Want Better Candidates From Your Agencies? Give Feedback Within 48 Hours.
When a company is unhappy with the candidates an agency sends, the complaint is usually about quality. It is much less common to ask a simple question first: did the agency ever hear back on the last batch?
An agency learns what "good" looks like for your role from only one place, your response. If that response is slow, vague or missing, the next batch will look a lot like the last one.
The cost of silence
Hiring is already slow. Gem's 2025 benchmark puts average time to hire at 41 days, up 24% from 33 days in 2021. The People's Board reports that 64% of candidates expect to hear back within a week of an interview.
Every extra day without feedback is a day a strong candidate can accept another offer. And every batch of profiles that goes unanswered is a missed chance to teach the agency something.
Why feedback is often too vague
Naukri's guidance on recruiter communication points to a common cause of breakdowns: hiring managers who give vague feedback to recruiters. A line like "not the right fit" feels like an answer, but it tells the agency nothing about what to change.
A vague no does not improve the next submission. It only makes the process longer.
What good feedback looks like
1. It is fast. Aim to respond to a submitted profile within 48 hours, and to an interview within 24 hours. Agencies work on many requirements at once, and they tend to put effort where they get answers.
2. It is specific. Pick a reason from a short list, then add one line of detail:
- Skills gap
- Experience level
- Salary expectation
- Notice period
- Communication
- Location
3. It updates the brief. If the budget, must-have skills or timeline change, tell the agency right away. A good candidate for last week's brief may be the wrong one for this week's.
A simple weekly rhythm
You do not need a new process. You need a habit.
- Hold a 15 minute weekly review of every open shortlist.
- Give each profile one of three outcomes: advance, reject or hold.
- For every reject, write one line using this template:
Profile: name
Decision: advance or reject
Reason: one item from the list above, plus one line of detail
What we need instead: one sentence
- Track how long it takes your team to respond. If it is more than two days, that is the first thing to fix.
What you get back
Within two or three rounds of specific feedback, agencies calibrate. You see fewer irrelevant profiles, fewer wasted interviews and shorter time to hire. The effort you put in comes back as time saved.
Where a marketplace fits
When you work with several agencies at once, feedback gets scattered across emails and chats, and the same reply is sent again and again. In a recruitment agency marketplace, all submissions for a role sit in one place, so you can mark a profile as shortlisted or rejected with a reason in one step. You pay only when a hire joins, so agencies have every reason to act on what you tell them.
The bottom line
Better candidates rarely come from a better job description alone. They come from a tighter feedback loop. Respond within 48 hours, be specific about why, and keep the brief current. The agencies you work with will do the rest.
See how a recruitment agency marketplace works for your open roles. Book a free 20-minute demo.
Highring is a recruitment agency marketplace for companies and agencies. We are not a job board and do not accept direct resumes from candidates.