Want a Job? Ask for Feedback: New Research to Help Job Seekers Just in Time for Recruiting Season

It might sound like commonsense that feedback received after a job interview might help you prepare for the next one.

Now there’s solid research from the University of Arizona Eller College of Management that shows just how valuable feedback can be during a job hunt.

The researchers found that when job seekers receive feedback that is high quality in nature—such as specific feedback about the structure of their resume or how to better answer interview questions in the future—they are more likely to undertake tactics and strategies that can improve their performance in the next interview. In contrast, the researchers found that generic or—worse—no feedback actually undermined job seekers because they were unable to learn how to improve.

Eller PhD candidate Nitya Chawla and Eller professors Allison Gabriel and Jerel Slaughter along with Serge P. da Motta Veiga from American University found that, upon receiving useful, valuable feedback, job seekers actually become more engaged in the job hunting process—sending out more resumes, spending more hours researching opportunities and taking more time to brush up on their interview skills.

The authors sampled 93 active job seekers between 20 and 38 years old who engaged in a weekly survey for seven weeks about their job hunting experiences, submitting a total of 394 surveys. Each survey asked about the quality of the feedback received from specific companies, their emotions during the job search and the strategies they planned to use moving forward.

A key finding is that job seekers were open to receiving feedback even if it was negative as a way of actively taking steps to improve their job search. In fact, not receiving any feedback—or receiving low quality feedback—was viewed negatively, as no feedback forces job seekers to dwell on their own shortcomings in an already fraught experience.