Every recruiter and HR professional is well aware of the importance and the difference an exceptional candidate experience makes. But within today’s candidate-driven market, we can’t stress enough just how much of a business imperative a good, efficient candidate experience is.
You already know this because candidate experience is rooted in the expectations we all share in our customer experience. Slow websites are annoying. Entering the same information in multiple places is tiresome. I loathe not knowing where I am in a checkout process while shopping online.
Candidate experience is the sum total of these moments when a candidate is working with you. It’s the best (or worst) representation of your team, your culture, and your reputation to new applicants.
A personalized candidate experience that is optimized, that compels people, that fosters relationships is a more significant competitive advantage in the war on talent than at any time prior. Finding ways to stand out amongst a crowd of job seekers is essential.
In this blog, we’ll explore how you can create a candidate experience that does just that.
Start Seeing Candidates as Consumers
Like shopping for a new phone, bedsheets, or pet-sitting services, candidates treat their job search like consumers. Finding ways to stand out amongst a crowd of options is essential, and this blog is here to show you how.
What does this mean for your talent acquisition efforts?
First, gone are the days of slow-moving, unfeeling candidate experiences. It’s critical for companies to court applicants and ensure the process is as convenient and responsive as possible. Candidates simply have too many options today and will quickly move on if applying for a position at your company is clunky or time-consuming.
Secondly, if you begin to view candidates as consumers, the need to “sell” them on your organization becomes obvious. During the candidate experience, it’s vital to showcase what makes your company special and different than others.
Do you have a robust PTO plan? Are your benefits a cut above others in the industry? Do you offer tuition reimbursement? Do you have an established career development process? Do you have an endless supply of craft coffee at the office? If the answer to any of these questions Is “yes,” excellent. But it all counts for little If candidates don’t know. Make sure that your most impressive differentiators, whatever they may be, are highlighted in abundance during the candidate experience.
Candidate Data Tells a Story: Are You Listening?
Workforce data from LinkedIn shows that job searches have increased by 60%, and applications have increased by 100+%.
What does this mean for you?
It means that employees are tired of working for organizations they don’t believe in and feel more empowered than ever to do something about it. And the companies that key in on this sentiment and adapt their recruiting efforts accordingly will be the companies that win on talent in the coming years.
Proven Improvements to Try Out Now
Today’s candidates are pining for a transparent, authentic, and responsive experience with employers and quickly shun those who seem to be inconsiderate of their time.
Time to look inward: how can you make immediate changes to rejuvenate your candidate experience? Here are a few beginner-level steps you can take today:
- Candidate nurturing: Nurturing is the perfect word to describe the attitude employers should be adopting toward their candidates. Your candidate experience should shepherd candidates along with care through each step of the process. With automation, you can ensure that no bit of communication slips through the cracks and that every candidate for every role feels valued.
- Resume screening: Ah, resumes, the boon and bane of all hiring managers. A whopping 52% of recruiters cite screening resumes as the most difficult, time-consuming part of the recruiting process. That’s why almost 98% of Fortune 500 companies use some resume screening automation to jumpstart their hiring process. Screening software puts all resumes through highly refined algorithms to filter out the best fits from the bad fits. This is clearly helpful for you, but it’s also incredibly valuable for candidates, ensuring that they only begin interview processes for opportunities for which they are a real match.
- Talent Engagement: Even for companies that don’t need to make hundreds or thousands of hires per year, having automated engagement with your talent lifecycle can be a huge plus to your candidate experience and, ultimately, your acquisition efforts. There’s so much automation offers in this regard, including triggered texts and emails to specific candidates based on set criteria, having communication attributed to a single recruiter to build relationships, and automated messages that apply to each step in the candidate journey.
How you choose to automate and optimize your candidate experience will depend on your organization’s unique infrastructure. But regardless of your size or industry, one thing remains abundantly clear as it relates to talent acquisition for 2023 and beyond: investing in your candidate experience has the potential to be one of your most considerable and immediate drivers of ROI.
Explore how our personalized candidate experience delivers only the best talent for virtually all your teams; contact Versique today.
