First, what establishes a bad candidate experience? Software Advice asked candidates what they consider a poor candidate experience, discovering the following:
- Unclear or confusing application process
- Extremely long application
- Vague job descriptions
- No confirmation email post application
- No notice or status update after the position is filled
- Unable to reach or communicate with a recruiter
From here, we can quickly identify candidates are looking for more communication from the hiring teams. Simple confirmation emails once applications are submitted and an email address a recruiter could be reached at would be a great start. If there’s something recruiters always wish they had more of, it’s time. Discover ways to leverage technology to help you create an undeniable candidate experience.
Speed Up Your Process
We’ve discussed time-to-hire earlier in this guide series and how we can run audits to cut time. Poor application processes that are too long or hard to follow not only cause lost candidates, but also can tarnish your employer brand. 64% of applicants would share negative application experiences with friends and family, and 27% would actively discourage others from applying.
Recruitment automation software speeds up your hiring process from screening to onboarding and retainment. Our suite of talent solutions uses your company’s mission and vision to find, hire and engage more top talent while also checking the list on every feature and administrative need.
Reply to Candidates in a Jiff
The application process is a stressful one for candidates. Think about it, the average candidate spend between 3 and 4 hours submitting a single application. They’ve never met the people at this company, but they’re putting themselves and their skills out there to be examined in hopes to score a new career path. When candidates expose themselves with every hope in their heart and don’t hear anything back for days, they’re going to get pretty nervous they did something wrong. A few daunting numbers on the application notification:
- 65% of candidates say they never, or rarely, receive notice about their application.
- When applicants don’t hear back, 85% doubt that a human being ever reviewed their application.
- Of those that do receive a notification after applying, 51% say it takes 1 month or more.
Automation allows recruiters to screen every applicant that comes through the doors, and reply to them as well. ClearCompany’s text recruiting solutions gives recruiters the power to connect with candidates on a personal and immediate level. 75% of U.S. adults use a smartphone and 79% of candidates between the ages of 18–44 have their cell phones with them 22 hours of the day.
Your recruitment team has to assess whether or not integrating SMS into your mobile recruitment strategy is beneficial for your desired candidate, much less plausible to your campaign. Even with the rise in mobile strategy, only 24% of HR professionals feel the ability to apply for a position with a mobile device adds to the candidate experience. Candidates may not use SMS to apply for jobs, but it’s definitely part of how they receive and send information around and about jobs. However, recruiters have a different take than their Human Resource counterparts. Common ways SMS is used by recruiters:
- More than 78% of recruiters use text messaging to schedule interviews.
- More than 76% of recruiters use text messaging to confirm these scheduled interviews.
- 80% of recruiters use text messaging to follow up with candidates after their interview.
Candidates already have their phones with them, and are likely already obsessing about the application they just submitted, give them a little ease of mind by zipping out a message.
Provide Feedback
Talent is 4X more likely to consider your company for a future opportunities when you offer then constructive interview feedback; yet only 41% have received interview feedback before. Furthermore, 60% of candidates say better communication throughout and after the application process would make the most positive impact. Giving feedback should be relatively simple if you’re giving candidates your 100% honesty (which they deserve). When providing candidate feedback, keep a few of these basics in mind:
- Be honest.
- Write in a creative, kind tone.
- Be tactful (give them tips or words of advice they can use as a tool to improve).
- Don’t compare them to other candidates (if you’re rejecting them).
- Don’t provide any false hopes.
- Provide praise for things they preformed/spoke well on.
Build Your Talent Pool
Have you ever rejected a candidate and said, “We’ll be sure to keep your resume on file for when a new opportunity pops up in the future,” but when that opportunity does pop up, you can’t find those candidate resumes for the life of you?
Building a talent pool used to be a pretty manual process until very recent technological developments. Rediscovery technology makes talent pooling more convenient than ever before.
What is talent rediscovery? The ability to automatically screen candidates who applied for a previous role at your company and match them to an open req from your ATS database.
The benefits of talent rediscovery according to Ideal.com:
In addition to relationship building with previously sourced candidates, talent pooling reduces recruitment costs, reduces time spent on hiring and increases talent engagement.
This article was originally published on the ClearCompany Blog.
About Sara Pollock:
As the head of the Marketing department, Sara makes sure that ClearCompany’s message, products and best practices reach and assist as many HR practitioners as possible.
