Ensuring candidate experience should be a must for every company, and as a recruiter, there are many ways on how you can do so through your recruitment system.
From the moment that you post job ads down to the onboarding recruitment process, you have the power to implement strategies and policies that could elevate the level of satisfaction that applicants get for them to be fully convinced to join your company.
Recruiting and hiring process
Take a look at this diagram below:
In any part of these stages, you can modify your approach until you onboard and successfully hire candidates-- avoiding drops along the way and giving you several opportunities to propel company growth on various fronts.
Before anything else, let’s delve deeper into why a great candidate experience is important to consider first in your hiring process.
Importance of Candidate Experience
Benefits of Giving Positive Candidate Experience
Arguably the most important reason, a positive candidate experience will most likely lead to a successful hire. Accordingly to IBM, 38% of the applicants who are satisfied with their candidate experiences are more likely to accept a job offer. And even if they didn’t, they are 80% more likely to apply to the same company again.
What does a good recruitment system offer?
- Promotes long tenureship
- Creates a strong company culture
- Reduces costs
- Strengthens employee loyalty
Consequences of Giving Negative Candidate Experience
Conversely, if they have a bad experience, 69% of the applicants revealed that they will never apply to your company again. That is very relevant to remember because it will deeply affect your future job posts and hurt your chances of getting potential top talents.
It doesn’t stop there. 72% of those that had an unpleasant candidate experience tend to share their story to their network (be it in person or online) as reported by HCI. Not only does this land you fewer applications, but it will leave a bitter taste on your employer branding plus have a high-profit loss-- it’s truly an HR nightmare!
Virgin Media, a UK cable and network provider, learned this the hard way. They shared how they were losing $5.4M annually because of the cancellations they got from displeased and rejected candidates, together with the influence they have on their peers.
“Then came the easy calculation: if there were 123,000 rejected candidates each year, and 6% canceled their monthly Virgin Media subscription, you end up with about 7,500 cancellations. Multiply that by the £50 ($60) subscription fee and by 12 months, and Johnson [Virgin Media - Head of Resources] realized Virgin Media was losing £4.4 million per year, the equivalent of $5.4 million.”
Several factors lead to this. It can be something as minor as an encounter with a rude receptionist, or it can be as shocking as a distasteful interview with an arrogant interviewer.
That probably scared you now, didn’t it? Don’t worry. These things can remain as it is: a nightmare. As long as you set the appropriate tone and guidelines for your entire recruiting systems, you won’t have to worry about these horrific instances happening in reality.
Here are ways how.
(RELATED: Read this article to know how to set great candidate experience using an ATS)
Improving the Recruitment System for a Great Candidate Experience
Hire to fill an actual need
As much as possible, don’t post ghost ads just to collect applicants for future use. Make sure you’re hiring to fill an actual need so that you don’t get anybody’s hopes up.
When people apply, naturally, they would want to hear confirmation of some sort. If this never comes, it’s going to be sour for them. Although your recruitment software makes it easy to post job ads, don't just do it on a whim.
Ramp up your content
Whatever you write and post on the net will be immortalized. It will be read by many people and their perception of your company can be based on that.
Whether it’s a portion on your “About Us” section, your career page, or even a job ad that you’re posting, ensure that it’s clear, transparent, and interesting. Now is the time to show off what your company has but be realistic. Double-check the tonality of your brand so that readers can have a good grasp of what you’re all about.
Manatal is an advanced applicant tracking system (ATS) that has a career page builder. It is customizable; making it easy to create a killer one that can easily convert. This ATS recruitment software is worth checking out if you need a quick and easy way to build one.
We have a guideline on how to create an exemplary one with your recruiting software, as well. Read this article.
Easy job application
You might be surprised by the number of people dropping an application just because it’s tedious due to the recruiting software not taking into account candidate experience.
You fill out long forms. You type a lot of details that are already in your resume-- that can give a bad candidate experience! It’s not a matter of being lazy. It’s just quite unnecessary especially when the information can be extracted more quickly.
For example, the recruiting software, Manatal, allows an easy apply feature so that details can be filled out automatically through LinkedIn integration or resume parsing, for instance. It can even be just a simple form with all the basic details, where you just follow up with a pre-interview call before proceeding with your recruitment system.
Make your career page accessible
Don’t underestimate the power of SEO. Let Google do the work for you and provide you with applicants when you least expect it.
With the right keywords and recruiting software, people can easily find your page and apply it when it piques their interest.
Going mobile is something that you should also consider so that people can apply anytime and anywhere with their mobile devices-- a great upgrade to your recruitment system.
Follow-up early (and often)
Understandably, you forget to send follow-up messages, especially when they’re not favorable. However, these can go a long way in promoting an excellent candidate experience using your applicant tracking system.
When you send emails-- whether positive or negative-- the applicant will be notified of their status, thus allowing them to strategize their next steps. If they get accepted, they can now think if they will accept it or not. If they know that they didn’t get in, at least they know that they can move on to the next company to apply for.
Anyway, you can always ask them if they want to be minded in future or other job openings. This will make them feel valued that you want to keep them in your database-- proving that their interview efforts were not in vain.
To make it easier for you, Manatal allows you to email directly through their recruitment software solution. No need to open multiple tabs at the same time when you can alert candidates there. Saving email templates and scheduling send-outs are also good ideas to manage time wisely.
Have a great interview process
This is one of the most crucial points of the application stages because it’s where the candidate directly interacts with involved parties of the organization.
Give a warm welcome to the person applying from the get-go. Everything that they see and hear will reflect on what they think about your company overall.
One great suggestion is to make sure that the panel is diverse, too, or simply suitable for the applicant without any bias in any way. This may seem minuscule for some, but little details count.
In conclusion, it’s just about filling a position for recruiters. More and more, it’s becoming a growing priority for them to ensure that each and every applicant has a pleasant candidate experience whether or not they get the job.
Small acts can go a long way, and they can lead you to more candidates, quality hires, improved company culture, longer tenureship, and more through your optimized recruitment process and applicant tracking system. Otherwise, you’ll risk losing revenues and getting your name tainted by unappealing remarks.
Let Manatal be your guide in making your workplace more inclusive. Click here to read more of our insights on recruitment and HR technology, or here to explore our 14-day free trial.
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