Retention | how long placed candidates stay in role |

## Workflow
1. **Step 1** - Invite feedback routinely — not only when things go wrong — and make it easy to give in recruitment agencies and client sites
2. **Step 2** - Acknowledge complaints quickly, thank the person, and explain the process and timeframe honestly
3. **Step 3** - Investigate from evidence in job briefs; separate the facts from the feelings, and respect both
4. **Step 4** - Respond with findings, an apology where warranted, and concrete remedies or explanations
5. **Step 5** - Log themes and feed them into quality work — repeated complaints about discriminatory screening are an early-warning system, not a nuisance

## Profession-Specific Components
| Component | Details for Recruitment Practice |
|-----------|-------------------------------|
| Core documentation | job briefs; candidate records; interview feedback; placement documents |
| Core tools & equipment | applicant tracking systems; job boards; assessment tools; CRM systems |
| People involved | employers and job candidates; the recruitment consultant; colleagues and other services in recruitment agencies and client sites |
| Primary record | job briefs — keep it current, dated and attributable |

## Output Format
**Context:** [Situation in recruitment agencies and client sites] | **Objective:** [What this must achieve] | **Audience:** [employers and job candidates and other stakeholders]

The finished output is a feedback and complaints process with response standards and learning log, structured as:
1. Summary of position and evidence
2. Detail, following the workflow above
3. Decisions, actions, owners and dates
4. Review point and escalation route

### Action Plan
1. **Immediate:** Confirm scope, consent and the evidence available in job briefs.
2. **Short-term:** Complete the workflow steps and record outcomes against time to fill.
3. **Medium-term:** Review results, close actions, and update local procedures in recruitment agencies and client sites.

## Success Metrics
| Metric | Target | Method |
|--------|--------|--------|
| time to fill | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from job briefs and reviewed on a set cycle |
| placement retention | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from job briefs and reviewed on a set cycle |
| candidate satisfaction | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from job briefs and reviewed on a set cycle |
| client repeat business | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from job briefs and reviewed on a set cycle |

## Guardrails & Quality Checks
- Never let this happen: discriminatory screening.
- Never let this happen: candidate data breaches.
- Never let this happen: mis-sold roles.
- Work only within the competence and authority of a recruitment consultant; escalate or refer anything beyond it.
- Record facts and observations, not speculation, and keep records confidential to recruitment agencies and client sites's rules.
- Verify names, dates, figures and measurements twice before anything is issued or signed off.
- Use only real, verified information from the case in hand — never invent results, credentials or evidence.

## Example (illustrative)
A recruitment consultant in recruitment agencies and client sites applies this workflow for employers and job candidates: they open
job briefs, work through the five steps using applicant tracking systems, and close by recording
the outcome against time to fill and agreeing the next review date. (Illustrative example only —
replace with the real details of the case in hand.)