recruiter improving the candidate experience

General

5 Excellent Ways Candidate Feedback Can Ramp Up The Candidate Experience

July 8, 2022

Tima Rassool

Tima Rassool

Content Writer

After weeks or months of hiring and interviewing candidates – you finally found the perfect fit. What’s next? Well, for many companies, that’s pretty much it. The end of the candidate experience. They’d share the great news in an automated email and kick-start the onboarding process. But wait. What about the candidates who got rejected? Other than being left in a black hole – hearing crickets – what do they get? Once again, probably nothing. Not even a phone call or explanation. Almost every candidate (hired or rejected) has something to say about the hiring process. In fact, their thoughts and take on your recruiter’s hiring efforts will go a long way to help you improve your employer branding, and most importantly, the candidate experience.

Still wondering how getting candidate feedback can boost the candidate experience?

We got you covered. Let’s dig into the good stuff!

It helps you pinpoint bottlenecks and patterns

pinpointing bottlenecks in the candidate experience

Once you hear what candidates have to say about the hiring or interviewing process, you can easily find areas for improvement. Maybe even patterns or bottlenecks that must have slipped your notice. So for example, when you get candidate feedback in a virtual hiring process, you’ll get to see if recruiters are actually following their tasks and duties to the dot. Maybe the candidate experience wasn’t too great because the recruiter forgot to send them an email, contact them in time for the next interview, or send them the assessment on the agreed date. So once you get enough feedback from candidates, you’ll get to see if the majority of them are complaining – or praising – the same thing. Let’s say all candidates weren’t raging fans about the fact that it took them 3 months to get hired. Maybe that’s a signal that the candidate experience could be improved by making the hiring process shorter and less complex. While some candidates might sweep this under the rug, other candidates will simply not have it. They’ll drop out of the hiring process without even batting an eye. And that means one thing for you: you just lost top talent. Most likely to the competitors. But the length of the hiring process is just one part of the issue. Perhaps your recruiters are doing other things that are deterring candidates away. Perhaps it’s a super generic or rude email template. Maybe the job description has nothing to do with the reality of the job. Or, recruiters completely misled the candidates during the interview process. Whatever the case is, you need to solicit candidate feedback to find the gaps in the candidate experience.

It helps you build a better employer brand

recruiters improving the employer brand

There are many restaurants that ask for feedback after you’re done with a meal. The reason why they do that is because they want to improve their customer’s experience. They want to make sure that the quality of food and service is up to standards. Well, the candidate is experience is no different. When you ask candidates for feedback, you’re showing them that you care about them. In fact, you’re also showing candidates that you value their concerns and opinion. Which is a key puzzle piece to boosting the candidate experience. When you ask candidates for their feedback, you’ll enhance your employer’s image and brand in the market. Simply because happy candidates will spread the news to their friends and network. They’ll tell them about their great candidate experience, and encourage others to apply to your company as well. So ultimately, showing empathy and asking for feedback, will take you a long way. So keep a close watch on the candidate experience and opt to enhance it by collecting feedback through surveys. Get to see what candidates have to say, and see how you’ll paint a more appealing picture to prospective candidates.

It helps you get more talent through the door

a candidate experiencing a wonderful candidate experience

“Would you recommend us to a friend?” How many times have you this question in a survey? In a similar way, when getting candidate feedback, ask them that question. This will incredibly encourage future candidates to consider you, and attract more talent to your open roles. Not only that but giving candidate feedback will do wonders for your candidate experience as well. For candidates that are new to the industry or talent market, even giving them just a little bit of feedback, will help them nail their upcoming interviews. Now, you don’t have to offer super extensive feedback. It can be a couple of pointers or tips that they can keep up their sleeves for their next interview(s). This will eventually spread the word that your company cares about the growth of candidates and get more talent through your doors. Giving candidates valuable feedback will instill a sense of loyalty and belonging to your company, especially for those who are making it to the next steps in the hiring process. They’ll know that your advice will help them nail the next round, and will feel more excited about joining your company.

It helps you create better connections with candidates

a recruiter creating a wonderful candidate experience

Since candidates have invested so much time and effort in the hiring process, it’s only natural that they would want some return for the investment they made. Whether they were accepted or rejected. To build better connections will all the candidates in your talent pool, and improve their candidate experience, you need to give them good feedback. You need to listen to theirs too! This will help you promote more synergy and respect throughout the hiring process. Through transparency and open dialogue, you can enrich the candidate experience monumentally. When you ghost candidates or ignore their feedback, you’ll be impairing the candidate experience. Nobody wants to feel invisible. Especially candidates who want to join your company. But when you speak to rejected candidates, give them kind feedback, and ask them to reapply to open vacancies in the future, you’ll strike a great, positive chord. Which will incredibly fine-tune the candidate experience.

Take home thoughts

Getting or giving candidate feedback is the secret ingredient missing from your candidate experience recipe. When you put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and collect their feedback, you’ll get deeper insights into your hiring process. While collecting candidate feedback will show you the good and bad sides of your processes, it’s still a crucial step that cannot be neglected. Ready to create a candidate experience that comes first? You came to the right place! EVA-REC is an 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 hiring teams to find, attract, and recruit top talent, each and every time. With world-class integrations and AI features, EVA-REC helps companies drive merit-based, objective, and fair hiring practices that minimize bias, without dehumanizing the hiring process. Request a free demo and see how our ATS can help you save time and make recruiting seamless and engaging.

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Author

Tima Rassool

Tima Rassool

A wordsmith, storyteller, and content strategist – Tima is an MBA graduate with 6+ years of experience in the world of HR. With over 2,000 blogs under her belt, Tima's expertise and insights have helped businesses across the globe take their recruitment to the next level and stay ahead of the curve.

Turn top talent to employees fast

Hire, assess, onboard and manage top talent for every job. See how Elevatus streamlines everything; from acquire to new hire.

Request a demo