How to create a great candidate experience

March 3, 2023
ANA LUIZA MAGALHÃES

How your candidates feel during the application and the hiring process can actually impact the results of your recruitment process. According to Echevarria, 50% of job seekers had declined a job offer due to poor candidate experience.

Creating a great candidate experience is not an extra, but a must for every serious recruitment process. If you plan to attract the best talents in the market, pay close attention to the experience they have when applying to your vacancies and waiting for the next steps.

As top candidates have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to job opportunities, you must make sure your process is seamless and takes good care of every candidate.

We’ve prepared 6 tips to help you trim your recruitment process and offer a great experience for your candidates. Let’s dive in:

Good practices for Candidate Experience

1 – Make sure the job description is well written

Typos and non-inclusive language can shrink trustability in your opportunity and make candidates change their minds about applying to your vacancy.

Also, a good job description needs to state all the information that may concern the candidate, such as:

  • Job title;
  • Job location;
  • Work arrangement (presential, hybrid or remote);
  • Introduction about the company;
  • Introduction about the vacancy;
  • Information about the role;
  • Requirements and desirables;
  • Any other information that will affect the employee’s experience.

2 – Make the application process easier

Be aware of all the stages a candidate goes through in the application process, from the moment the candidate meets the vacancy to the end of the process, whether they get hired or not.

Identify the stages the experience is difficult or confusing and create the demand in your team to solve the issues. It may be necessary to review and restructure the whole process. If that’s the case, take the time it needs to redesign the process, it will be worth it.

Find a way to measure how the experience of each candidate in your company was, by submitting a survey with questions that will help you perfect the process.

3 – Let the candidate know what to expect next

The feeling that you applied to a “ghost vacancy” isn’t pleasant at all. A great candidate experience requires frequent communication about the next steps.

83% of candidates say it would greatly improve the overall experience if employers provided a clear timeline of the hiring process (Miller).

That’s why it is highly recommended that you let the candidates know in advance how they are positioned in the recruitment process and which are the steps until hiring.

4 – Send rejection emails

If you are not considering a candidate for the position anymore, let them know as soon as possible. Otherwise, the candidate will be anxiously waiting for an answer while he should be moving on.

Don’t give false expectations about the candidate’s position in the process. This way, you show respect for every candidate that gets into your process, not only the ones you select.

5 – Keep important information on the candidate’s records

If you or different members of your staff keep asking the candidates the same questions over and over again, candidates may feel they are talking to the walls, and no one is really listening or taking notes of their answers.

Also, the candidate may feel the recruitment process lacks organization and will be wondering if the process is trustable, seeing that the recruiters couldn’t even compile the information provided.

Recording candidates’ information will prevent further misunderstandings in the next stages of the process and is an act of respect towards the candidates.

6 – Be supportive

For several reasons, the recruitment process can be a sensitive experience for most professionals. The candidate doesn’t know much about the organization and is trying his best to show he’s the right choice.

According to Talentegy, 93,5% of candidates value the ability to find information about culture and benefits, and 85% value clear instructions on how to get help.

Be available to solve doubts and problems that may appear during the process and support the candidate with any issue they find.

Sourcing services still require attention to candidate experience

If you use sourcing services like ours to reach the best candidates, don’t be mistaken: you still need to offer a high-quality candidate experience in order to keep the best talents with you.

Of course, the sourcing agency also holds the responsibility to have a great candidate experience, but if you don’t support that, you may break the experience and cause a break of expectation in the candidate, causing them to lose interest in the process.

Besides that, most candidates face the candidate experience as a preview of the employee experience itself. So invest time in building a remarkable candidate experience and the effort will pay off soon.

And, if you want to build a digital squad, we can help with that in record time! Contact us here and get to know more about our staffing services.

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