Playbook, recruitment agency
Application status questions, and the answer that is not a status
The status question in most trades is about a parcel. Here it is about a person's hopes, it arrives several times from the same candidate, and the assistant has no way of looking it up, because it cannot see an applicant tracking system and cannot be given one. What it can do is explain what normal looks like, which is the thing nobody told the candidate at registration and the reason they are chasing in the first place.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for order status holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The status being asked about is a decision somebody else is still making rather than a state a system records, so even a consultant may not have an answer to give today.
- The candidate asking is usually chasing because expectations were never set, which means an explanation of the normal timeline resolves a real share of these without any lookup at all.
- Anything specific about the vacancy, the client's view or who else was submitted is confidential to the other side of the desk, so the assistant is bounded by more than its lack of access.
- The same person asks repeatedly over days, so the reply has to be one that reads acceptably the third time rather than one that only works once.
How it arrives
- what is happening with my application
- have you sent my cv anywhere
- did i get the job
- i had an interview last week and heard nothing
- how long does it usually take to hear back
- can someone tell me if i am still being considered
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your normal timeline after an application | When a candidate would usually hear from a consultant, what happens if a client is slow, and whether you contact unsuccessful applicants. This is the material that answers the question underneath the question, and most agencies have never written it down. |
|---|---|
| What each stage of your process actually means | Registered, submitted, shortlisted, interview arranged, offer. Candidates use these words differently from consultants, and defining them lets the assistant explain where a process typically pauses without claiming to know where theirs is. |
| Who to contact and how quickly they respond | The consultant, the team inbox, or a branch number, and your realistic response time. A handover that promises a call back the same day and does not produce one turns a chase into a complaint. |
| How to keep an application moving | Availability updates, outstanding documents, references, and anything the candidate can supply that unblocks a submission. Giving somebody an action is the most effective way to end a chasing loop. |
The reply
I cannot look up an application, so I would rather tell you what usually happens than guess. Once a consultant submits a candidate, feedback from the client typically takes a few days and can stretch further if they are interviewing in rounds, and we do come back either way. If your references or availability are still outstanding, sending those over is the quickest thing you can do to keep it moving. Leave your name and email and I will get your consultant to update you.
It says it cannot look anything up in the first sentence, because a candidate who works that out three replies in feels handled. The timeline is the actual answer to their anxiety and it costs the agency nothing to publish. Offering an action turns a passive chase into something the candidate can do, which is what stops them typing again tomorrow.
Where it stops
The trigger. The candidate names a role, a client or an interview date, or asks anything that requires reading their record.
I cannot see your record or the roles you have been put forward for, so let me get your consultant to come back to you. Leave your name and the email you registered with and I will pass it over today.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a CV has been sent to a client, or to which client.
- Never say whether somebody is still under consideration or has been rejected.
- Never give a reason a candidate was unsuccessful.
- Never say when a client will decide, or that a decision is close.
Questions
- If it cannot answer the most asked question, what is it doing on the site?
- Answering everything around it. Timesheet deadlines, pay dates, what a rate includes, registration documents and how long a process normally takes are high volume, entirely factual, and they are what consultants spend their afternoons repeating instead of filling roles.
- Could we connect it to our applicant tracking system?
- Not through this. It answers only from material you index and cannot look anything up in or write into any system, which for candidate records is the safer position anyway given what else sits in them.
- Does explaining the timeline actually reduce chasing?
- It reduces the chasing that comes from silence, which is most of it. A candidate who has been told that client feedback takes a few days waits those days. One who has been told nothing assumes they have been forgotten, and on the evidence of most agency inboxes they are usually right to.
Keep reading
- Everything for a recruitment agencyTwo audiences on one website. Process, payroll and compliance questions are answerable, application outcomes never are.
- Handling order status in generalThe most asked question in retail support and the one a document-based assistant cannot answer. What it can do instead, and where handover sits.
- Candidate registration, explained before anybody picks up the phoneRegistration steps, right to work documents and what happens before a first shift, answered at the hour candidates actually ask.
- Client billing questions, and the terms of business behind themTimesheet driven invoices, permanent fee triggers and rebate conditions. The client side billing questions with fixed, publishable answers.
- Erasure requests from candidates, and where they have to landA CV holding is exactly what erasure rights were written for. How the assistant routes the request and separates it from unsubscribing.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.