The Importance of the Candidate Experience

As a hiring manager, it is important to ensure that when you are hiring, the candidate experience is not compromised. As an organisation you can deliver outstanding customer service throughout the different touch points you have with each candidate. Not only will it have a positive impact for your candidates but also a positive brand awareness exercise for your business.

Let us explain

In the candidate rich market that we are now faced with post Covid-19, there is no longer the same battle for top talent as we once saw in 2019.  But there will still be challenges.

Regardless of if you are hiring 1 or 1,000 people the general road map to successfully sourcing the right candidate is somewhat similar.  Steps you could take include sourcing, assessing, testing, reference checking and then offering and negotiation and onboarding – just to name a few.

When you are hiring in a candidate rich market, you may think that having many candidates to choose from is a great thing. And indeed, it is. However, it comes with its own set of challenges that for even the most experienced hiring manager can be time consuming, overwhelming and stressful.

One job ad can produce many hundreds of candidates – taking you an enormous amount of time and resources to filter through successfully, without bias. On top of this, the screening, testing and interviewing process can turn into a full-time job for someone – just for hiring one role! With more people applying for your role than ever before, getting the right person will be like finding a needle in a haystack!

Your hiring manager may begin to feel “burnt out”, and overwhelmed and the candidate experience can start to be impacted.  This may pigeonhole your business as not a “great place to work”.  The impression you leave with successful candidates is just as important as the one you leave with unsuccessful candidates.

Because word of mouth travels – fast.

They way your business is perceived during the hiring process can have a knock-on effect with your future recruitment campaigns.  If candidates have a negative experience with your organisation, they are going to tell everyone they meet, and your business could be highlighted negatively and will no longer appeal to the top talent you are trying to source.

You may be described as unprofessional, poor communicators, not efficient, poor at decision making just to name a few. With social media now at the tips of everyone’s fingers, it is only too easy for candidates to fire off a tweet or a post outlining their experience, and this could snowball.

Candidates are smart and savvy and many do look at reviews of your company before making the decision to apply for the role you have advertised.  Company reviews on Google, Seek and Glassdoor all provide a window view of what it is like working at your organisation and your reputation should always be a top priority to you.

So where do you start?

Be honest and respectful to the candidates throughout the stages of the sourcing process, wherever possible providing constructive feedback as they progress (or not) through the application process. But of upmost importance is to be clear and consistent in your communications and follow through with what you communicate. As a business you should have a clear Employee Value Proposition (EVP) which helps guide you throughout your hiring process and sets you up for success.

If you need to start expanding your workforce but feel overwhelmed or don’t have the time and resources to allocate to the task, we advise you to reach out to a recruitment consultant.  They are trained and able to do as much or as little of the hiring process with you. Plus, they also have a talent pool pre-screened to ensure that a quick and efficient hire is an option for you – saving you a lot of time and resources.  A recruitment consultant can support you with some of or all your hiring needs to ensure you find that needle among the hay.