Picture being out with a group of friends for a nice catch-up dinner. It has been a long time since you’ve all been together, so you’re clearly excited for the evening, and eager to catch up. You’re shown to your table, and everyone sits and begins chatting. Some time passes before you realize that the table has not received menus. You raise your hand to a nearby waiter who appears not to have seen you.
You finally get them over to the table and ask for menus but their sullen, disinterested expression becomes a clue of things to come. Every other request for the rest of the evening is met with a curt reply and they keep forgetting your order. The food - when it finally arrives - is great and seeing your friends again after a long time was priceless, but the experience was one you’d rather not go through again.
Most people in this situation would be inclined to tell anyone who’d listen, about their negative encounter and warn them to steer clear of such an establishment. A landslide majority of consumers - 94% - surveyed by ReviewTrackers said a bad review convinced them to avoid a business.
Today, job applicants are as open and critical about hiring processes and candidate experiences in pretty much the same way customers are about a dining experience or a service encounter, for example. The importance of reviews in a candidate’s decision to apply for a job cannot be underestimated. According to Glassdoor, 86% of employees and job seekers research company reviews and ratings to decide where to apply for a job.
In a time when job vacancies are high and talent competition is fierce, job seekers have the upper hand and many are taking advantage. Employers are revising corporate policies to stand out and attract more of the talent that is in such high demand. In addition to competitive compensation, companies are offering perks such as unlimited time off, education stipends, or childcare options.
Hybrid or remote working policies are also becoming more popular as more Millenial and Gen Z professionals - who make up 46% of the full-time United States workforce - prefer working arrangements that provide more flexibility and employers that value their wellbeing. They also have the demonstrated adaptability and technical skills to stand out to employers. Ethical and transparent leadership are also important factors for these two generational groups.
Even with these changes, hiring the right fit for a position today can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Traditional recruitment methods don’t stand a chance against multiple channels, globalized hiring, and virtual recruiting trends. Without a strong brand reputation, making successful hires is even harder.
Hiring tools like an applicant tracking system or ATS can help recruiters improve how their organization is perceived by candidates before and during the interview process.
Recruiters are empowered with solutions like Manatal to take more control over the interview process and the candidate experience.
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Why do companies care about negative experiences?
While some people may gush about a positive experience to friends, they are much more motivated to share negative experiences. This phenomenon, known as “negativity bias”, means that people are hard-wired to pay more attention to and remember negative occurrences than positive ones. Essentially, no matter how many good things happened during your dinner, the unpleasant moments are what stuck in your memory.
So, how does this affect companies? Business leaders know that people’s reactions to negative experiences can have a tremendous impact on their growth and development. Negative experiences - shared especially on social media or by word-of-mouth - are much more potent than praise. Take Dell, for example. In the early 2000s, its customer service issues were catapulted into the mainstream through the blogging efforts of a journalist who had grown frustrated by his interactions with the company. It forced Dell to acknowledge the criticisms and ramp up its customer engagement efforts online - as well as on social media - to repair its reputation.
For enterprises that need to attract top talent to critical jobs, the idea is the same. Recruiters are taking on the mentality of marketers to sell their organization to candidates and get them to buy in on its mission and culture. Glassdoor data also found that 86% of HR professionals believe that recruitment is becoming more like marketing.
No channel illustrates this more today than social media and the powerful branding possibilities it offers. Social media channels like LinkedIn allow companies to promote their culture and accomplishments, engage employees in spreading the word about the company being a great place to work, and connect with professionals who share their vision - even when there are no job openings.
Happy, motivated, and talented people are an enterprise’s most important asset in a competitive, globalized market. Hiring candidates with the potential to become high-performers is the first step toward realizing this ideal. Ignoring the signs of growing negativity about your company’s brand can have dire consequences. If recruiters can’t attract enough top talent to work for a company because of a poor reputation, the overall business and its growth prospects will suffer.
Here’s how this can happen: Candidates who have a negative interview experience with an organization are less likely to apply for another job. They may tell others about their experience to deter them from applying for a job and potentially having the same experience. If a candidate is hired after a negative interview experience, they may not be inclined to refer others or continue working there for long. The result is a longer time-to-hire for job vacancies with job listings attracting fewer - or less qualified - applicants.
Turnover will also increase as current employees burn out from handling additional responsibilities and new hires leave after a short tenure. High turnover and continually hiring for the same positions are costly to enterprises and not sustainable in the long term. The more senior or technical the position, the higher the cost to the organization. A way to calculate this cost for your organization is to multiply the number of departures by the total cost of a departure (i.e. the costs associated with hiring, onboarding, learning and development, and the time that the position goes unfilled).
Identifying negative candidate experiences
Candidates draw their conclusions about how an organization presents itself and defines its values. Many of these impressions are a matter of personal opinion and preference. Younger generations are more likely to do their research on a company to know their values before applying. According to LinkedIn, three-quarters of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job. About half of candidates look at the company's sites and social media to learn about an employer.
When an applicant is put off by a company, any number of factors could have contributed to this result. A lack of transparency about the company culture and how much time employees typically spend working is a common issue. Another is a lengthy or overly-complex interview process.
When they have had enough, actions like dropping out of the interview process, accepting another opportunity, quitting shortly after starting the job, and posting accounts of their experiences reflect their negative impressions.
Identifying these situations and taking steps to rectify issues along the hiring process can ensure that more candidates have a positive takeaway from interacting with a company’s recruiters and employees.
The Ultimate HR & Recruiter Toolbox: Browse our collection of email templates, job descriptions and more.
Paving the way for more positive candidate experiences
First and foremost, recruiters must develop solid relationships with candidates to succeed in hiring the best fit for job openings. That means overcoming ingrained mutual mistrust - due to unethical behaviors on the part of the recruiter such as posting listings for nonexistent jobs and misrepresenting job responsibilities or exaggerating work experience on the part of candidates.
Secondly, as recruiters adopt new strategies like virtual hiring and recruiting, it is essential to ensure that a human element can still be felt by the candidate. The time-saving benefits of conducting a remote hiring process can be negated if communication is not consistent or lacks a “personal touch”.
Manatal can help recruiters reclaim control over how the company and interviewers appear to candidates. Recruiters can create a career portal, or integrate an existing one, that conveys the company brand and vision. It is simple to post job listings and application forms can be customized to suit specific hiring needs. Applicant profiles are saved in a centralized database, which makes it easier to track their progression through the interview process and automatically reach out to them when a relevant position opens up. Recruitment teams can also collaborate more seamlessly on job listings.
Read here for more information about how to create job postings that attract the best candidates.
Once a candidate applies to a position, an ATS can help recruiters establish standards for candidate experiences. The Talent Board, which measures candidate experiences, reported that candidate resentment in North America and EMEA increased by 75% between 2020 and 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels. The study connected the dots between resentment and the size of a company’s talent pool noting that the higher the resentment, the less likely the candidate is to apply with the company again or refer others.
Third-party integrations such as Gmail, Microsoft Office, and email marketing tools enable recruitment teams to manage communications with applicants so that important activities are not missed. It also allows them to maintain consistent communication to strengthen relationships with all candidates in the database.
Automating candidate selection and the hiring process with an ATS ensures that individuals are treated fairly. Candidates are selected based on their qualifications, without the influence of human biases. Compared to spreadsheets, tracking applicants with an ATS is much easier since all of the details for a job listing are in one place. No one is overlooked or falls through the cracks during the interview process.
Ask for feedback from candidates and analyze data from the ATS to see where the experience may have gone wrong. Manatal makes this easy with customizable dashboards and reports. This allows recruiters to see how recruitment teams are performing, gain insight into the hiring process, optimize recruiting strategies based on the channels that deliver the best candidates and assess hiring performance across job listings. This can help to identify systemic issues that recruiters can raise to business leaders and take steps to improve.
Recruiters are better able to focus on the relationship-building aspects of candidate engagement when repetitive and high-volume activities are automated. Engaging with passive candidates, for instance, could mean building relationships by sharing relevant news and insights consistently. It also notifies them about new, relevant job openings. Recruiters would also gain more time during the interview process to influence what candidates may see and hear during the hiring process. For example, a recruiter can ensure that a candidate interviews with a diverse group of employees.
Nailing the candidate experience every time
Consistency is key to boosting the candidate experience and improving the overall reputation of a company. These five guidelines can ensure that candidates have a consistently positive experience with your organization.
1. Develop a simple and efficient interview process: Create a structure for the interview process and ensure that it isn’t overly complex or time-consuming. In other words, be sure about the parties involved in hiring decisions for a specific role and keep them informed on feedback or applicant status. Also, ensure that there is a guideline as to how many interviews are necessary for specific levels.
2. Leverage technology: Recruitment technology solutions with AI integrations automate hiring activities, and help recruiters narrow searches to the strongest and most qualified candidates.
3. Treat candidates like customers: Go the extra mile and delight candidates with personalized communications that help them envision themselves as employees. Just as customer experience or CX has become a focal point for corporate strategy, so too should recruiting experiences.
4. Obtain and provide feedback: Learning about candidate experiences will allow recruiters to change their approach to future hiring activities. Offering constructive feedback to candidates can also be received well and set high standards of what to expect from the interview process.
A positive candidate experience is always worth the effort
Job seekers hold tremendous power in today’s job market. Regardless of their size, organizations need to do whatever they can to repair a bad reputation or maintain a good one.
Spending time on implementing recruitment technology and refining processes to ensure that all candidates have positive experiences with your company is worth the effort. The value of high-performing employees truly can’t be underestimated - and keeping these hard workers begins with getting the right people in the recruitment and hiring process. Remember: high-potential employees are 91% more valuable to companies than their peers, according to Gartner.
Learn how an ATS solution like Manatal can streamline recruiting activities and facilitate interactions that lead to positive experiences during the interview process. Start a 14-day free trial - with no credit card information needed - to see how an ATS can transform your recruiting team’s activities.
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