The candidate experience is increasingly pivotal to talent considering a role with an organization. This journey goes hand in hand with your recruitment strategy plan, and so getting the most out of it is paramount to ensure a positive employer brand.
Once an afterthought, the candidate experience journey is now regarded as a holistic and crucial element of an employer brand strategy. Your recruitment strategy should therefore focus on each step along that journey ensuring authenticity in order to be true to your culture.
This means providing transparency into how employees are valued at an organization from start to finish. Employer brand touches the entire candidate lifecycle, from candidate attraction to on-boarding, engagement and employee retention which is why your recruitment strategy is so important.
The biggest competition organizations are facing every single day is for talent. Attracting talent and building relationships is just the start of it, actually reaching and winning that talent creates even more difficulty especially if there are glitches in your strategy. This in turn will have a detrimental impact on your employer brand.
Consider these tips and tricks to improve the candidate experience.
1. streamline your hiring process
Companies as a rule spend far too much time hiring employees which is why you should consider streamlining your process. This can be done by eliminating the unnecessary steps in your process. No doubt the process will involve a few too many people?
Candidates aren’t willing to sit around and wait on an offer, or even just feedback in some cases. While you’re spending too much time working through your lengthy process other organizations will be reaching that sought-after candidate first.
2. honesty is the best policy
Regardless of the candidate’s suitability for the role, you should always be honest in order to maintain the good relationship you’ve spent time on building. Both successful and passed-over candidates come through their journey with a good impression. This may be jeopardized if they feel you’ve been dishonest about the proposition perhaps, or worse if you have failed to communicate if or why they were unsuccessful in the role.
Remaining honest will enhance your relationship with the candidate as well as your employer brand.
3. communication
From the application on, perception becomes reality. As the candidate moves through screening, interviewing and on-boarding, each step is another potential opportunity to impress or discourage talent. Communication at each stage in the journey may sound simple, but you’d be surprised how little recruiters or organizations actually do this.
Organizations that set expectations about the hiring process provide interview tips, give white-glove service while scheduling interviews and communicate with candidates throughout the selection process will see positive outcomes.
4. consider an incentivized referral scheme
Lots of organizations are starting to use referral schemes as their primary recruitment strategy tactic. This tends to work really well when first introduced and the whole team is invested, the prospect of a friend joining the team is initially really exciting, as is the reward they’ll receive for it.
However, the novelty will wear off, which is why you should re-incentivize the scheme. Amplify it after time by increasing monetary rewards, or turning it into a little healthy contest. By amplifying the incentive participation in the scheme and engagement should increase.
5. get feedback on your strategy
Organizations either forget or simply haven’t even considered garnering feedback on their recruitment strategy. In fact 96% of companies aren’t getting any feedback on the process from their applicants.
Existing employees, recently successful, and unsuccessful candidates can provide unique perspectives in the context of knowing the organization and what they made of the recruitment journey.
Use the feedback wisely to assess your current strategy and to determine the areas that need improving, removing and those that can stay. Because any time spent on improving your recruitment strategy will automatically improve candidate experience, consequently making for a better and stronger employer brand.
Use the feedback wisely to assess your current strategy and to determine the areas that need improving, removing and those that can stay. Because any time spent on improving your recruitment strategy will automatically improve candidate experience, consequently making for a better and stronger employer brand.