5 critical steps to a great candidate experience

The ability to attract and retain talent on a consistent basis is a key tenet to the prosperity of any organization.

To do this, employers have started to shift their focus away from sourcing tools and instead to creating better candidate experiences.

Research from CareerBuilder in 2015 found that 82 percent of employers felt there was no negative impact to the business if a candidate had a less than stellar experience.

Bu, in fact, 69 percent of candidates said that a negative experience would create a poor perception of the organization for them, decrease their likelihood of becoming a customer, and could lead them to inform others not to buy, too.

If the organization’s lucky, they’ll only tell their friends — if you’re not, they’ll tell the whole world through public review websites like Glassdoor.

So, here are five critical steps to ensuring you offer candidates a GREAT experience:

Communicate

Keep lines of communication open and ensure a candidate is informed every step of the way. Send reminder emails, send thank you emails, and promptly send rejection emails.

A pain point for many candidates is the ‘not knowing’. Being transparent and open minimizes this effect.

Structure

Use a structured interview process – where each interview has a specific purpose and each candidate goes through the same set of interviews.

This ensures that your team and the candidates are clear as to the process and also enables you to maintain objectivity in your evaluations.

Introduce

Informing candidates about your team (their interviewers) prior to the interview experience allows the candidate to stay informed and prepare fully, helping to create a sense of ease. It also allows the candidate to build rapport and learn more about the company culture.

Evaluate

To really improve your candidate experience, hold your team accountable. Tie your recruiter’s goals directly to the candidate experience, ensuring that their experience is your experience.

Employer empathy is also a huge attraction for candidates, with 77% of employees saying they’d work longer hours for an empathetic employer.

Survey

Survey your candidates after they exit your process to really find out how their experience was. Leave it a few weeks before sending this — a candidate still in the running may not give you honest feedback and a few weeks is usually enough for a rejected candidate to remain objective.

While every company understands the importance of having great customer service, the same principles need to apply to candidates as well. Creating an excellent candidate experience will pay dividends for a long time to come.