As hiring becomes more aggressive every day, the skills shortage will likely become a top concern for recruiters and HR professionals. This makes understanding the factors that impact your company’s approach to finding, attracting, and retaining top talent more important. It is also important to note that the modern hiring landscape is candidate-driven. With this in mind, candidate experience is a direct line to supporting your recruiting efforts.
Also, if inadvertent, it contributes to your company’s demise. Let’s look at why candidate experience matters and how you can improve it.
Why is Candidate Experience a Vital Component of the Hiring Process?
It is easy to think of candidate experience as one applicant’s take on your hiring process. However, the process applicants go through is not isolated. There are many people applying for one position, and while you might be looking for one perfect hire, your brand leaves an impression on all other candidates. So, candidate experience matters because:
It Prevents Burning Bridges
How your company handles rejections contributes to the overall candidate experience. If handled poorly, job seekers might be so turned off that they never apply to your listings even if they ate a good fit the next time around.
It Affects Your Bottom Line
A poor candidate experience might also turn off individuals from purchasing your goods and services in the future. This is because most applicants might also be your customers. Therefore, it is vital to consider how user-friendly your application process is and how you handle rejections.
It Strengthens Your Brand
The hiring process is often the applicants’ first insight into a day in the life at your company. A negative impression will sway potential candidates to a competitor’s careers page. Also, these individuals will not keep the experience to themselves. A positive experience will propel your brand to new heights.
It Improves the Quality of Hires
A positive candidate experience will help you make the best impression on top talent. This way, you can win over the best job seekers before your competitors. Giving the applicants what they need throughout the hiring process will encourage top talent to accept the job offer.
It Decreases Time to Hire
In most instances, qualified candidates evaporate from the job market within ten days. You need a streamlined candidate experience to move your company to the top of the competitive job seeker’s list. A seamless process will keep applicants engaged and your hiring on track.
Practical Ways To Improve Candidate Experience
A significant percentage of job seekers have had at least one bad experience during the hiring process. If you want to attract top talent in the competitive job market, you need to have great candidate experience. In this section, you’ll learn how to improve candidate experience.
Focus on a Good Job Listing
When applying for jobs, candidates have to sift through hundreds of openings to find one that catches their interest. These are critical pieces of content that applicants read while thinking about whether they can submit their resumes to the company. Therefore, ensure that your job description is straightforward and digestible. You must write clear and accurate expectations on the job and responsibilities. Avoid giving long lists of requirements as they might deter people from applying.
Make it Easy to Apply
While you can focus on job advertisements, you should have an easy-to-find career page on your official website. It is important to make sure that the career sites give applicants relevant instructions for the job application. Your recruitment process should also be as simple as possible to encourage candidates to fill out the application form.
Avoid Bias
It makes sense to go over the language on your job description to reduce bias. You should also avoid bias in other aspects of the application process. This is by ensuring that you are fair and transparent throughout the process. You can use advanced technology to remove bias and analyze your potential candidates on an even field. Besides, you should consider training your HR professionals and recruiting staff to ensure fairness when interviewing qualified candidates.
Communicate
Communication is a vital aspect of the candidate experience, and lack of communication is one of the major problems. You should put up a strict policy to avoid communication breakdowns during the hiring process. You can reach out to the candidates to provide an update on their application status. If they are disqualified, let them know within the shortest time possible.
Focus on Feedback
When applicants fail to qualify for the job, sending rejection emails is one of the best things you can do. These emails can provide detailed information on the candidates’ resumes and interviews. You can help them understand why they were disqualified and the areas they need to improve for future interviews. By delivering feedback, you can foster a good relationship with the candidates because they feel you cred about them.
Interview With a Purpose
Interviews play a significant role in candidate experience. Therefore you should look through your interview process to ensure it’s intentional. It should have some solid guiding principles that ensure it is not too long or complicated to turn away qualified candidates.
Ask Candidates for Feedback
Asking candidates and new employees for feedback is an ideal way to know how to improve candidate experience. You can ask them to provide feedback through email or over the phone after the process. They are likely to share their experiences about the whole process, which will help you identify gaps in your recruitment process and look for the best solutions to eliminate them. This way, you’ll give your next candidates the best experience.
Improve Your Candidate Experience Today
Undoubtedly, candidate experience plays a crucial role in your brand. Therefore, you should handle your recruitment process with the ultimate care to avoid turning away top talent. You should also find your candidates with no bias and focus on feedback even after the process. Various sources also can help you learn how to improve candidate experience to help the company retain the best talent and a positive reputation.
