It is not easy to quantify why and how much do you like your mother’s chocolate chips cookies, while it’s hard to define Candidate Satisfaction, we can at least try to quantify where the Candidate Experience is breaking off.
Let us say you step into a five-star hotel jacuzzi, and you find it broken, as a patron you are not satisfied but what matters is how did Spa manager handles you. You may be a dissatisfied customer, who had a great Customer Experience.
In the case of Recruitment, here are some pointers to get started with on Candidate Experience. Before you feel all starry-eyed, you will have to have an analytical hiring system to get going.
(We would highly recommend you to read the 6 steps of creating a successful Candidate Experience strategy written by We Like Talent if you are planning to start measuring Candidate Experience.)
1. Candidate drop-offs
If you have a long and convoluted hiring process with multiple tests, assignment presentations, several panel interviews, and reviews, it is very likely to lead to a high number of candidates dropping out of the process. As will horrible UX on mobile sites or achingly slow page load times leading to user drop-offs.
Spending time assessing at what stage and why candidates drop off – and fixing the bumps in the hiring process – will drastically improve candidate experience.
It will do a lot of good if you explain the entire hiring workflow to each candidate at the very start.
2. Length of time from application to offer
Measuring the length of time from application to offer – or “time to hire” – is a classic recruiter KPI that has even more importance in the age of candidate experience.
The longer the application process, the more likely candidates will look for other roles and accept counteroffers. So speed is of the essence (without compromising on quality, of course), and both your candidates and your internal teams will thank you for it!
3. Interview to offer ratio
If you’re interviewing 15 candidates a day but only moving one forward to the next stage, it’s time to re-evaluate your screening process.
Interviewing is very costly as well as seriously time-consuming! If your interview to offer rate is low, your time investment is not paying off. If this is a problem you’re experiencing, think about strengthening candidate screening and being a little pickier about who you spend interview time on.
This ratio is highly co-related to Candidate Experience, the fewer candidates you have to reject after an interview, the better their candidate experience. Remember that interviews are emotionally effortful and time-consuming for candidates too.
4. Offer acceptance rate
Depending on the seniority of the role and industry, you should be aiming for an 85%+ offer acceptance rate.
The time and effort invested in moving candidates through the process are wasted if they turn down offers at the last minute. If your offer acceptance rate is low and candidates aren’t buying what you’re selling, then focus on pre-closing the candidate. This way you can make sure expectations are aligned.
5. Candidate Feedback
Getting feedback from candidates is crucial if you want to know if you are engaging with them meaningfully. Asking a few very simple yes/no, multiple choice and free answer questions in a post-engagement survey will show candidates you care about their feedback
Getting (and acting on!) feedback boosts engagement, ups referrals, and will send your net promoter score soaring.
6. Referrals
Do you ask applicants how they heard about your company is a simple, easy way to monitor whether candidates are referring you to their contacts?
Implementing a referral program is a simple way to up the number of referrals, but so is providing a great Candidate Experience. The better experience a candidate has, the more likely they are to go out of their way to recommend you to a colleague/ ex-colleague/ friend.
7. Net Promoter Score
It is the next step of Referrals and Candidate Feedback. Net Promoter Score sounds overwhelming to calculate, but it’s not. NPS involves working out how likely a candidate is to refer your company to contact on a scale of 1 to 10.
The score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of “detractors” (those who score 1-6) from the percentage of “promoters” (those who score 9 or 10). Scores can range from -100 to 100, with anything over 0 being good and anything over 50 being awesome.
The most important KPI is the “net promoter score, which focuses on candidate experience. It’s important that even rejected candidates also have a great experience.
Some news before you start:
Good news: all candidate experience KPIs above are interconnected. As one improves, so do the others.
Bad news: It is easy to dream and start things in a huff, frustrating thing is to make it a regular habit. It’s no good sending out a survey, then parking the issue for another few months. Once you’ve chosen which KPIs to measure, set up monthly benchmarking reviews and cadence to incorporate learnings and insights.
The key is not what your results are now, but how they improve over the next few months.
