Candidate Experience Is Important – But Who Is Responsible?

Recently, there have been more talks from recruiters about how vital it is to have a good candidate experience for the recruitment process. Why is this so?

Providing a great candidate experience has become a “must have” rather than a “nice to have” for organizations and HR departments alike.

Candidate experience has a big impact, not only on the candidate but also on the company’s reputation and employer brand.

You can never tell when the candidate’s experience starts and ends, it varies from organization to organization.

However, there’s one thing we know for sure: the candidate experience doesn’t end once the offer is sent. So why is candidate experience important and why does it matter?

In this blog, we answer all your burning questions and share tips on how to boost the candidate experience as well.

Early consideration of candidate experience is important

The truth is, candidate experience often begins before a candidate applies for a job or sends in a resume. It also starts from the initial point of interaction with the recruiter or hiring manager.

Many candidates take a liking for the employer brand due to prior interactions with recruiters or because they are customers, or had friends or family working in the company.

As you may expect, most candidates often have a positive impression of an organization before they apply for a job. But what happens along the line of the job application process that changes their initial perspective?

Causes of a poor candidate experience

Lack of response from employers.

The number one cause of frustration during a recruitment process is the lack of real-time communication from recruiters or the team in charge of the hiring process.

Candidates invest a lot of hours into preparing for a job application and sometimes may never get feedback. How will that make them feel?

Yes, you might be busy with other tasks but providing a sort of closure for each individual doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. Luckily, an advanced hiring platform allows you to send candidates automated follow-up emails that are personalized and keep them in the loop at all times. As a result, this keeps candidates in the know and ramps up the candidate experience exponentially.

Complications in the job application process.

A long application process is the crux of the candidate experience.

Candidates are likely to quit an online job application due to its complexity or length. Job forms containing many fields to fill in or irrelevant questions can be frustrating for candidates.

To fix this, you can fine-tune the application process in several ways. For example, you can allow candidates to apply by uploading their resumes via their social media profiles. Also, you can leverage a hiring platform like EVA-REC to shorten the application process and enable candidates to apply for jobs in a few minutes only.

In addition, the hiring platform also allows you to fully optimize your career page by adding a search bar to facilitate the process of looking and applying for jobs.

Displeasing interviews.

Many recruitment processes have seen candidates opting out of the process at the last minute due to a negative experience during the interview.

A negative interview experience can destroy candidate experience and change a candidate’s mind about a role or company – even if they initially had a positive impression of the employer brand.

A great way of going about interviews is using a welcoming interview email template to inform candidates about all the necessary details for the interview.

Recruiters are also quickly adapting to the use of AI-based video interviewing software for the assessment of candidates. This eliminates human bias and gives candidates a more relaxing experience during interviews.

Who is responsible for candidate experience?

Candidate experience is a shared responsibility between the hiring organization, hiring team, head of departments, members of the executive committee, and the tool used to manage the entire process. It is therefore important that all components play their role effectively to monumentally improve and build an exceptional candidate experience.

Here are some other factors that can exponentially impact the candidate experience.

Job search

The job search is the initial stage where a candidate gets to know more about your company and the open role. Their first impression will be based on the platforms where they found the job opening and the details or information concerning the open role.

Having a branded career page that contains consistent and clear information can boost the candidate experience exponentially. Meanwhile, other channels like job boards and social media will do well for this purpose.

In this step, the hiring team together with the department head or executive members, are responsible for providing detailed information on the requirements and job role position. And remember, an unclear job description can be a bad start for the candidate experience. So always craft job descriptions that are relevant, accurate, and precise.

The job application process

The application process is a vital part of the candidate experience. Therefore you need to make the application process as straightforward as possible. Keep in mind that most talents are passive candidates who do not have the leisure of spending a lot of time applying for a job role.

For a better candidate experience, providing clear instructions on how to apply is a major advantage. Unclear instructions or a lengthy application process can demotivate a candidate from applying at all.

A hiring platform is a tool that you can leverage for this step to help candidates ease the process of applying to job openings. Clear instructions from the recruiter are put forward on requirements for applications. A hiring platform can also improve your recruiting experience by helping with tasks like sorting and parsing resumes for a quicker screening process.

Real-time communication and feedback

After applying for a job opening, candidates expect to hear back from you quickly. A day can feel like weeks to candidates. The manner in which you reply and how fast it is done will shape the candidate experience of the recruiting process.

Providing feedback at various stages to let candidates know where they stand will improve the candidate experience. It technically shows them that you value their time and the effort they put into applying for the job.

For feedback and communication, advanced hiring platforms have advanced features like messaging automation and templates that you can harness to streamline communication with candidates.

Interview candidates fairly and equitably

While it’s true that the purpose of interviews is to help you gauge the true potential of candidates, but also, they’re also a great way for candidates to learn more about your company.

The method you incorporate for carrying out interviews and how you treat candidates during the interview will have a huge impact on their perception of your brand, and this is crucial for the candidate experience.

Knowing that the recruitment process is ingrained with bias, recruiters need to leverage video interviewing software to mitigate bias altogether and boost the candidate experience.

Conclusion

It is not enough to invest in the brainstorming of ways to boost the candidate experience in talent acquisition. What also matters is how you treat candidates before applying, after applying, and during and after the hiring process.

Looking for a way to get started?

EVA-REC is an on-demand ATS that automates and improves the hiring process with AI technology. From small businesses to industry giants – we aim to offer fully customizable, world-class features that help create a rich and immersive hiring experience for recruiters and candidates. With EVA-REC, companies can drive merit-based, objective, and fair hiring practices that minimize bias and humanize the hiring process.

Want to see EVA-REC in action? Get a free walk-through demo here!

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