News
Considering the candidate experience and why it’s crucial
The experience of candidates as they go through your hiring process is arguably just as important as that received by an employee. After all, this is often the first impression that someone gets of your organisation – one which will influence their time at work if they are hired, or the opinion that they take away if they are not successful, not to mention potentially share. Interestingly, research has found that those who had a bad candidate experience are far more likely to tell others about it.
Although internal recruitment is only a small part of what a company does, for a candidate the hiring process acts as representation of the entire organisation and can reveal all manner of strengths and weaknesses. As Forbes puts it – a great candidate experience is an excellent employer brand message for your organisation. How candidates are treated before, during and after the process will be how they assume they will be managed as employees, therefore its crucial to ensure their experience is as efficient and smooth as possible.
Sell your organisation!… but not too much
During a hiring process, the candidate will be busy ‘sizing up’ an organisation just as much as the hiring manager is testing them. That means that, as a potential employer, you need to be ‘selling’ your organisation, singing its praises and showing why becoming an employee is a strong career move.
However, this also means not overselling what you can offer. There is no point appealing to candidates by telling them there will be monthly performance reviews only for them to discover that in reality these only happen twice a year. By telling candidates what they want to hear you may be able to attract brilliant talent, but you are putting yourself at an immediate risk of not being able to retain them. If people feel they have been mis-sold the role they have taken, this will not only work to erode employee-employer trust, but they aren’t likely to be around for long.
Communication and transparency are gold dust
In a highly competitive jobs market, timing and communication are crucial to securing the best talent. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a candidate on a job search. Being on the constant look out for the perfect role, whilst competing with other candidates and being in a state of limbo – especially if in between roles – can mean the stress of looming living expenses without any income. Therefore, anything that you can do to keep candidates in the loop when it comes to interview or hiring timelines will go a long way to keeping them engaged and reassured.
Of course, having efficient and fast hiring processes will put you in the best stead for securing your preferred candidate before they get snapped up elsewhere, but this isn’t always possible. If you know that there will be a delay of a week before they’ll hear back, tell them. Candidates can at least plan around this and will be more likely to await the result rather than immediately look elsewhere when they haven’t heard back. This also includes communication with an unsuccessful candidate – ensuring that every interviewee receives a follow-up and feedback where possible will give a positive impression that may incentivise them to apply for future roles or recommend others.
Consider accessibility from the start
We’ve spoken previously about how to ensure that candidate selection processes are as inclusive as possible, for example by removing names, ages and educational backgrounds of applicants, but this also applies to the information that candidates are given.
When a candidate applies to work at an organisation, they want to be able to picture themselves working there. So, if by the end of the process they are made to feel that they wouldn’t fit in, the likelihood of them continuing their application is slim. Diversity and inclusion are not simply buzzwords that suddenly become relevant once someone is employed, they are just as crucial from the very beginning of the recruitment process.
Diversity can take many forms – ethnicity, age, gender, physical disabilities or neurodivergent differences – which means that you may not be able to take into account everyone’s needs straight away. But simply providing relevant information and options will ensure that people have flexibility, should they want it, and will demonstrate your eagerness to ensure everyone feels valued. For instance, offering information about the accessibility of your offices for wheelchair users will remove the need for a candidate to ask potentially uncomfortable questions. The same goes for providing your maternity or paternity leave policies up front.
In an interview process this could look like offering documents with different coloured backgrounds or giving options to ask the questions out loud or have them written down. These subtle adaptations are not difficult to implement but will ensure that candidates will begin the hiring process on a positive note, already feeling supported and valued.