To understand the word candidate experience you can also compare it to customer service. Customer service is a branch where the officials take care of customer satisfaction. Similarly, candidates act as the consumer while the employers who will be hiring will act as the customer service officials. The better the experience a candidate acquires the better the image of the company will be. In fact, according to a research survey, 78 percent of candidates say that the overall candidate experience that has been observed reflects the company’s values and how its staff is being treated.
Especially now when the interaction has become virtual, it has become quite hard to understand the candidate’s needs and accomplish these needs. However, it is possible to hire the best of the talents only when the candidate experience provided is good enough. In this article, we will take a look at the importance of candidate experience in recruitment and how it affects the entire process.
What is Candidate Experience?
Candidate experience can be rightfully said to be the way a candidate feels regarding the entire recruitment process. It can also be defined as follows:
“Candidate experience is a candidate’s overall view of the company’s recruitment process.”
There are certain expectations that candidates tend to carry due to which employers need to work hard to meet all those needs. While this may sound simple, it is actually very complex. Here we need to understand who the candidate will be. The candidate here is referred to not only the people who are currently seeking jobs but also those who are past candidates and the future candidates who have the potential for completing the task being assigned.
The overall view will refer to the feelings, attitudes, and behavior that a candidate experiences through the recruiter while the process is ongoing. This can be easily understood with the help of an example, where a candidate has applied for the job and even after two to three weeks there has been no reply through the employer then the candidate gets frustrated and the view regarding the entire company tends to degrade. The candidate might also take action on search sites and provide negative reviews regarding the company.
Factors Affecting Candidate Experience
There are various factors that affect the entire candidate experience throughout the recruiting process and some of them can be provided as follows:
- Communication of realistic expectations when it comes to completion of tasks and the work environment that the candidate will find at the company.
- Providing a clear statement on how the company values its staff and their views.
- Providing all the necessary details regarding the employment details to the candidates without any delay.
- Ensuring that an easy and mobile-friendly application is possible.
- Providing enough time for the candidate to understand each step of the process.
- Ensuring that the entire process of recruitment is smooth and pleasant without any hurdles.
- Being successful in converting the selected candidates into new employees without burdening the candidates.
- Maintaining a polite manner while even rejecting certain applicants for the job.
Once all of these factors are taken care of, it will be easier to understand how to improve the candidate experience and how it will smoothen out the entire process.
Read: How to Improve Candidate Experience from the Co-Founder & CEO of TurboHire.
Benefits of providing a good Candidate Experience
When we talk about the benefits of a good candidate experience, it is not just the candidate who is benefitting from the good experience, but it is also the company that gets a positive impact on the entire workforce. Here are three ways that a good candidate experience can improve the entire talent acquisition process:
1. It is possible to improve the retention of applicants
According to one of the researches conducted by Indeed, it was found that the application which had about 45 or more screening questions being included in them will lead to losing at least 88.7 percent of candidates who are considered to contain the potential for the position. One of the first steps that need to be taken to improve the candidate experience is to refine the application process and make it as easy as possible. Once the applications are made easier, it is possible to attract the best of candidates within a lower amount of time.
2. Make sure the first impression will always remain the best impression
Gigs are one of the most trending forms of work that people are interested in. In fact, it has been observed that according to labor economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger, there has been about 15.8 percent of the increase in the number of people opting for gigs than the previously observed stats of 10.1 percent in 2015. It is also seen that among these people at least 40% of the people have higher degrees. In this competition, the organizations need to work harder to make themselves one of the best places to work at. This means that organizations will need to ensure that the top talents get the best candidate experience through the applications provided.
3. Raising the bar of brand awareness level
The companies tend to run after increasing the brand awareness through various organic means however even after reaching out to a considerable amount of people it is hard to increase the brand awareness level. However, it is seen according to a survey conducted by Software Advice that when a candidate gets a good experience, about 71 percent of the candidates are ready to purchase services. This means that a good candidate experience will allow the bar of brand awareness level to be increased.
Tips on Improving Candidate Experience
Being a new recruiter, it might be hard to crack the best way to improve candidate experience, however here are some handy tips that will help you right away:
- Use of high-tech services in order to improve the quality of candidate experience.
- Either shorten the application process or maybe just omit the entire process and just ask to upload the resume. This resume can also further be analyzed using Resume Parser by TurboHire which provides a better evaluation to the recruiter.
- Provide better candidate experience to get better applicants every time you post a new job posting.
- Provide a clear and well-defined job description with everything in detail regarding the position.
- Ensure there is continuous engagement and keep the candidate in-loop with the updated information.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Why is candidate experience important?
A candidate first meets with the company through a job application which means that this first point of the meeting determines what the candidate thinks of the company and whether he or she would like to work for the company. If the candidate sees that the way the hiring process is conducted is very poor there are chances that the candidate may withdraw the application hence leading to loss of great talents. It is hence seen that candidate experience is very important in the recruitment process.
2. What are the important elements that a good candidate experience contains?
The following elements are important for a good candidate experience:
- Brand impact
- Interview and feedback
- Offering incentives
- Continuous engagement and attracting the candidate
- Smooth onboarding of the selected candidates.
3. Is it important to ensure a positive candidate experience while hiring a candidate?
Yes, ensuring a positive candidate experience means ensuring that the candidate gets a good and stress-free application for a job at your company. New candidates especially tend to be quite nervous regarding interviews and opening up to the recruiters which may lead to miscommunication and not being able to understand the actual qualities of the candidate. This in turn might be a great loss for the company. It is hence important that a positive candidate experience is maintained.
4. How does TurboHire help in improving candidate experience?
TurboHire provides great features through which companies can provide a smooth and seamless candidate experience. Some of the most common features that are used can be provided as follows:
- Providing easy and smooth communication via WhatsApp.
- Availing customized templates for the hiring process makes reaching out to candidates faster.
- Sending an SMS with auto-updates regarding the application status of the candidate.
5. Will negative candidate experience affect the company’s brand image as well?
It is for sure that the candidate experience affects the brand image of the company as well. This also means that a bad candidate experience means damage to the brand image of the company. It is hence seen that recruiters pay special attention to candidate experience and its strategies to improve the entire brand image of the company.
