4 Sensational Benefits of Building a Winning Candidate Experience

Every company is increasingly trying to become “the best place to work.” We wish we could tell you that there’s a magic formula to achieving that, but there’s the candidate experience. Which is kind of the same thing. The candidate’s opinion about your company spreads like wildfire. One candidate encounters a negative experience and the next thing you know it turns into a conversation starter on Twitter. Developing an exemplary candidate experience will not only help your brand grow but also makes your candidates advocate in your favor. If you’re not hiring with candidate experience in mind, you might have top talent slip right through your fingers.

So, how can building a winning candidate experience benefit your organization – and hiring process – today?

You got questions, we have answers. Let’s get the ball rolling!

A better and improved employer brand

When it comes to luring in top talent, you need to give them a compelling reason to join your company. All too often that comes wrapped in something we like to call your “employer brand”. Your employer brand is your reputation as an employer. It’s how candidates and employees perceive your company’s values, hiring process, and work environment. With so much choice available for top talent, the only way you can secure them is through a winning candidate experience. When you cultivate a great candidate experience, you’re marketing your business beyond traditional modes. Therefore, you’re enticing more candidates to apply to your jobs which therefore boosts your employer brand. Nowadays, modern-day candidates care more about your business identity and work environment than location or salary. They want to work in a place that is toxic-free and can help them thrive in their careers. So when they undergo a memorable candidate experience, they’ll continue thinking positively about your employer brand, even when they become employees. However, you need to keep one thing in mind. Rejected candidates still deserve a great candidate experience too. Even if they didn’t make the cut. To boost their candidate experience, you need to solicit feedback from them too. You’ll need to collect feedback from them to pinpoint any bottlenecks that may exist in the candidate experience. At one point or another (even if you’re unaware of it), there must have been a couple of candidates that had a negative experience with your hiring process. To refurbish their candidate experience, you need to get their feedback if you want to turn their perception from a negative to a positive one.

Better quality and more committed employees

Attracting top-notch candidates is one challenge, but getting to accept your offer is another one. Top talent are always weighing multiple offers from different companies. So if their candidate experience was quite superb, the chances of them accepting the offer are much higher. What does this lead to? When candidates accept the offer due to a wonderful candidate experience, they’ll enter that new position with nothing but great things to say about your company. Employees that experienced a great candidate experience will hold that perception in their memory and see your company in high regard. This makes them more engaged, productive, and committed to unleashing their full potential at work. They will also be more tempted to stay at your company longer which ramps up retention rates and simultaneously boosts the work environment. But the truth is, it’s not just about the candidates that experienced an awesome hiring process firsthand. It’s also about the word of mouth and what they tell their friends and colleagues. New hires that went through a wonderful candidate experience will most likely refer their friends to your company for future openings. Not only will this support your recruitment search, but you’ll also potentially get more qualified candidates into your talent pool without needing to hunt for them. Plus, candidates who had a positive candidate experience are more likely to apply again for upcoming vacancies – that they could be more qualified for. This not only cuts your hiring time and costs but also makes your hiring cycles more efficient.

Get better acceptance and application rates

As a recruiter, you’ve most likely seen many candidates walking away from an offer, without even batting an eye. All the resources and time you’ve invested in evaluating their skillsets and processing their documents – have gone to waste. On the bright side, a winning candidate experience means high acceptance rates. There’s a strong reason why. Simply put, the top candidates that you’re interviewing are most likely being interviewed somewhere else. But when you provide them with a superior candidate experience, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll consider your offer first. Why? Because they’ll see how much your company values its candidates and people. Not only will a powerful candidate experience boost acceptance rates, but it will also ramp up application rates. For starters, candidates tend to drop out of the application process if it’s too complex and lengthy. However, when your application process takes no longer than a couple of minutes, you’ll be equally boosting the candidate experience and application rates! This way, you’ll prevent candidates from dropping out of the process halfway through or losing them to competitors. Our pro tip? Keep the application process short and straight to the point. Make sure you’re only asking the most important questions, without bombarding candidates with daunting questions. Reduce the application process to a maximum of 5 minutes and see how you can seamlessly improve application rates and save up to 28% on media costs!

Candidates will remain interested in working for your company

Let’s say one of your vacancies got 200 candidates to apply. Only 50 of them proved to be qualified, and only one of them got the job. Only one candidate was happy. But what about the other 49 or 199 candidates? Do they still feel good about your company? To keep rejected candidates still interested in your company, you need to have a delightful candidate experience. Most likely, your company will have future vacancies that are more suitable for many of these rejected candidates. So you don’t what to burn any bridges with these candidates. You can opt to keep the connection fruitful and warm. So make sure you keep in touch and give them an equally great candidate experience too. Remember, rejected candidates have opinions and feelings for you. If you keep them in your talent pipeline, nurture the connection, and keep them in the loop on future vacancies, you’ll instantly make them feel better about your company. They’ll also spread positive word of mouth, and encourage other candidates to apply too.

Final words

In today’s competitive talent market, a winning candidate experience is no longer just nice-to-have. It’s obligatory! This is the end goal is simple. You need to engage top talent every step of the way to craft the best candidate experience possible. Only then will you enjoy the plethora of benefits that it can offer your company. Want to win the war for top talent? An award-winning ATS is your key. EVA-REC is a multi-award-winning ATS that helps small businesses to corporate giants build skillful workforces and hire top talent at scale. It makes it far easier for recruiters to find, attract, and hire the right people, every time. With world-class integrations and AI features, EVA-REC creates a rich and immersive hiring experience for HR teams and candidates alike. Want to see EVA-REC in action? Request a free demo today!

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