From A Recruiter: Is Asking For Interview Feedback A Crime?

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Recently I organized interview of a candidate for a director level position with one of our clients. Meeting was with CEO of the company, and was scheduled in a very short notice.

CEO was attending a program in candidate's city and wanted to meet him during lunch-break. However, candidate, being from the same industry, was not comfortable with the idea, fearing about the possibility of bumping into a few known persons there.

Well, I had to stretch my persuasion skills to a great extent and finally it happened as scheduled.

Within a couple of minutes after the meeting was over, candidate called me up and gave his feedback . I was happy to notice his professionalism and decided to find out other side of the story. So, I sent a sms to the CEO, followed by a email when I didn't receive any response from him.

After a day, when I emailed him again, asking for feedback, he replied with an underlying tone of annoyance for so persistently following up with him, writing : "I need this position filled up more than you and will give you the feedback at the right time, so don't follow-up so persistently."

Slightly taken aback by his reply, I, however,quickly recovered and mailed back: "We work hard to identify the right candidates for our clients and a single line communication - which may not even take a minute - motivates us enough to deliver the best, and also complete the communication cycle"

Now the question is: Was I wrong in asking for a feedback?

I don't know that but one thing is for sure, there was a great mismatch between our expectation level from each other.

Well, an in-depth introspection led to some sort of conclusions: 

Most of my clients are MNCs and very fast in completing information cycle. May be, I expected a similar response from him. However, he, being an orthodox CEO, brought up in a typical bureaucratic Indian corporate environment, perhaps never experienced a 'breathing down the neck' kind of follow-up and got irritated for genuine reasons (from his point of view).

It was a good learning experience for me: That I, as an entrepreneur, must assess, act, and react according to client's psychology. After all, my job is to keep them happy for maintaining a long term business association.