The “Candidate Experience” is a word that gets tossed around a lot. A common misconception is that recruiters believe it begins and ends with a job offer or rejection. Did you get a job offer? Okay great – then you must have had a good Candidate experience.
However, this isn’t the case. The Candidate experience encompasses the experience a Candidate has throughout every touchpoint with the employer during the hiring process, from job posting to onboarding or rejection.
In such a competitive job market, having a positive Candidate experience can help your company attract and retain top talent – with 76% of Candidates saying that a positive experience influenced their decision to accept a job offer.
Many companies don’t do it right. Studies have shown that over half of all Candidates have had a negative hiring experience in the past 12 months – with the same amount declining that job because of it.
So how do you stand out from the rest and attract top talent that sticks? Here are some top tips from our recruitment experts.
1. Simplified Application Process
Did you know that 92% of Candidates don’t finish an application because of the length or complexity? Imagine how much top talent you’re attracting but not retaining in the hiring process simply because you’ve made your application process too complex.
When a Candidate applies for a job, they want an easy application process. I’m sure we’ve all seen the meme going around that talks about filling out the same information that’s on your resume in the job application, after uploading said resume.
The more hoops you make your Candidates jump through, the less likely they’ll stay for the entire hiring process. That’s why we at TalentWorld have strategically made the application process simple, but effective.
Take our website for example, the user experience (UX) design focused on Job Seekers, so that they could find our jobs easily (multiple ways to search or filter) and seamlessly apply regardless of the device available to them (desktop or mobile).
Or look at our application process, we don’t make our job seekers rewrite all of the information on their resume after they’ve already uploaded it.
2. Transparency in the Posting
Imagine going through an entire hiring process, that is, writing an application, preparing for an interview, and speaking to the hiring manager only to find out at the end that the job doesn’t meet your expectations and so you end up rejecting the job offer. What a waste of time for both you and the recruiter, right?
Well, this unfortunately is common. Over half of all respondents in a recent survey stated that the lack of transparency in the job posting about compensation, benefits, and job responsibilities prompted the job seeker to decline the job offer.
By writing a well-thought-out job posting, with accurate information about the core responsibilities and requirements of the job, the company, and its culture, as well as compensation and benefits, you’ll be likely to attract talent that you’re actually looking for and are the right fit for the job.
For example, salary ranges are a popular topic of discussion when it comes to job posting transparency. Including this crucial piece of information about a job ensures that you are speaking and appealing to the correct people for the job and not wasting anyone's time. While this provision of the Working for Workers Four Act, 2024 is not currently in force in Ontario, 6 of Canada's 14 jurisdictions have already adopted pay transparency laws including Federal, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Improve your candidate's experience and save your recruiters time by proactively adopting pay transparency and internal pay equity measures now, rather than waiting for legislation to force action.
At TalentWorld, we make sure to write job postings with the Candidate in mind. Our persona storytelling helps us write accessible and intriguing job postings that offer transparency throughout the job description and outline who we want to apply. Answering questions like: What are they motivated by? Why would they choose your role over hundreds of others like it? This helps us write copy that speaks to the people we’re trying to attract and speed up the hiring process – because those who apply know they want this job.
With this simplified strategy, our efforts have proven successful and it's how we convert prospective candidates! We’ve had an Indeed application rate of 24% - that’s more than DOUBLE the industry average.
3. Communicate with your Candidates Promptly
Having good communication skills is something recruiters hiring for any role will be looking for. But before assessing the Candidate’s skills, have you looked within and answered that question for yourself?
The truth is that many companies have not. In 2024, 53% of job seekers say they have been ghosted by a potential employer and 31% said that were ghosted after the employer responded to their application, but before scheduling the interview.
Think about it, would you ever want to spend your energy applying to that company again after being ghosted the first time? Not only does it not feel good, but it can also lead to a bad reputation for your company.
At TalentWorld, we’re trying to change the staffing industry for the better. This means changing the longstanding precedent that it’s OK to ghost Candidates during the hiring process. By using technology where it makes sense, we’ve implemented automation throughout the hiring process to give recruiters back time to spend building meaningful relationships. By automating administrative and tedious tasks for our recruiters, we’ve provided them with more time for the important things like giving feedback and getting to know people.
Even if someone doesn’t get the job, it doesn’t mean they can’t have a good experience. Treating people well is always a win-win. You never know if they may apply again, refer a friend or sing high praises to their network.
These are just some of the ways you can change your company’s hiring process for the better so that Candidates can feel heard and not feel like they’re just another number in the system.
And the truth is, by prioritizing Candidates, we prioritize our internal recruiters as well. Why? Because they spend less time doing those mundane admin tasks associated with hiring and more time doing what they love – getting to know people and building relationships. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
If you’re looking to get more strategies on how to attract and retain top talent in this competitive job market, click here to download our whitepaper.
