How to Give Effective Job Feedback to Students

By Jordyn Austin on April 3, 2017

Feedback is a critical part of the post-hiring process. Feedback is also a very important skill of communication. Sometimes students get stuck in a job where they are never given feedback about how they are doing. This can cause the student to doubt themselves about their capabilities. They have no idea whether they are performing well or poorly.

Feedback is essential to growth. If you want your company to grow and improve, you have to know the proper way to give feedback to the important people that help keep your company afloat. There are plenty of ways to give feedback to your students. Here is the kind of feedback students need from you as recruiters and managers.

image via https://www.pixabay.com

Types of feedback

Constructive

When offering feedback, it is important to be constructive with your comments. If the feedback is more for the purposes of improvement, you always want to offer constructive criticism and give ways to make something better, not worse. It is beneficial to ask yourself if your feedback will help your student boost their performance on the job.

Any time you give feedback to your student, you should also be giving the students the resources and tools they need in order to improve something. Leaving a student high and dry to figure everything out for themselves will not be good for the student or even the wellness of the company. The best way to achieve this is being specific about what they can improve on and how they can do it.

Positive

In addition to making sure your feedback is constructive, positivity is the better way to go when giving feedback. As a recruiter or manager, you should never approach a student with a negative attitude. This will make them feel as though they are doing an overall terrible job. In fact, before you give any type of negative feedback, you should start with something positive. Talk about what your student is doing well and then expand on what could be improved.

Respectful

You should approach your student with respect and strive to protect their dignity. This means considering time and place to give your feedback. In front of their peers may not be the best time to correct something they are doing wrong. This also includes keeping discussions private and confidential, unless it is something important that the whole company can benefit from. Even then, it should be announced in a respectful way, keeping personal factors of the student private.

Being respectful of this also allows you to level with the student and possibly receive feedback about yourself from them as well. Students like someone who admits they are not perfect and who would like to improve also. This takes the sole responsibility off of them and creates a 50/50 environment in the workplace.

Honest

As a recruiter or manager, listening is a good skill to have. Students perform better when they know their thoughts and opinions are being honestly considered. You should listen to your student’s thought process and concerns before ever giving feedback to them. Never forget to consistently tell them what they are doing correctly. When giving feedback you should also focus on behaviors you have personally observed, not what other workers have told you in order to avoid a “he said/she said” atmosphere. Part of listening is understanding and being able to place yourself in someone’s shoes. You cannot place yourself in someone else’s shoes if you can’t observe them and instead infer about why they operate the way they do.

How to give feedback 

As far as the form in which you give feedback, it depends on the severity of the issue you may be addressing and whether the feedback is about something negative. Something small can be addressed through an email or phone call. However, something large should probably be discussed in person. In the end, you as the leader have to gauge each situation and determine how your student will best receive what you are trying to say.

Positive praises about victories might be better accepted in person from a student. The student will likely feel more appreciated if you take the time to tell them how well they are doing to their face. It is also your task as a manager or recruiter to determine how often to offer feedback. It is common for feedback to be given to a student in the form of a “monthly review.” So, every 30 days the student is receiving comments on what they did great this month and what can be improved for the next month.

Sometimes it is necessary for feedback to be given right away though in order to be effective. Once a certain amount of time passes, the student may not even remember the instance you are talking about. If it is not something that can wait until the monthly review, then it is best to address it right away.

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