Human Resources
—
9
min read
Give your people a voice with a tailored Xref Engage survey.
Increase retention and reduce turnover with quick employee feedback from an Xref Pulse Survey.
Think about it: how do you treat your candidates during recruitment? Do you treat them the same way you treat your customers? In the recruitment sector today, candidate experience is indispensable.
Candidate experience has transformed to become an integral part of the recruiting process. Thus, HR departments and recruiters are consistently seeking ways to improve candidate experience for faster recruitment.
But why is candidate experience important for your company?
Candidate experience will determine how successful your talent acquisition approach is. It affects the type of candidates you attract, thus impacting the future of your company. With the number of job opportunities available to candidates, they have more options to choose from, which is why they go for what suits them best.
To acquire top talents, eliminating frustrations and delays is vital. And for faster recruitment, candidate experience matters.
But how can you ensure a pleasant experience for your candidates? To get you started, the following are pro tips on how you can create a great candidate experience.
Do you ensure frequent and clear communication with your candidates? Do they know what is happening with their application? During the recruitment process, the candidate ought to be kept in light of the progress.
Providing steady and frequent communication creates a positive candidate experience. Give them honest feedback whether their application goes through or not. It makes them feel valued even when not selected.
Also, remember a recruitment process is a two-way mechanism. Consider asking for feedback from the candidate. This not only helps you improve their experience but also helps you rectify issues in the process.
Proper communication is a way to maintain a candidate's interest and build a strong rapport.
How do you treat your candidates during the process? Do they feel valued and respected? Do they feel ghosted? How you treat candidates impacts their experience drastically.
No one wants to be treated like a number. When interacting with candidates during the interviewing process, be warm, friendly, and respectful. Have a personal conversation with them, making them feel appreciated and welcome.
A candidate can deduce your company's culture right from the interviewing process.
How honest are you with the job description? Do you aim to attract candidates by giving false information about the role? Right from the start, the recruitment process should be open, transparent, and clear.
Provide a clear job description, requirements, and even your organisation's culture and values. The candidates rely on the info to determine if they are your match. Even if you win them with inaccurate information, they are likely to quit when they realise it.
By being transparent, you give candidates control to have confidence and trust towards your company. You don't want the candidate to feel betrayed along the process if they discern some information provided wasn't correct.
Create a great candidate experience by being honest and transparent during the hiring process.
How long does your recruitment process take? Perhaps you give unnecessary sweat and tears to your candidates. This could also be affecting your candidate experience.
A thorough assessment of your candidates is key—however, test and measure what is necessary for the role. Please don't go overboard to make them handle unnecessary tasks which are not even related to their job.
Do you know a negative experience will destroy a candidate's perception of a company or job? Similarly, a positive experience can clarify doubts a candidate once had about the company.
Keep the interview short, sweet, and engaging.
Imagine working in a team where you don't know the names of new members. Not good, right?
It's important to introduce yourself and team members when you have a new recruit overboard. New recruits are curious to know about people who are already on the team. Initial interaction will help establish rapport between the new hires and existing employees.
You may decide to have video interviews with existing employees and post them on the career page.
When candidates get introduced to the team, they feel welcome and appreciated. This improves their recruiting process experience.
How easily can your candidates get in touch with you when they have a question or concern? Or are you among the hiring managers who feel untouchable to candidates? If so, know you damage your reputation and disinterest job applicants.
Top companies don't hide behind a curtain. They make it easy for job applicants to access them, creating a cordial experience.
Also, note that millennial candidates want you to have hiring efficiency. Thus, don't complicate your hiring process since you are likely to lose the best candidates to your competitors. Ensure the process is easy, brief, and accessible.
What about catering your process to suit the job applicant's preference and lifestyle? Go the extra mile to create a favourable candidate experience and get top talents in return.
In addition, be accommodating with candidates' schedules. Ask them about the convenient time and date when they can attend meetings or interviews. Being flexible means you can consider busy applicants who can opt to work for your company.
Maybe you can consider virtual and phone interviews if the job role allows. There are multiple ways to transform your recruiting process to make it flexible for the applicants.
In the highly competitive recruiting sector today, top-notch candidate experience is invaluable. For successful and faster recruitment, it's important to eliminate negative experiences for candidates. Treating candidates like your important customers is key to acquiring top talents.
Improve the candidate experience by making the employer brand attractive, optimising the application process, and communicating with candidates.
Here are 3 tips that if implemented will help you reduce your time-to-hire:
1. Don’t waste time
It is important for you and your candidates, that no time is wasted during the hiring journey. Break down each stage of your recruitment process and see where the most time is spent.
Consider how you can adjust the process to be more efficient.
There is a lot of great recruitment tech available that can help and automating your references with Xref is a pretty great place to start!
2. Create space
Recruiters should have ample time in their schedules to build strong relationships and networks.
Allow the breathing space that talent acquisition and recruitment professionals need to continue to look for great talent.
Have a look at the admin tasks performed by HR professionals. Consider how many of those repetitive tasks could be automated by implementing the right technology.
3. Deliver the best experience
Efficient recruitment processes save time and enable HR teams to deliver the best experience for everyone involved.
A great experience can stay with a candidate throughout their career while a bad first impression can have a devastating impact on the employer brand.
Save time by preemptively keeping job seekers up-to-date. Having a transparent process will help deter candidates from calling or emailing to check up on the progress and help them to feel more at ease with the process.
Improving candidate experience has and always will be high on the HR agenda. It’s important to keep in mind that a good candidate experience is an excellent message about your brand for applicants and will help you close open positions faster.
Reference checking is one part of the recruitment process and it's important that it fits in well with the rest of the hiring process. If you need assistance in creating an efficient reference checking system that works, why not try Xref.
Uncover data-driven, actionable insights with automated reference, pulse and exit surveys.
