Analysing and improving applicant feedback with ChatGPT

Recruiting is a dialogue. While you as a recruiter are looking for the ideal candidate for your open positions, applicants are simultaneously evaluating how attractive and suitable your company is for their career goals. A critical but often overlooked aspect of this dialogue is candidate feedback. This feedback is a goldmine that can not only improve the candidate experience, but also provide insights into how to optimise your recruitment process. In this article, you will learn how to use ChatGPT to effectively analyse candidate feedback and improve your recruiting strategy based on it.

Why is applicant feedback important?

Applicant feedback helps you to understand how your company and your recruitment process are perceived from the outside. It provides direct insight into areas that are working well and those that have room for improvement. This can relate to the quality of job adverts, communication during the application process or the transparency and fairness of the selection process.

How can ChatGPT help analyse feedback?

ChatGPT, as an advanced language model, can process large amounts of unstructured text and extract valuable insights from it. For example, by applying specific and creative prompts, you can use ChatGPT to:

• Identify common themes and sentiments in feedback.

• Generate suggestions for improvement.

• Recognise positive aspects and areas for improvement.

Creative prompts for analysing applicant feedback

Prompt 1: In-depth topic analysis

Summarise applicant feedback and identify hidden patterns or themes that could indicate deeper strengths or weaknesses in the recruitment process. 

Why this prompt? It goes beyond simple theme identification by encouraging ChatGPT to read between the lines. This approach helps you gain more nuanced insights into the feedback and uncover potentially overlooked aspects of your process.

Prompt 2: Advanced sentiment analysis

Analyse the sentiment of the following feedback on a deeper level. Distinguish between the emotional undertones, such as enthusiasm, disappointment or confusion, and assign them to corresponding aspects of the application process.

Why this prompt? This prompt encourages a differentiated view of sentiment. Rather than a simple categorisation of positive, neutral or negative, it allows you to understand the specific emotions of your applicants and how these can be attributed to certain experiences during the application process.

Prompt 3: Generation of action-oriented suggestions for improvement

Based on applicant feedback, generate innovative and actionable suggestions for improvement that could optimise the recruiting process in both the short and long term.

Why this prompt? This creative approach challenges ChatGPT to think beyond standard solutions and make suggestions that can really make a difference. Focussing on both short and long-term measures gives you a balanced mix of quick wins and sustainable development.

The benefits for you

Using these prompts will enable you to navigate systematically and efficiently through applicant feedback. You can use the insights gained to:

• Make your job adverts more precise.

• Refine your communication strategy with applicants.

• Make the entire selection process more candidate-friendly and strengthen your employer brand.

By actively responding to your applicants' feedback and making appropriate adjustments, you can not only improve the quality of your applicants, but also strengthen your company's employer branding. In the long term, this will lead to a more efficient recruitment process and greater satisfaction on both sides.